Page 111 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
The grandmothers glance at each other, then Rose beams again. ‘Wonderful,’ she says. ‘Anything I can do to help?’
Simon appears just then with a book under his arm.
‘You could help Simon with his reading homework,’ Lorraine says.
‘My pleasure,’ Rose says, and she puts down the cards and shifts over on the couch. ‘Simon, sit here, darling.’
As her youngest son sits next to one grandmother, and the other smiles as if it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen, and her eldest son is in the kitchen preparing to peel potatoes, Lorraine can’t help but feel that something is wrong. This household never runs so smoothly.
And it probably never will again if Mike comes back. Which is okay, she thinks. In fact, whichever way it turns out is okay. She’s had enough change over the past few months to feel like a human washing machine and she’s survived it. Some days she’s even enjoyed it. What she’s learnt is that she just has to show up each morning and do her best, and if she can laugh and tell people she loves them, even better.
‘I’ll give you a yell when we’re close,’ she says to the grandmothers before turning to go back into the kitchen.
There she finds Terry, so tall now he needs to stoop over the bench, already peeling. She didn’t even have to get the potatoes and the peeler out for him. That, out of everything, is enough to make her feel like she could unravel but it’s pathetic to start crying over something so small, so she pulls herself together and gets the chops out of the fridge.
APRIL 1988
AUSTRALIAN BLUEBELL
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Theletter came first – no stamp, so it had been hand delivered. Then there was a knock on the door just as Elizabeth was trying to get out of it to drop off Charlie at a swimming lesson. A strange man in a suit, smiling toothily, his hair layered and slicked back.
‘G’day,’ he said as she pulled the door open a fraction, not willing to open it wide to someone she didn’t know. ‘I’m John Patterson. I dropped off a letter recently.’
His name was why Elizabeth had thrown the letter out straightaway. It seemed too eerie that a man named John wanted to encourage her to sell the house that her Jon had been so keen to buy.
That day on her doorstep he reiterated what was in the letter: that he was a real estate agent who had a buyerveryinterested in her house. ‘It’s a large block,’ he explained, glancing towards the garden side of the house. ‘Not many of them around in this area.’
Elizabeth wanted to tell him that she didn’t care and that she wasn’t interested … but ever since Charlie’s birthday party she’s had the strangest, strongest feeling that her business with the house and its garden might be complete. She has brought the garden back to life with the help of her friends, and she isn’t sure what more can be done to it or for it. She no longer needsto prove anything to Jon or to herself. Still, if she is to leave she wants to do it on her own terms.
Then the agent told her how much the prospective buyer was willing to pay. It was far more than Elizabeth had thought she might receive. Enough for her to pay off the mortgage in one fell swoop and have money left over. That’s when the house started to seem as Jon had intended, what he’d told her as he was dying: financial security for her and Charlie, and she should do whatever she wanted with it.
She told her parents, and while they were subdued – as is their wont with any big news – she could tell they were pleased for her.
‘He’s making it easy for you, isn’t he,’ her father said, and Elizabeth couldn’t disagree.
Yet she hasn’t completely made up her mind. Some afternoons when she sits in Jon’s garden she feels like she could never leave, because she would be leaving him behind for good. Then a voice pops up in her head, telling her that perhaps that would be for the best. She has a life to live; she needs to move forwards.
Yet she’s hesitated – because of the garden, not because of Jon. The garden is what brought the Sunshine Gardening Society into her life and she feels as though she owes the ladies some loyalty. Which is why she has brought the decision to them on this Saturday morning as they carry out maintenance work in a garden in Tewantin.
Elizabeth arranges to work alongside Lorraine so she’s the first person she can tell.
‘Reallllly?’ is Lorraine’s response, then she tilts her head like an enquiring pup. ‘That’s interesting. Are you thinking about it?’
‘I am.’ Elizabeth pulls up a clod of dirt that flies into her face.
‘Brush it off,’ Lorraine commands.
‘Hm?’
‘Don’t let that dirt get in your nose and eyes. You don’t know what’s in it. All sorts of bugs can come out of the soil.’ Lorraine twinkles her gloved fingers. ‘That’s why we wear these.’
‘Oh.’ Elizabeth brushes off as much as she can and Lorraine does the rest.
‘Hey, Cyn,’ Lorraine calls. ‘Liz is going to sell the house.’
‘I haven’t decided yet!’ Elizabeth says, slightly panicked. She doesn’t want the news announced before she’s ready, although she could have guessed Lorraine would say something – and perhaps she wanted her to.
