The Year of Chasing Dreams (15 page)

Eden crossed the cool patio cement and went into the house and up the stairs to the room that had been hers for over two
months. All that was left for her to do now was reserve a seat on the next flight home, pack her belongings, and leave.

The smell of brewing coffee woke Eden. She’d slept fitfully, last looking at her bedside clock at four in the morning. She felt drugged and headachy and knew it was an emotional hangover from one of the worst nights of her life. Groggily, Eden went into her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.
Garret would call it “bracing,”
she thought. The memory of telling him about her past flooded back, bringing on fresh waves of inner torture. She needed some coffee but was hesitant to show up in the kitchen.

Eden returned to the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and dug her suitcase out of the closet, where she’d stashed it when she’d first arrived. She opened it on the bed, went to the dresser, and began the chore of packing. Never had she expected her trip to end so sadly.

She heard a gentle rap on her closed door. Her nerves tightened. She wasn’t ready to face Garret quite yet. “Um—who is it?”

“Maggie,” came the answer.

Eden groaned. She was even less ready to face Garret’s mother.

“May I come in? I’ve got some coffee for you.”

Perhaps, Eden thought, the woman would throw it at her. But it was her house, after all. Eden couldn’t bar her.
Stiff upper
, she told herself, using the Aussie words she’d heard locals use when the going got tough. “Come in.”

The door eased open and Maggie entered the room. She saw the suitcase and the clothing Eden was folding. “What’s this?”

“Homeward bound,” Eden said as cheerfully as she could muster.

Maggie came over, sat on the bed, handed Eden a cup of steaming coffee colored with a dollop of real cream, just the way Eden drank it. “You don’t have to leave,” Maggie said tenderly.

“I do,” Eden said, sipping the coffee.

“Come.” Maggie patted a section of the bed next to her. “Sit with me. We’ll talk.”

Eden wanted to sit because her knees had gone rubbery. She sank onto the bed, which was rumpled from her restless sleep. “I’m very sorry about last night. About ruining supper.”

“You’re sorry? I’m sorry about that awful Alyssa. Girl never did have a thimbleful of sense.”

“Has Garret talked to you?”

“Of course. Lad came up last night and told us everything.”

Eden reddened. “Then you know why I’m packing.”

Maggie pressed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “You can’t go home until I tell you some things that I’m sure you don’t know about our Garret.”

Eden stopped mid-sip. “Garret’s perfect,” she said.

Maggie smiled broadly. “It may seem so, but I’m guessing he’s never shared a word about his brother, Philip, has he?”

Eden blinked. “He has a brother?”

Maggie’s eyes teared up. “Had a brother,” she said tenderly. “Now, no more.”

Eden waited while Maggie gathered herself. Maggie swiped beneath her eyes and cleared her throat. “Sorry. It’s always difficult to speak of Philip.”

“Take your time.” Eden felt upended. Why hadn’t Garret ever mentioned a brother?

“There was five years between them. Garret adored his big brother. Philip was a digger.”

Eden raised a brow and shook her head.

“A soldier. Diggers are army boys. After America’s 9/11, he joined. Wanted to make the world a safer place. Eventually he was stationed in Iraq, part of the UN Peacekeepers. He was almost at the end of his tour and planning on coming home to marry his girl.”

Eden’s heart thudded as she realized what was coming. And she recalled the beautifully painted surfboard in the shed that Garret hadn’t wanted to talk about. Surely it had been Philip’s.

“One of those horrible IED bombs took him out on a roadside
where he was driving a jeep in front of a tank. Army sent him home in a closed casket because—” Maggie sniffed hard. “Well, you know.”

Not enough left to recognize
. Eden had read reports of U.S. soldiers returning home the same way. Their families never had a final glimpse of the people they’d loved. “War sucks,” she mumbled.

“Garret took it very hard. Inconsolable, he was.”

Eden’s heart ached, understanding too well how impotent a person could feel when death was a victor over someone you loved. She’d felt helpless and angry and grief stricken when Arie had died. And there had been nothing,
nothing
she was able to do to strike back at Death. She wanted to take Maggie’s hand, but wasn’t sure she should. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries.

Maggie glanced over at Eden. “This is the part of the story where Alyssa comes in. She and Garret had been school chums for a long time, but when Philip died, he and Alyssa became a couple. The girl could offer comfort that we could not. I’m sure you get my meaning.”

Eden did.

“I never liked the girl,” Maggie added. “Everyone could see she wasn’t right for our Garret. Trevor and I. My sister and I. Our close friends. We all knew she was NQWWW.”

