Erin was outside watering the front garden when she heard the sound of an approaching car. Shading her eyes from the afternoon glare, she watched the vehicle pull up and braced herself with a deep, fortifying breath, crossing to the tap to turn off the water.
‘Hello, darling,’ her mother greeted her, holding her close in a tight hug. From previous experience, she knew she had to be the first one to break the embrace or they would stand there all day. First universal law of parenting: the parent must never be the one to pull away.
‘Hello, Mum.’ It was kind of nice to be able to hug her, she thought, as an unexpected rush of emotion surfaced. She smelled of incense and sandalwood, but she also brought back memories of childhood, when a hug from Mum always made things better. It had been a long time. She missed it.
‘Well, this place hasn’t changed much, has it?’ she said, leaving one arm around Erin’s waist as she surveyed the house.
‘Nope.’ Thank goodness, she added silently. In this world where everything was always changing, everyone needed something that stayed familiar. ‘Come on in, I’ll put the jug on,’ Erin said, giving her mum’s hand a squeeze as she slipped it from around her to move inside.
Erin watched her mother as she took in her surroundings, her gaze moving around the kitchen and taking in the sights and smells. It had been a long time since she’d been here. The thought made Erin sad. She didn’t understand the rift between Gran and Mum, but she knew that if it had been her she wouldn’t have let it hang between them unresolved. She’d have wanted to make sure her mother knew she loved her, despite everything.
‘Coffee?’ Erin asked, taking down two cups from the holder.
‘Oh, goodness no. I brought my own tea,’ her mother said, moving across to the end cupboard and withdrawing an old teapot, then proceeding to prepare a foul-smelling beverage with a concoction of herbs and other things Erin was too scared to ask about. She was only mildly amused that her mother instinctively knew where everything was kept, as it always had been, for the last seventy-odd years.
‘How long are you planning on staying for?’ Erin asked.
‘I’ll need to leave after the funeral tomorrow.’
‘That soon?’
‘I had to leave things unfinished back at the foundation. I’m in the middle of a very important legislative change that could mean a great deal to the entire province where the orangutans are most vulnerable.’
‘There are things I thought we should sort out.’
‘There’s nothing that needs to be decided upon right this minute, and there’s nothing that you need to worry yourself about. That’s what solicitors are for.’
‘Well, I was hoping we could talk about what you’re going to do with this place. I’d really like to stay here for a while.’
‘Stay? What for? There’s nothing here.’
‘I’ve always loved it here, and at the moment I’d prefer to be out of the city. I’d like to take over here as caretaker for six months or so, maybe longer.’
‘What does Phillip think about this?’ her mother asked, looking around as though she’d somehow managed to overlook her son-in-law until now. ‘Where is he anyway?’
‘He’s . . . back in the city,’ she fudged.
‘Are you two having a bit of a spat?’ she asked, placing a hand on Erin’s arm comfortingly. ‘I may not be a marriage councillor but, darling, if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that you cannot hope to work through problems if you’re not present. I don’t think staying up here is a good idea.’
‘Like you were present to work through your problems with Gran all these years?’ Erin asked pointedly.
Her mother’s concerned expression hardened slightly before she dropped her hand and stepped away. ‘I was talking about your marriage. But if you don’t want to discuss it, then we won’t.’
And that, apparently, was that. As usual her mother shut down whenever it came to her past, and Erin was too tired to bother explaining the fact she no longer had a marriage to save. Not for the first time she wished her mother had just a little more empathy for normal everyday kind of problems, like cheating husbands and heartbroken daughters. Unfortunately Erin wasn’t an orangutan. It was hard to compete with a species facing extinction.
‘If you want to stay on for a little while, I guess that’s all right, but I had plans to put the place on the market as soon as possible. I could use the cash injection into the foundation.’
‘Sell it?’
‘Yes, Erin. There’s no reason to keep it. I certainly don’t need this place hanging over my head. And you should really move on too. Now that Mum’s gone, we need to start afresh. Get rid of all this baggage,’ her mother said, waving a hand around the room.
What was she talking about? Erin stared at her mother, horrified to hear her talking like this. ‘What baggage?’
‘Oh, I suppose you’re right—it’s not yours, it’s mine.’
‘Mum, what are you talking about?’
‘I wasn’t close with your gran. Why would I act the heartbroken daughter now?’
‘Oh, I don’t know . . . maybe out of respect for the dead!’
‘She’s gone. There’s nothing I can say or do to hurt her now.’
‘I seriously don’t get you at all,’ Erin said, standing.
‘Well that’s another thing you and your gran had in common. You need to focus on your own life now.’
‘My own life is falling down around me, I don’t actually have my own life right now, in case you care.’
