Page 48 of Wings Above the Mallee

‘Matt reckons once the virus runs its course, they’ll be fine. No need for treatment, though he swung by and put some Betadine on their blisters—Charlee had asked him for some advice with the rest of your menagerie, wanted to make sure she was doing stuff right.’ Taylor indicatedAmelia’s hand. ‘That cut allowed the virus into your body. Normally ORF is no big deal, just an ugly abrasion and maybe a slight fever. But if you’re run down or immune compromised, it can turn into a secondary infection. Or in your case, into full-blown blood poisoning with fevers and hallucinations. Nicely done, you. Why didn’t you come to me as soon as the infection turned bad?’

‘For precisely the reason you just mentioned. You’re crazy busy, Tay. I wasn’t going to come to you for a graze.’

Taylor unbandaged the offending hand, inspecting Amelia’s welted knuckle. ‘Didn’t you notice the veins in your arm were all swollen and purple?’

‘Sure. But I figured it’d sort itself out.’

‘You could have lost that arm. It’s so lucky your dad called me.’

‘I don’t even know how he managed that. It’s years since he met you—I’m surprised he knew where to call.’

Taylor bathed Amelia’s hand with antiseptic, tweezering off some necrotic flesh and wiping it onto a gauze pad. ‘He said he’d tried to call you all night and wasn’t sure whether you were ignoring him because you’d had words. But when you didn’t respond to his messages by morning, he hit the panic button. He called the clinic, not me, and left a message with the service. Said it was his last option before calling the police station in Murray Bridge and demanding a welfare check. As soon as the service forwarded the message, I raced in from the farm. Lynn met me here with the spare key. If you hadn’t improved within twelve hours of the antibiotics, you’d have found yourself in Murray Bridge hospital. Heath was keen to get you there, regardless.’

Amelia flinched. ‘Rather you just left me here to quietly cark it.’

‘Not on my watch,’ Taylor said firmly. ‘Or, rather, on Charlee’s watch.’

‘Yeah, what is with that?’

Taylor rebandaged her hand. ‘She volunteered. Seems you’ve got something of a fan. Tracey also offered to sit with you, but Charlee wouldn’t have a bar of it. Moved herself in here and no one’s kicking her out.’

‘We have a lot in common.’ Things that no one ever wanted to share—yet somehow Amelia felt a little lighter for knowing that finally someone understood her mixture of guilt and grief.

‘I know,’ Taylor said softly. ‘Life is unfair. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.’

‘Widely acknowledged as “shit happens”,’ Charlee said as she appeared in the open doorway. ‘Speaking of, do you have a shirt I can borrow, Amelia? Dusty took a dump all over me. I need to shower and change, but I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me.’

‘I can run you out to your dad’s?’ Taylor said, though she glanced at her watch.

‘Nah, I meant I didn’t pack any extra when we left Adelaide. We were only coming up for a couple of days.’

Amelia wondered if all of Charlee’s clothes were the same mix of oversized plaid shirt and filthy jeans. She gestured at the dresser. ‘Help yourself. Though you’ll probably have to wrap anything of mine twice around you.’

Taylor stood, repacking her bag. ‘If you’re staying here a couple more days, Charlee, I’ll mention it to Tracey. She’s the Johnny Appleseed of second-hand clothes.’

Charlee frowned. ‘Meaning?’

‘She has a knack for collecting unwanted clothes and sprinkling them around the district.’

‘Man. I used to love thrifting.’ The sudden wistfulness in the teenager’s tone was unmistakable.

‘Tracey is my go-to when I don’t have time to get the laundry done.’ Taylor grimaced. ‘Which lately seems to be every other week, but let’s not think about that, because I might just fall down in a sobbing heap. Honestly, I had no idea how hard it was going to be to work and raise a baby.’ She flinched. ‘Sorry, Amelia.’

Amelia dismissed the apology with a flick of her hand. She couldn’t expect no one to mention children. As it was, Taylor had shared little about her pregnancy and birth, knowing that Amelia was mired in her grief.

‘Okay, ladies,’ Taylor continued as she made for the door, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, but you know where to find me if you need me before then.’

‘It’s only eight and she sounds stuffed,’ Charlee said, as the doctor left.

‘Yeah. I’m worried about her. She said her mum lives in the Adelaide Hills and is thinking about moving back to Settlers, but it really needed to happen months ago. I know that Luke pulls his weight, but they’ve got a lot on their plates.’

‘Maybe what she said about having someone local to provide childcare was on point,’ Charlee suggested. ‘But you’re dead set against that idea?’

Amelia closed her eyes for a long moment. She avoided sharing the details of her story, unwilling to risk making it more real. But Charlee, with her deliberate self-neglect and inherent self-loathing, needed someone who understood guilt and grief to be straight with her.

She took a steadying breath. ‘When Noah died, he was under the care of a governess because I was out working on our property. He went missing, and I was the one who found him. He’d drowned. And, as much as I blame myselffor his death, I also blame the girl who was supposed to be looking after him. So that makes it hard for me to be okay with anyone having their child in care. They’re too precious, too vulnerable.’

‘I get you,’ Charlee said slowly. ‘But sometimes—like with you working on the property and the doc having to keep the practice open—maybe paying for care is the only option?’ She shrugged. ‘What I really don’t get, though, is how you can carry this huge thing around with you and be like …normal.’

---