Evergreen Falls (38 page)

“I need to explain something to you about Sabrina and me. I
expect it might have seemed unusual to you that I . . . went so far for a woman I divorced five years ago.”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what else to say or do.

He rubbed his chin with his palm. “I would have told you all this eventually. When we were a little more established. When we’d got to know each other better. But, Lauren, I really like you. I really see some kind of future with you, as mad as that sounds after a relationship built on text messages.”

This was unexpected. Now I was utterly perplexed, and it must have shown on my face because he said, “I’m sorry. I’m not making sense and I need to get to the point. There is something significant about me that you don’t know, and I am going to tell you now.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to look encouraging. The wind was in the eucalypts, making them shake and shiver above us. It would soon be too cold to be out. I wished I’d packed a cardigan when I’d left home this morning.

“Sabrina and I were married when we were twenty-two. We married because we . . . sort of had to.”

For a second I didn’t know what he meant, but then suddenly I understood. “Oh. She was pregnant?”

“Yes. In fact, we had a baby. We had a daughter.” His face knotted, and I realized he was trying to stop himself from crying.

My whole body shivered with heat: he’d had a daughter, but he’d told me when we first met that he had no children. So that meant . . . “Oh, no,” I said. “She died, didn’t she?”

“She was just a little thing,” he whispered. “Only a week short of her third birthday. Her name was Emilia. Emmy, we called her. She fell from a window at her creche. The cleaner hadn’t locked it properly; the carer had a moment of inattention. It was a cascade of bad luck. Nobody’s fault, really. We didn’t blame anyone.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said, and I felt as though I had stepped into
a vast ocean that I couldn’t feel the bottom of. It was adulthood, a place where people had pain and histories and consequences. I reached for his hand and squeezed it tightly.

“When Emmy fell,” he continued, “she was still breathing, her little heart still beating. Sabrina and I saw her at the hospital.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t need me to tell you how distressing it is to see somebody you love like that. Little Emmy fought on, day after day, and not once, not for one second did Sabrina leave her side. She said,
I will be here until she wakes up or until she dies
, and she kept that vow. I was wild with grief. I could barely be persuaded to go to the hospital. I couldn’t look at Emmy. She didn’t look like my little girl. I stayed out late, I went to work as though nothing had happened. I quite literally lost my mind. For six days. Just six days. Then Emmy died.” He shook his head, wiped away tears. “Fifteen years have passed, and it’s still as fresh and as awful,” he said.

“That’s why you went to Sabrina,” I said.

“Yes. I felt that somebody had to be there with her, until she woke up or until she died. Just as she had been for our daughter, when I couldn’t be.”

“I can’t even imagine what such a loss feels like,” I said.

“Much like your loss,” he said. “Only with a little dash of helplessness and self-blame.” He gave a wry smile.

“So, after that, your marriage couldn’t survive?”

“Sabrina and I grieved very differently. I cried and raged. She tried to make sense of it, as though if she could make sense of it, she wouldn’t have to feel it. She went down a path I couldn’t follow. Spiritualists and crazy religions and gurus who took her money and gave her false hopes that she could contact Emmy on the other side. We were still young, really. We didn’t make it.” He spread his hands apart. “We didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Life is like this, Lauren. Maybe you haven’t realized yet because you have been so folded away within your family, with one inevitable outcome that took all your focus. But it’s a big mess out here. A big, unpredictable mess, and there’s no telling what will happen next.” He shook his head. “Sabrina woke up, about fifteen minutes before I left to come home. I got to speak to her. She couldn’t talk, but I could tell by looking in her eyes that she knew why I was there. She’ll be fine.”

“I’m glad.”

He smiled. “It feels good to have that off my chest.”

“Tomas, you can tell me anything.”

He squeezed my hand, and his eyes went to the view. I watched him for a while. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say after such a big revelation, but I remember after Adam died wanting people just to sit with me, not ask questions or offer comfort. Just sit with me and be another beating heart close by. So I did that.

I sat beside him and let my heart beat.

