Authors: Tammy Robinson
“Who hurt you?” he asked gently, his fingers itchy at his side with the longing to reach out and comfort her. It took all his willpower to stop them.
She snapped back into focus and shook her head, banishing whatever memory it was that had assailed her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She folded her arms in front of her body defensively to create a barrier between them.
“I really need to go and help Willow get ready for school tomorrow,” she said.
“Of course,” he smiled in an effort to lighten the mood. If there was one thing he was learning, it was that Maggie would not be pushed. He would have to be patient, something that was unfortunately not his strong suit.
He got into his car and started the engine then he wound down the window.
“Maybe we could meet up sometime this week? Grab a coffee or a bite to eat?”
She shook her head again.
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty busy at the moment, with the lead up to Christmas and everything that comes with it.”
“
I understand,” he said. “But if you change your mind or get some free time, call me. I left my number with your mother.”
She
murmured noncommittally, wanting him to leave.
He left, driving slowly off down the driveway, his eyes in the rear view mirror watching as she closed the garage doors and headed back towards the house.
She intrigued him; to the point where he had spent hours last night lying awake in his bed, watching the crack around the curtain become lighter and lighter, thinking about her. He would just have to bide his time
Chapter ten
“You’re being paranoid.”
“I am not. There’s something going on that they’re not telling me, I’m sure of it.”
“Like what?”
“That I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
Willow lay on her side next to the creek and dangled her fingers in the cool water. The sun was warm on her back, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before they would be swimming in the creek every chance they could get, but for now the water was still a
touch icy from the water coming down off the hills.
Nick sat beside her with his fishing hand line dangling down into the water. Beside him a small blue plastic bucket writhed with the worms they had dug up on the way to the creek after school.
The second the three o’clock bell had chimed they’d been out the door before the teacher had even finished speaking. They walked the long way to the creek which took them through a part of town where pretty little gardens bordered by tidy little hedges were well maintained by proud elderly. They’d discovered the best worms in town came from these gardens; fat and complacent from dining on the finest compost. The trick was digging out the worms without anyone noticing, and usually one would kick at the dirt while the other kept watch for twitching curtains that signalled they’d been spotted by someone inside.
Every now and then a trout
would break the surface causing ripples, but so far they were resisting his bait, despite the particularly fat worm he had on the end of his line at the moment.
“All I know,” Willow continued, “is that it started around the time Jack came on the scene.”
“You think it has something to do with him?”
“Duh that’s what I just said.”
“Duh yourself. Do you like him? What’s he like?”
Willow shrugged her shoulders. “He’s ok I guess. He helped granddad and I smoke the fish yesterday, stripped some bark off the Manuka tree to put in which gave it a nice flavour.”
“You think he and your mum might –?”
She waited for him to finish the sentence but he didn’t. She rolled over and looked up at him quizzically. “Might what?”
“You know, start dating.”
“
Eww, no way. Mum’s not interested in dating, she told me. Anyway, even if she was it wouldn’t be with him. She can’t stand him.”
Nick didn’t say anything, but she could tell from the way he raised his eyebrows that he had something to say that he was holding back.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit nothing. I can tell you got something on your mind so spit it out.”
“You promise you won’t hit me?”
“How can I promise when I don’t know what you’re going to say? You might say something that makes me
want
to hit you.”
“Then I’m not saying
nothing.”
“You can’
t not say it now,” she said stroppily, “you got me all curious.”
“Promise.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I promise.” But she crossed her fingers behind her back as she said it.
“Say it again without crossing your fingers.”
Her mouth fell open. “How did you -?”
“Willow, I’ve known you since you were six years old. I know when you’re bullshitting me.”
She flounced back down on to her back and closed her eyes.
“I don’t care anymore anyway,” she said.
“Yes you do.”
“
Fine. I do. So just say it already.”
“Your mum is
still only young, as far as old people go. And,” he shuffled away from Willow on the grass, “she’s really,
really,
pretty.”
Willow lashed out at him.
“Don’t you
dare
talk about my mum like that!”
“I’m only saying what all the boys say. Out of
all the mum’s at school, yours is by far the prettiest and the only one any of us would consider kissing.”
“
You guys are disgusting. I can’t believe you talk about my mum like that!”