Eden sorted through her memory for the meaning of the letters. She knew dozens of text and email letter add-ons, but not this one. “I don’t—”

“Oh, forgive me. Stands for Not Quite What We Wanted.”

Eden laughed, her first genuine moment of humor since before Alyssa’s bombshell had blown up her world. “Well, if she was as toady then as she is now, I get it.”

Maggie patted Eden’s hand in a show of camaraderie. “We
tolerated her because Garret was happier around her. Or he thought he was. But she never played fair with my lad. No need to go into that.”

Eden wasn’t up to hearing the nitty-gritty anyway. “If Alyssa helped him, that’s what matters,” she said, trying to be generous.

“Once the funeral was over and we were all working to pick up our lives, I could see that Garret wasn’t doing well. He missed Philip terribly, and there was a hardness in him like never before. When he was midway through second year of university, he wanted to drop out, enlist, and go kill the ‘bad guys.’ Trevor and I were terrified. Couldn’t face losing another son.” Maggie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “That’s when we offered to send him off on walkabout. I knew he’d been bitten by the travel bug when he was a little lad. When you live in Australia it’s a common ailment,” Maggie said as an aside. “Australians go to the world because the world doesn’t usually come to us. We take the long hours of travel in stride.”

“It is a long trip,” Eden said. “But worth it.”

Maggie smiled. “Garret is bright, always loved to write. Got that job with the travel magazine all on his own. Wrote his own job description. We’re very proud of him.”

“That’s how we met. On his walkabout.”

“Almost didn’t happen, though. He wanted Alyssa to go with him. But the girl was bonkers for her modeling career. She absolutely refused. I thought Garret might beg off. But he held firm. Tom and Lorna stepped up, said they’d join him. And off they went.”

“My good luck.”

Maggie took Eden’s hand. “His too.”

Eden felt almost buoyant when the memory of the night
before crashed into her brief spell of happiness. Her shoulders drooped. She removed her hand, glanced beyond Garret’s mother to the half-packed suitcase. “About last night …,” she started.

“Garret’s told us about Alyssa’s nasty paperwork. It doesn’t matter to him, so it doesn’t matter to us. We’ve all done something in our lives that we regret. But after losing Philip, I know life can be short and should be fully lived, not regretted. Whatever happened to you back in the States can’t be changed. Forward’s the only direction you can go.” Maggie stood, urged Eden up in front of her. “Now go on down to the pool. My lad’s out there swimming laps and waiting for you.” She shook her head, smiled. “So many laps, I’m telling you. All morning long.”

Eden searched Maggie’s eyes, saw only kindness, encouragement. Eden hugged Garret’s mother and hurried to the patio.

The second Eden set foot poolside, Garret burst from the water, hauled himself up, and, dripping wet, went to her. He crushed her against his body, soaking her through. She didn’t care. His embrace was all she needed to find atonement. He kissed her, said, “ ’Bout time. Me mum must have been long-winded.”

“It’s in a female’s genes.”

He grinned but quickly sobered. “I asked her to tell you everything. Still hard for me to—to talk about—”

She shushed him. “I know what I need to know. Wasn’t that what you told me?”

His expression softened. “I told her you’d be up there packin’.”

She felt her face redden. “I was. But, Garret, I really do have to go home.” For several days, she’d been experiencing an urgency about returning to Bellmeade. An uneasiness she found hard to put into words. She started in. “Ciana will be planting soon. I should be there.”

“Why?”

She thought about how to best say what was in her heart. “You have an amazing family. They love and care about you so much. I’ve never had that. All I know about my family is in a letter Gwen left me before she ran off to Florida. Ciana and Alice Faye are more family to me than any I was born into. I love them. And I miss them.” Now that the words were spoken, she felt a lightness.
Love. Yes
. She watched his eyes, saw quickly that he fully understood. “I—I need to go home.”

His grin was quick. “And so you will. But not before we go on walkabout in the outback.”

“All of it?”

“Course not. Just my favorite parts.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

“Like we’ll be camping?”

“Every night.”

“And … and there’ll be wild animals?”

“I’ll be the wildest animal you’ll meet.”

She gave him a playful shove.

“My grandfather used to take me and my brother hiking in the Blue Mountains. I want to take you there too.”

“I’ve never camped.”

“Then it’s about time you did.”

She wasn’t as sure about the idea as he was.

“And I’ll be with you. I’ll gather up our gear and we can leave today.”

She offered a tentative smile.

“And when we come back, we’ll talk about you going home.”

She nodded, anxious about both possibilities, but for different reasons. Camping was an unknown experience that he would guide her through; home was a place she suddenly couldn’t imagine without him.