*  *  *

As the afternoon moved towards evening, jet lag began to get the better of Tomas, and he needed to go home, so I went home, too. It was very quiet, and I had a lot to think about. Tomas’s message about the unpredictability of the world ran so opposite to my mother’s lifelong teachings that it almost made me breathless. I had lived a life on a one-train track: keep Adam alive for as long as you can. While I understood why Mum wanted us all to think that way, it meant I had fallen into line and stopped looking sideways. I had missed a lot. Adam had missed more. Adam had missed something in particular, something associated with the Blue Mountains. And Anton Fournier knew what it was. If only I could convince him to tell me.

*  *  *

Terri-Anne Dewhurst called me later that evening to tell me she’d received the letters and to express her thanks again.

“You were right, they really are a bit saucy,” she said.

“There’s certainly a lot of passion there. Look, after we last spoke I found a copy of a letter the hotel manageress wrote to your great-grandmother. Can I read it to you?”

“Of course.”

I read her the letter, making sure I paused for dramatic emphasis on the part about everyone involved never speaking of it again. But Terri-Anne didn’t need dramatic emphasis to get excited.

“A cover-up!” she cried. “How thrilling!”

“Any ideas?” I said, falling onto the couch and lying back to look at the ceiling. The waistband of my pajamas had lost its elastic and hung down unflatteringly. I was glad Tomas was home in bed sleeping off jet lag.

“No, but I’ll bet Grandma knew and never said a word. She was like that.”

“I keep wondering if it was as simple as Sam and Violet running off together.”

“But that’s not tragic,” Terri-Anne said. “She specified ‘tragic events.’ ”

“And for your family at that time, it wouldn’t be tragic if Sam had run away with a waitress?”

She paused for a while, thinking. Then she said, confidently, “No. Tragedy had a specific meaning back then, not like now when news reporters use it for everything. It meant something awful—death, ruin. I think somebody died.”

“Violet?”

“Maybe.”

“There’s nothing more I can do at this end,” I said. “I kind of got in trouble, sneaking around in the hotel.”

“Leave it with me. I have lots of contacts and lots of resources. I’ll see if I can find out anything about Violet Armstrong: where she was born, what became of her. Perhaps if I can find Violet, I can find Sam.”

“Let me know the minute you find anything interesting,” I said. “I’m invested.”

“I will,” she said. “I promise.”

*  *  *

Mrs. Tait’s operation was the following morning, and I phoned the hospital after the café’s lunch rush and was told she was awake and “resting.”

After work I walked to the flower stand outside the grocery store to pick up a gift to take to Lizzie. As I approached, I noticed two whippets tied up to a yellow bicycle rack out the front. Anton Fournier’s dogs.

I stopped and crouched to pat them. They went mad with happiness, wagging their tails and licking my hands. They were obviously spoiled and happy, which was the sign of a good-hearted owner. If Anton was good-hearted, surely he would talk to me. Eventually.

I peered through the shop door, but I couldn’t see Anton. I stood, made still by indecision until a man exited the shop and bent to untie the dogs—and it wasn’t Anton.

“They’re lovely dogs,” I said, trying to hide my curiosity as I looked him over. Lizzie had mentioned a “young fellow” who house-sat for Anton, but I had presumed he was younger, perhaps a teenager, whereas this man was about my age, with short, neat hair and a soft face.

“They are,” he said with a smile. “They like you.”

“I’ve met them before,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

I took a deep breath and offered him my hand. “My name’s Lauren. Anton kicked me off his front porch last week.”

The man smiled, took my hand, and shook it warmly. “I’m Peyton. I heard all about it.”

His smile made me relax enough to ask, “Do you know why he hates me so much?”

He released my hand and went back to untying the dogs. “I know everything. I know all about Adam, about the past. The whole story. But it’s not for me to tell you.”

“Anton won’t.”

“Of course he will. In his own time. That’s what Anton’s like.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Peyton wrapped a dog leash around each wrist. Romeo and Juliet strained against him, ready to get going. “The letter you sent had a strong impact,” he said. “He’s considering it.”

“Really? Can you tell him you saw me? That I begged you? Because I swear, I don’t know a thing. I have no idea what happened between Adam and Anton and my family, but I really,
really
want to know. Will begging help?”

