Page 49 of Wings Above the Mallee

‘Most of the time,’ Amelia said dryly.

‘Most of the time,’ Charlee agreed with a chuckle, but then her expression grew serious again. ‘I mean, Ethan’s helped me get clean. Or I should say,ishelping me, because who the hell knows how long it takes until you’re clean? He hasn’t used for nine years, but says he’s still an addict. Daideó’s got the same kind of deal happening. Anyway, even though things are better since I met Ethan, still it’s like—’ She thumped her chest with a balled fist. ‘It’s like there’s nothing but grief inside me. It’s a black hole consuming every other emotion, a cancer eating me up. The oxy, E, Molly, they took that ache away for a while.’ She chewed on her lips and Amelia waited, knowing there was more. ‘It’s stupid, but I want everyone else to hurt, too. How do you manage to be so bloodynice?’ She hurled the word like an insult.

‘For the last few years, I’ve kept to myself, so there was no need to pretend to be nice. But I’m trying to do better. I’ve realised that, whatever their story, everyone is hurting, they just handle it in different ways. Take your grandfather, for instance. He’s grieving, but he does it with humour. Your dad, he tackles it another way.’

‘Yeah, by being a dick.’

Amelia tipped her head in amused acknowledgment. ‘Or by trying to make you happy. In any case, I know that sharingmy pain won’t give away any part of it: it doesn’t lessen, doesn’t disappear.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I’d managed to drive my husband away before I came to that realisation, though. I couldn’t stand to see him, knowing that neither of us had been there when Noah needed us.

‘Grief is a long, dark, lonely road, Charlee. But my sorrow is my burden, no one else’s. So I’ll carry it until I die, and hope like hell that’s the end of it.’

20

Sean

‘Still locking your dad out, then?’ Sean said as Charlee observed him through a chink in the door.

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ She opened the door wide.

‘Because we both know you’re smart enough not to need to keep punishing him.’

‘Allthreeof us know that,’ Amelia added, walking slowly toward them down the hallway.

‘Honestly, I’m taking your phones off all of you,’ Charlee grumbled, but a smile tweaked the corner of her mouth. ‘I’m the one here all the time, but I swear you text each other more than you talk to me. And obviously it’saboutme.’

Sean’s ears pricked. Did that ‘all of you’ include exchanges between Heath and Amelia? In stark contrast to the previous two years, when he’d had to bargain and demand to get Heath off the farm for a few hours, each time he’d come into town over the last couple of weeks, Heath had grabbed a lift on the pretext of completing some chore, yet Charlee wouldlater reveal that Heath had come knocking on Amelia’s door. And that Charlee had ignored him.

‘Sorry to deflate your ego, but not everything is about you, Charlee-girl.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Charlee said as she took one of the fabric carrier bags from him and led the way to the lounge room. Lit by the fanlight window above the front door, the rustic, wide plank floors of the hallway gave off a dull gleam. Two rooms opened off the passageway either side, set slightly asymmetrically, so that the doorways didn’t look into one another. Although the kitchen was the furthest on the right, it was relatively dark in winter, and they’d taken to eating in the lounge room.

The two lambs lay on a shaggy rug in front of the fire, stretched luxuriantly like labradors enjoying the last of the warmth. On the left, a coal scuttle held neatly cut twigs of identical lengths and on the right, a matching beaten copper bucket held single newspaper pages, each twisted into a cylinder and stacked upright.

‘You know they’re never going back in the paddock, right?’ Sean said, nodding at the nappy-wearing sheep.

‘You do know they’re never going back in the paddock, right?’ Amelia answered with a grin.

‘It’s too frosty for them outside,’ Charlee protested, fondling Karmaa’s silky ears before putting the shopping bag on the low table between the comfortable couches.

Sean tipped his head back, beseeching patience from above. ‘You realise there’s a paddock full of them out at the farm? Frolicking and playing and not minding that frost at all.’

‘Yep. But yours arefarmanimals. Not Karmaa and Kismet.’

Amelia chuckled. ‘Don’t look to me for backup, Sean. I’m one hundred per cent with your granddaughter on this one.’

‘So this is the unofficial start of the travelling farm Heath told me about?’ he teased.

Charlee shot Amelia a glance Sean couldn’t interpret, but he was aware of a sense of repressed excitement in the room. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Amelia responded. ‘Though Charlee did find a trio of miniature goats looking for a new home on Facebook …’

He took the couch opposite where Amelia sat on an armchair. ‘I’m surprised goats know how to use Facebook. But you remember how I said no one in a small town is going to bat an eye at a couple of lambs in your backyard? I think they might draw the line at a herd of goats.’

‘I know,’ Amelia said with a sigh. ‘This cottage is lovely, but looking into the backyard and seeing fences is kind of crippling me. It seems weird not to have an endless view to a horizon.’

Charlee headed across the hall to the kitchen, yelling over her shoulder, ‘One, you could keep the goats out at the farm, Daideó. And two, you’re nuts, Amelia. This place is perfect: close enough to town that you can walk to the shops, but far enough out of the city that you don’t have to deal with crap.’ She came back into the room carrying plates and a knife. ‘And, speaking of crap, cling wrap, Daideó?’

Sean nodded as he drew the packages out of the bag. ‘Yep. The anathema of the intelligent teen, I know. But also, date loaf, which will stick to everything, given half a chance. So a man’s gotta do—’

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