‘Of course I care, I’m your mother. But I raised you to stand on your own two feet just like I had to. I did what was necessary, I raised a daughter, built up a business and made a lot of money, and you know what I discovered? I should have lived what I preached. I owned a health food store, for heaven’s sake, and I lived in a polluted, filthy city! I should have taken you and moved to a place like Nimbin years ago, allowed you to grow up surrounded by nature and people who aren’t controlled by the pressures of society.’
‘If you hadn’t done what you did, you wouldn’t have had the money to start your retreat. So money’s still a necessary evil, isn’t it, even for all the free spirits of the world,’ Erin snapped, leaving the kitchen.
For a healer, her mother sure as hell could hold onto a lot of bitterness.
Yes, her mother had had a tough job being a single parent, but standing alone had been her decision. She’d pushed Gran away, and as for Erin’s father, well, she’d never intended on having him around.
At fifteen, Erin had confronted her mother and demanded to know who her father was. She didn’t want to hear her mother’s excuses any more: that he wasn’t interested in a second family, that she’d been trying to protect Erin from the rejection she was sure she’d receive from him. She’d given her the name and Erin had ignored her warnings and tracked him down by herself.
She’d approached him one day as he left his office to go home. She still remembered that moment of nervous anticipation as she waited for the well-dressed businessman to turn and acknowledge her. For years she’d dreamed of that first moment when she’d meet her father. Their eyes would connect and instantly he would recognise her—he’d smile and open his arms to her, the child he always thought he’d never see, and he would welcome her into his family.
None of that had happened.
Her father had turned around when he’d sensed someone standing behind him in the underground car park of his office. Erin had smiled, waiting for that lightning strike of recognition to hit him.
‘Yes?’ he’d said in an impatient tone.
Momentarily thrown off balance that things didn’t seem to be following the script she’d written in her head, Erin continued to stare at the man silently.
‘This is private property. How did you even get down here?’
‘I came to see you,’ she stammered.
‘Look, I don’t have time for this today. You shouldn’t be lurking around in dark car parks.’
‘I’m your daughter,’ she blurted, then bit her lip uncertainly when the man continued to stare at her with a forbidding frown.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded roughly after what seemed an eternity.
‘Erin Macalister.’
His gaze narrowed at the mention of her name and he looked around behind her. ‘Did Irene send you here?’
‘No. She doesn’t even know I found you.’
‘Do you know that you’re breaking the terms of our contract? I could take your mother to court over this.’
‘What contract?’
‘You tell your mother that if I ever see her or you anywhere near me or my family again, I’ll have her in court.’
‘She doesn’t know I’m here, she knows nothing about this. I wanted to find you.’
‘She should have told you to stay away,’ he said, reefing open his door before pausing and looking at Erin. For the briefest of moments she thought he was about to change his mind. ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I didn’t even want her to have—’ he started, then stopped abruptly. ‘I already have a family. She knew that. Just go on home.’
Erin watched him drive away, frozen to the spot. It took a while for his words to sink in. The whole way home she replayed them over and over in her mind, all the while wondering how this meeting could have gone so terribly wrong.
She hadn’t intended to tell her mother, but when she got home Irene took one look at her and instantly knew something was not right. The whole story came tumbling out as she sat on the end of her bed, eyes red and puffy from crying.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear it like that. I thought I was protecting you by not telling you.’
‘He said he could take you to court. Did he really pay to get rid of us?’
Her mother gave a bitter snort. ‘More like he paid me to keep it quiet from his wife. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, I got you and that’s all I wanted. He won’t risk taking me to court, his family would find out.’
‘Did you think he’d leave his family for you?’
Her mother shrugged. ‘Not really. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I’m not sure I went into it planning to get pregnant, but I certainly wasn’t devastated by it. I don’t regret it—not for a second,’ she said fiercely, returning her daughter’s gaze steadily. There was so much love burning there that Erin’s indignation died down.
‘How can he love some of his children but not all of them?’
‘Oh, baby,’ her mother sighed, hugging her tightly.
Things had changed between mother and daughter after that. Erin hadn’t said it out loud, but part of her had always blamed her mother for having an affair with a man who was not only married but also selfish and cold-hearted enough to turn his back on his child. Now she understood things with a little more clarity. Her mother was human. She’d made mistakes. She’d waited a long time for a child and, when she’d finally fallen pregnant in her forties, she’d been determined to keep the baby, whether the father wanted to be involved or not.
Erin went into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked over at the night stand and saw the tin box. Technically everything in the house belonged to her mother now, to do with as she saw fit. But her mother held no sentimental value for anything belonging to her past, and there was no way Erin was going to risk any of her gran’s personal belongings being thrown out, so she tucked the box into her suitcase in the bottom of her wardrobe and gave it a comforting pat before closing the door.