He smiled again. He had a lovely smile, so warm and relaxed. “I will tell him you begged, but I don’t know if it will help him make up his mind quicker. He doesn’t like being told what to do. Now, I’d better get these dogs home before they pull my arms out of my sockets.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Bye.” He turned and began to walk away from me, then stopped and looked back. “He
will
talk to you eventually. Don’t worry.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re Adam’s sister. That means more to him than you can imagine.”

I watched him go. Other people emerged from the shop, looked
me over, and went on their way. I must have been standing there a long time. Then I selected a bunch of flowers for Lizzie and went inside to pay for them.

*  *  *

I arrived at the hospital just as the afternoon was turning towards evening. Lizzie’s daughter Genevieve was sitting in a pink chair by Lizzie’s bed, worrying the edge of her thumbnail with her teeth. Lizzie was half reclined, looking dozy and blissed out.

“Hi,” I said.

Genevieve looked up. “Pain meds,” she said, indicating Lizzie. “She’s a bit sleepy and away with the fairies.”

“Ah. Hello, Lizzie,” I said, leaning over to kiss Lizzie’s powdery cheek. “I brought you flowers.”

“Put them in some water,” she said in a thick voice. “Genevieve, get the nurse to put them in water. They’ll die otherwise. I don’t want them to die. Young Lauren has brought them for me.”

“Don’t worry, Mum,” Genevieve said, taking the flowers and laying them on the bedside table. “I’ll ask the very next nurse who comes in.”

“The operation all went well?” I asked Genevieve. She was one of those striking women in her late forties who looked good in silk scarves. I had never been able to wear a silk scarf without looking as though I was drowning.

“She came through it brilliantly. She’s in such good health for her age. We’re all so pleased.”

“Are you talking about me?” Lizzie said, but her eyes were closed.

Genevieve shrugged. “She’s not really with it.”

“I might go, then.”

“Would you mind waiting ten minutes? I’m dying for a coffee, or what passes for coffee at the cafeteria here. I’ll get a takeaway and come right back.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Thanks.” Genevieve hurried off, and I took her place in the pink chair, leaning across to touch Lizzie’s hand.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Lizzie,” I said.

“Life in the old bird yet. Not like my mother. She lay down like this, and she didn’t get up,” she slurred, then fell quiet. I sat with her, listening to her breathe, assuming she had fallen asleep, but then she suddenly started talking again. “Genevieve, I have to tell you something.”

“I’m not Genevieve, I’m Lauren,” I said.

But she paid no attention. “Your granddad: he wasn’t my real father. It kills me. I wish she’d never said anything.”

“Who said—” I started, then stopped when I realized the message wasn’t for me. “Lizzie, it’s not Genevieve. It’s Lauren. Genevieve has gone to get a coffee, and she’ll be back in a minute, so you can tell her then.”

Lizzie cracked open one eye and looked at me. “Lauren. You’re a good girl.”

“Thanks.”

“Get those flowers in water.”

“I will.”

She fell silent again, and this time tuneful snores told me she’d fallen asleep.
He wasn’t my real father. It kills me.
Poor Lizzie. She’d always spoken so fondly of her father. I promised myself, though, that this time I wouldn’t interfere. Lizzie was old and deserved privacy.

Genevieve returned soon after. The smell of cigarette smoke told me she’d gone for more than a coffee.

“Doesn’t she know you smoke?” I asked.

She shook her head. “She’d be so disappointed.”

“But
she
used to smoke.”

“Did she?”

I put up my palms. “I’ve said too much. Not my place to share family secrets. While you were gone, she thought I was you and tried to tell me something about your granddad.”

“Oh, yes. We already know. On her deathbed, Grandma confessed to Mum that Granddad was not her biological father. I’m afraid she took it very badly and has never really got over it. She doted on Granddad. She told us as though it was a big secret, something to be ashamed of. None of us know who the ‘real’ father was. Of course we don’t mind. Funny that she should bring it up now.”

“Well, if it’s something she’d rather keep secret, I can pretend I never heard anything.”

“Thanks. That would mean a lot.”

I left the hospital and headed out into the cool glow of the late afternoon, hoping Tomas wouldn’t be too tired for company tonight.