Page 13 of Wedding Bells By the Creek

She began to walk away. She’d only taken two steps when Tia spoke.

‘Mum. Stay. Please.’

Hardly daring to hope, Helen turned around. Tia took two swift steps towards her mother. Helen opened her arms and pulled her daughter to her.

Oh the joy of holding her child again!

Tears began streaming down Helen’s face. She could feel Tia sobbing too and for a very long time the two of them simply stood there, letting the grief and anger dissolve around them.

When they broke apart at last, Max was there. Smiling, he handed each of them a clean white handkerchief.

Tia kissed him on the cheek as she took hers and then she blew her nose loudly. That comical sound seemed to break the tension in the air.

‘So … are we going to eat sometime soon,’ Max said with a cheeky grin. ‘I for one am starving.’

Tia chuckled. ‘You are always starving.’ She flicked him with the end of the tea towel. ‘Why don’t you go find us a bottle of wine? Mum and I have a lot to talk about.’

Chapter Seven

He hadn’t seen Helen for three days. Ed glanced over at the pub as he clicked the locks into place on his bowsers at the end of a long hot working day. The lights had just come on in the bar. He could see people moving around inside, but not clearly enough to know if one of them was Helen.

He wasn’t sure why he was able to almost count the hours since he had last seen her, but he could. It seemed to him a foolish thing for a man his age. But perhaps it had been prompted by the events of the last few months, events that had culminated with that brown envelope on his kitchen table. He had signed the paperwork last night and sealed the envelope provided by his very expensive solicitors, who had also thoughtfully already placed sufficient postage stamps in the top right corner. All he had to do was slip that envelope into the post box, and the final round had begun. In a few weeks Steph would officially be in his past.

It was well past time.

He had wasted too many years after Steph left. Wasted them in anger and bitterness. He’d lost his son, and he’d lost himself too. Anger and lies had cast a shadow over his life, and distanced him from everything that mattered. The long road back from that dark and lonely place had begun when he was reconciled with Scott. Now he was ready for the next stage. Well, almost ready. All that remained was the paperwork. His divorce was pretty much a formality, according to the solicitors. A quick hearing in a court, and he would be a free man.

Free perhaps to invite a woman to dinner.

Ed finished locking up and went back to the house. He was greeted at the top of the stairs by a plaintive meow.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s cat feeding time. Don’t worry. I have it under control.’ He paused briefly to stroke his grey friend before digging into the cupboard for a can of cat food. That important task dealt with, Ed changed out of his work overalls, replacing them with jeans and a blue short-sleeved cotton shirt. He picked up the brown envelope as he left the kitchen. As always, he just pulled the door shut behind him, not bothering to lock it.

He walked quickly across to the small town square. The post office was on the far side, next to the police station. He stood for a very long second in front of Coorah Creek’s only post box.

It was the right thing to do, he told himself again. He had loved Steph and she had left him. He had kept his vows, and she hadn’t. And it was all so long ago; it was foolish to let it still haunt him. He needed to do this. He should have done it a long time ago. But still, it wasn’t easy. It was an admission of something … failure, perhaps. Ed didn’t like to fail.

The sound of voices interrupted him just as he was about to slip the letter through the slot. He turned his head to see Helen and her daughter walking towards him from the back of the police station. Max was a step or two behind.

Helen was laughing at something Tia had said. She looked relaxed and happy and so beautiful that Ed’s heart jumped.

‘Hello, Helen. Tia,’ he said.

‘Ed.’ Helen’s face was glowing. He hoped that maybe seeing him might have something to do with it, but he suspected it was really all about her daughter. Obviously the reunion had turned around, and things between the two of them were looking up. He was so very pleased about that.

‘Hi, Ed. How’s things?’ Max joined them.

‘Fine, thanks.’ He smiled at Helen. ‘It’s good to see you again.’ He hoped she understood what he was really saying. That it was good to see her looking happy.

‘It’s good to see you too, Ed,’ Helen said. Even her voice seemed to have changed. She sounded younger and more carefree. Ed’s heart did that thing again. He wished he was one of those men who always seemed to have the right words to say. But he wasn’t. He struggled to find words that just weren’t there.

‘We’re just going to look at the new house Max and Tia are building,’ Helen said. ‘Then we were going to have dinner at the pub.’

Was he imagining it, or was there something in her voice? Something that suggested she was hoping that he too might be planning an evening in Coorah Creek’s main meeting place?

‘I might see you there.’ Even to his own ears, Ed’s voice sounded croaky. ‘I was thinking of grabbing something to eat too.’

He was rewarded with an even brighter smile. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Helen said.

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