Nick shrugged. “We’re boys,” he said. “
It’s what we do.”
“
Well boys are idiots.”
“
No one’s arguing with you there.”
Willow stewed silently. The only sounds were birds chirping in the trees and a gentle breeze causing leaves
on the weeping willow above the bank to rustle.
“What’s that got to do with anything anyway?” Willow finally asked.
“I just think you need to open your eyes is all. Your mum can’t stay single forever, she deserves a little happiness.” He didn’t mention that he was quoting this last bit directly from something he’d heard his mother say to his father not long ago.
“I’ve never stopped her from seeing anyone.”
“Well, you have kind of. But not on purpose”
“I have not.”
Nick pulled his line out of the water and sighed when he saw the hook was empty. He fished around in the bucket for the next fattest worm. “Have you asked her what’s up with your dad lately?”
Willow
rolled back towards him and cupped her face in her hands, resting on her elbows. “You know I haven’t. You think that’s why she doesn’t date anyone? She’s waiting for him to come back?”
“No I don’t think that’s it. But maybe she thinks
you
are waiting for him to come back.”
Willow frowned at him. “I stopped waiting for that to happen years ago.”
“But have you told your mum that?”
“
Of course not. She’s still keeping up this ridiculous pretence with the meat each Sunday.”
“Yeah, that has kind of gone on for a bit long now.”
“Exactly. At first I knew she was doing it to make me feel better, so I went along with it. And now I can’t exactly admit that I know what she’s been up to all these years, can I?”
N
ick drew an arm back and threw the hook and worm out into the water. It landed with a plop then sank slowly.
“I guess not,” he said.
Willow sighed and reached out to pick a handful of daisies. She started piercing holes in the stems with a fingernail and threading them through each other to make a daisy chain.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s all
too bloody complicated.”
Chapter eleven
A week and later Maggie could no longer ignore it.
It started when she drove through Main Street on the way to the supermarket and saw council workers hanging strings of coloured fairy lights in the big Angel Oak, on top of the ones that were still hanging in there from the night of the market.
“Surely not,” she said to herself.
Then at the supermarket, near the checkouts, she saw displays of chocolate advent calendars, marked down to clear.
“
It’s a bit early isn’t it?” she muttered. “And why are they reduced?”
Then, back at home
, as she was unpacking the groceries in the kitchen she turned on the stereo for a bit of background noise and the unmistakable opening notes of men singing stopped her in her tracks.
“No, it can’t be,” she said, her face ashen.
But it was.
“T
urn it up!” said Dot. ‘”I love this song.” Then she danced around the lounge room singing along to Snoopy’s Christmas. “
Christmas bells, those Christmas bells, ringing through the land
–”
Maggie watched her mother twirling for a minute
, and then she crossed to the fridge and studied the calendar.
“No,” she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again but the fact remained the same. There were only just under three weeks left till Christmas.
“Where did the time go? How can it be upon us again already? So soon?” she asked no one in particular, as she sank into a kitchen chair and dropped her head into her hands. The song finished and her mother turned the stereo down and wandered into the kitchen. She flicked the switch down to boil the jug.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she
told her daughter. “This is the most joyous time of the year.”
“Yes I’m aware you feel that way mother. You say the same thing every year.”
“And every year you grumble and groan and act like the Grinch who got nothing but a potato in his stocking.”
“I do not.”
“You do too.”
“Whatever.”
Dot put two teabags in mugs and poured hot water over them. While they soaked she regarded her daughter, who had started flicking through one of the many brochures advertising potential gifts that got stuffed into their mailbox this time of year.
“Look at all this
rubbish,” Maggie said cynically. “Designed to drive people broke trying to outdo each other to see who can buy the best present.”
“Says you
, who counts on the Christmas sales of your soaps,” Dot says with eyebrows raised.
“That’s different and you know it. I don’t push my products on anyone, they seek me out. My soaps actually help people, not like this plastic crap,” she pushed some of the brochures lying on the table in front of her, “that breaks
down three days after Christmas. And my prices aren’t so bad you need to take out a second mortgage come January.”
