Page 37 of Wings Above the Mallee

‘If we’re going to do something more official, we’ll make sure anyone we employ has all the right clearances.’ Taylor’s tone was soothing and—God knows, he’d seen enough counsellors over the last couple of years to pick it—professional.

‘It’s not only about clearances, though,’ Amelia insisted. ‘It’s experience. It’s both intuitive and learned knowledge. It’s about having the maturity to know how to react to situations. Knowing to call for help instead of being so worried you’ll lose your job that you freeze and do nothing, just hope that everything will turn out all right. It’s about having the gut instinct of a mother.’

Heath reached toward her, but checked his movement. What was he missing? For someone who doted on animals, Amelia was mighty fired up about what constituted adequate childcare.

Conversation across the room had died down in favour of a breath-holding interest, all attention focused their way.

‘Hey, Amelia.’

A voice Heath barely remembered broke through the intense silence: Charlee, interested. In tune. Aware. Involved. He hadn’t noticed his daughter and her …partnerenter the room.

‘I’ve saved you a seat. Sean mentioned you’re into fauna rescue, so when this lot get boring—’ Charlee cast a derisive look around ‘—I want to pick your brains about which organisation is worth joining.’

Heath had never loved his daughter more than he did in that moment.

16

Sean

‘Shh.’ Sean put a finger to his lips. He added a grin as though he could make light of their conversation. But he’d heard the churn of a car travelling the long dirt driveway and he couldn’t let Charlee and Heath find out. Not this way. He had to protect what was left of his family.

The doc looked a bit miffed, tapping together the brochures she’d brought and handing them to him. ‘Of course.’

He’d expected the Regional Action Group meeting to run later, with whatever information Ethan handed over providing a focus for some lively debate. Perhaps Ethan had failed to show up again? Was he deluding himself by insisting that the relationship was good for Charlee? Although, even if Ethan lacked the commitment to front up to a small-town meeting that really had nothing to do with him, Charlee was undeniably more communicative since the skateboarder had been on the scene. She’d looked better, too, the last time he’d dropped into her apartment. Though she wore the usual grungy, ill-fitting clothes, like she was intent on hidingor denying her former attractiveness, at least her hair was washed, her eyes alert and skin less blotchy. Considering the trepidation with which Sean always knocked on her door, never sure if he was going to get an answer or have to call emergency services, he’d take any gain, no matter how small. Heath was right: Ethan was probably twice Charlee’s age, but did it really matter, in the scheme of things? Everyone who lived would die.

Aware that he was letting his mind run away rather than absorb the doctor’s news, Sean made an effort to focus. ‘That sounds like my lot blowing in with the storm. Did you notice if Charlee and Ethan were at the RAG meeting when you dropped by?’

Obviously, he didn’t need an answer—the car pulling up outside the farmhouse meant he’d find out in seconds. But he was desperate to turn the conversation, to make certain the morgue-like silence that accompanied bad news wasn’t suffocating the room when the others walked in. He remembered that silence too well. The awkward call from Jill’s partner to share her terminal diagnosis. The visit from the police after the car accident. The call from Heath about Sophie. Always a greeting, an attempt at forced normality, then the loaded silence, as though the bearer hoped the news would by some osmotic magic simply be absorbed, without needing to be put into words. Eventually a brief statement would follow, the monotonal brevity failing to acknowledge the ripple effect of the impact of each word.

And then there had been Charlee’s silence, months of refusing to utter a word or even a sound.

‘It seemed like most of the town was there. Charlee was actually—’ The doctor hesitated and Sean frowned. Any thought that started with Charlee and ended with hesitation had to be bad. ‘Very involved.’

Car doors slammed and he was surprised to hear Heath chuckle at something, then a female voice he couldn’t immediately identify. And Charlee—she was laughing, too!

Loud and boisterous, they tumbled through the front door, and Sean’s heart swelled with joy. For the first time in months, his family were together, interacting. Almost whole, however briefly.

‘Sprung, Daideó,’ Charlee called as she followed Heath into the kitchen. Obviously, she’d noticed the strange car parked outside. Then she froze, her gaze narrowing on the doctor. Her carefree attitude dropped like a cloak as she wrapped herself in her more usual suspicion. ‘What’s this supposed to be? A fucking intervention or something?’

Doc Hartmann, bless her heart, didn’t skip a beat. ‘Actually, I dropped by to see Sean. But if there’s anything I can help you with, Charlee?’

‘Oh, no.’ Charlee waggled her finger back and forth, although she retreated a couple of steps, brought up short by Ethan and, to Sean’s surprise, Amelia. Charlee turned to Sean, and his guts twisted as he read the betrayal in her thinned lips, her clenched fists. ‘You’re not playing me like that.’

‘Macushla…’ He wanted to go to her, to embrace her like he would have done a couple of years ago. But if he’d thought, only seconds earlier, that they were on some sort of petal-strewn path to a new beginning—or at least a less tormented ending—her obvious fury meant he could kiss that goodbye.

‘Just because you feel better for doing the “I’m Sean and I’m an alcoholic” crap doesn’t mean it’s for me,’ Charlee snarled.

He knew she was retaliating by revealing what she thought was a family secret, but Doc Hartmann already knew everything about him. More than anyone else, in fact.

Charlee whirled to push from the room, but Ethan gently restrained her, his gaze swiftly assessing the doc, Heath and Sean. He murmured something to Charlee, turning her back to face the kitchen, his arm slung across her chest to hold her steady against him.

‘You have a substance abuse issue, too, Charlee?’ Doc Hartmann asked smoothly, despite the fact that this wasn’t what she’d signed up for tonight and she’d already looked drained when she arrived. ‘Is that something you’d like help with?’

‘No, I wouldn’t likehelp,’ Charlee sneered. ‘It’s not anything that can be fixed with your pathetic words, anyway. Don’t you think if it was as simple as saying, “I’m Charlee and I killed my mother” I’d be all over it?’

Amelia gasped, reaching one hand toward Charlee, but Heath staggered, his face a rictus of anguish.

‘You didn’t!’ Sean protested. ‘It wasn’t your fault,macushla.’ Though Charlee had intended to hurt him before, nothing could compare to the pain her self-loathing caused him.

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