“
Some
people and companies see Christmas as a commercial cash cow, yes,” Dot admitted. “But it doesn’t have to be all about money, you know that. Don’t you remember the Christmases I gave you when you were young? The magic you sensed, the wonder you felt?”
Maggie sighed. “Yes, of course I re
member. It’s just hard to sustain the magic when you’re an adult trying to pay the bills.”
Ah, Dot thought. She knew where this was coming from now. Ever since Jon had left Maggie had done her absolute hardest to fulfil the roles of both parents. She felt guilty that her child had become the product of a single parent home, mostly because she blamed herself for his departure, and she was determined that Willow would never feel different to any other child in her class. And that meant she would have exactly the same as they had.
“She doesn’t need lots of things, you know that,” Dot said gently, placing Maggie’s tea down in front of her and fetching a packet of Gingernuts from the cupboard to dunk. “She has love, she has a roof over her head and she has food in her belly. She has fresh air and a vivid imagination that helps her see the world as her playground. It’s all she needs.”
“I know mum,” Maggie said. “But I still wish I could buy her everything she deserves.”
“But she doesn’t want for anything. Even if you were able to buy her all the best toys in the world, you know they’d sit neglected and dusty in her room, while she and Nick were out climbing trees and swimming in the creek.”
“
I know, you’re right,” Maggie sighed.
“You’ve raised a wonderful girl. She is clever and has her head screwed on straight.
Stop being so hard on yourself.”
“Thanks mum.”
Maggie reached over and gave her mother’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
“You’re welcome. Oh bugger,
” she peered into her mug, “I held my biscuit in for too long and now it’s dropped off.” She went to the drawer to fetch a teaspoon to fish the offending biscuit out. Something out the window caught her eye.
“Oh what’s he up to now?” she asked. She could see Ray had wheeled the bike out of the shed and was connecting it with wires to a battery pack sitting on the ground. She pushed opened the window above the sink.
“What are you doing to that thing now?” she called.
Ray looked up. “
Mind your own business.”
“Fine,
but don’t go calling me when you end up in a ditch, you crazy old bastard!” She slammed the window shut.
“I swear that man could try the patience of a saint,” she
grumbled to Maggie.
“
Yet somehow you’ve put up with him for nearly fifty years” Maggie said.
“Yes, and I deserve more than a medal let me tell you.”
“How do you guys do it? How have you stayed together through all the drama life has thrown at you over the years?”
Dot was surprised by the question but she didn’t let it show on her face. Maggie wasn’t one for deep conversations, not with her family at least.
In fact, Dot was so used to her daughter keeping her feelings and emotions close to her chest that it took her a minute or two to rally an answer.
“I don’t honestly know,” she admitted. “I guess back in my day, when you stood in front of that altar and
you promised yourself to each other, you just knew it was for the rest of your life. There was never any question of otherwise. You pledged your love in thick and thin, blah, blah, blah, and you stuck to it. No matter how hard it got, or how many times you could easily have killed him over the years. And believe me, there were plenty of those.”
“You were never tempted to throw in the towel?”
“Oh I was tempted plenty of times. There were days I packed a suitcase for you and I and we got as far as the end of the driveway. But I always came back.”
“Why?”
Dot looked towards the window where Ray was bent over the bike.
“I love
the crazy old fool,” she said simply. “He drives me insane and there are times I can’t stand the sight of him, but I do love him.”
“And that’s enough?”
“It is.”
Maggie sighed heavily.
“What’s on your mind love?” her mother asked, concerned. “Is everything ok?”
“Oh nothing, nothing at all.
I’m fine.”
“Is it because of Jack? Has he got you thinking this way?”
“Of course not. Don’t talk crazy.” Maggie sat back up straight again and scowled at her mother. “I don’t know why you would even mention him.”
“Sorry love,” her mother soothed, but
secretly she was thinking that she’d struck a nerve.
Maggie checked her watch, “I better go,” she said. “I want to get some Christmas wrapping paper before the shop shuts. People will
be asking me to gift wrap their purchases soon.”
She scowled again
as she headed for the door.
“Do try and capture some Christmas spirit,” her mother
called after her. “For Willow’s sake at least.”
She watched her daughter leave, then went and poured some more hot water over her tea bag.
She knew this time of year was always a little hard on Maggie, but this year she seemed to be taking it particularly hard.
Jon had left at Christmas; two days before
the big day to be precise. He had just upped and gone into the night after an argument according to Maggie, and no one had seen him nor heard from him since. Dot knew that Maggie blamed herself to a degree. From the little she’d told her parents, things hadn’t been quite right between them for some time. They’d been arguing a lot, mostly about Jon’s footloose and fancy free ways. He thought nothing of taking off hunting with friends for weeks at a time, emerging from the mountains filthy and hairy and triumphantly showing off whatever he’d killed as if he expected Maggie to be grateful.
Dot
shook off her melancholy. She had wasted enough time thinking of the man who had hurt her daughter. She breathed in deep and then let it out in one long exhale. The air that exited her lungs was tinged blue with disappointment, grey with regret and with red flecks of anger. Heaving with the dark emotions it sank slowly to the floorboards. Dot picked up a broom from the corner and swept it out the back door.
“Be gone with you,” she said, as she closed the door on it. “This is a joyous time of year and I will not let that man ruin another Christmas for this family.”
She went to the cupboard and pulled out the ingredients to bake another Christmas cake, even though she had already prepared two. Soon, the house would be filled with the merry smells of fruit and liquor and almond icing. That would perk Maggie up for sure.
Driving into town, Maggie
blinked back tears as she also reflected on the past. Damn that man for tainting this time of the year for her. She could remember a time when she loved Christmas, when it was her favourite time of the year. But
he’d
ruined that for her. When Jon had shown up that last time having been AWOL for ten days, flourishing a wild pig at her and grinning like a Cheshire cat, she hadn’t been grateful to see him at all. She’d been furious.
“Where the hell have you been?” she’d
demanded of him.
“Whoa,” he’d said, taking a step back. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? Jon, you buggered off again with no warning, no explanation, not even a note. I have no idea if you’re dead or alive or when you’ll be back. You promised to stop this kind of behaviour when Willow was born.”
“No, you
asked
me to promise. I did no such thing and I don’t see what the problem is.”
“Are you serious? Jon, you’re a father now. We have a beautiful little girl who depends on you, or have you forgotten that?
You can’t keep living like you’re eighteen and only pleasing yourself, it’s not fair on her or me.”
“
Man you never used to be like this,” he’d said.
‘Like what?”
“Like this. You’re such a bitch these days. Remember when we first got together and we promised each other that we wouldn’t bow to society’s rules; that we’d do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted and screw everyone else.”
She
’d sighed and rubbed her temples warily. “Yes Jon, I remember. I also remember we were pretty drunk at the time. But we grew up, or at least I did. We have a child now. You have to start thinking of her. I had to sell some of our belongings just to make the rent this month. I can’t live like this, unpredictably, worrying about where the next pay check is going to come from. You haven’t held down a job for longer than six months and I’m already working two. It’s not fair.” She started to cry.
“Oh here we go again with the waterworks,” he’d snarled. “You do everything and I do nothing, blah, blah, blah.
Same old fucken broken record.”
“Well it’s true,” she’d cried. “What have you done lately to help this family out? Tell me, I can’t
wait
to hear the answer. Your daughter is lying awake in bed with a rumbling tummy because I only had a packet of noodles to give her for her dinner. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“What the hell do you think this is,” he’d shouted, kicking the pig where it lay on the ground between them. Its head lolled to one side and its lifeless eyes seemed to stare at her. It made her even sadder.
“It’s a pig Jon, I’m not blind.”
‘It’s food for us for a
month is what it is,” he’d countered.
And she had known that
it was pointless arguing. He really believed that disappearing into the bush for weeks at a time, leaving his wife and daughter to fend for themselves, with no money and no idea of when he would be back, was alright. As long as he bought back a pig or a goat or a deer, anything they could cook and eat, everything was ok.
So
frustrated and tired of arguing, she’d waited till he was out of the shower and threw a pillow at him, telling him to sleep in the spare room that night. In the morning she woke with a fresh perspective, determined they would sort things out and that the marriage could be saved for Willow’s sake. She would compromise, and she hoped he would too. But he was gone again. And as the days turned into weeks which turned into months, she finally realised this time his absence was for good, and he wasn’t coming back.