Lou should be gone; she should have left already. Checked out of Sunset Downs and into the Welcome Inn. Instead, she sat at the table, trying hard to focus on the financials in front of her. It was hard. The pages kept swimming, dissolving and reforming into an image of Gage last night, all dressed up and heading out on the town with a woman who wasn’t Lou. A sweet, curvy, tall woman. A damn Stone Mountain giant.
Then there was the other thing. Today was the day, the twenty-year anniversary of the night her life fell apart. All day the knowledge had been gnawing at her, fraying the edges of her sanity. Grief loved an anniversary. It was cruel like that.
Lou thought about the promise she’d made her mother, after Skye had recovered from her episode. Lou had told her she would go with her to the cemetery. She’d bargained with Skye to go at four o’clock, claiming she had some work to get through first.
She glanced at her sensible black leather wristwatch. Two pm. A hard fist of dread seized her stomach. Somehow, while it had still been morning, she had been able to push the impending date with the devil away, imagining it was not really happening. Now that the hours were shrinking, that was getting harder to do. Every atom inside her rebelled at the thought. Her breath was already picking up, coming harder and faster in her chest. A horrible taste, metallic like blood, coated her tongue. And her ears rang.
Fear. What a pathetic wimp she was. Afraid of a place; a place she’d never been; a place that couldn’t kill her, or even hurt her.
She only needed to close her eyes to be back in the dream, the one she always had, standing at the graveside, and then being in the grave herself, covered in earth and blackness – simultaneously glad, relieved, and filled with horror. Why would she actually subject herself to the real thing, go and plonk herself in front of the seat of her nightmares? But she knew why. Because she had thought, in that moment yesterday, that Skye was really going to die there in front of her. And for some time after – after Skye came to and seemed to recover herself – Lou might have done anything for her, just to buy some time to work out how she felt about the whole damn thing. How was she going to put it all in order before Skye really did die?
Because when she did, that would be the end of things. Lou would really be all alone. And although that was something she had wanted for what felt like forever – to be rid of the bony fingers of regret and responsibility that clawed at her skirts, haunting her – now that it was really upon her, Lou wasn’t so sure. And nor was she sure that she was ready to have her mother die before she had spoken to her.
Lou’s head started to throb. Too much. Too much to work out. She pushed her square glasses back up her nose and forced herself to focus. The town. The crappy finances. Her dad. There seemed few options for the town beyond doing a deal with the gas company, and few options to do that in the face of opposition from some of the landowners. Lou didn’t get it, would never get it. Why wouldn’t they just cut a deal? Coal seam gas was clean, at least as far as they knew, and it didn’t need to disrupt the work of the property. Why were these people so determined to contribute to their own demise?
She looked up from the papers and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She really should talk to Gage about this – some time soon. She should make sure he at least understood how easy it could be to get himself out of the fix he was in and protect the future of Sunset Downs and his family. They hadn’t discussed it, so she wasn’t exactly sure where he fell on all this, but she knew he was smart as hell, and ready to innovate, so surely he would be able to see sense?
As she tapped her glasses on the table, she heard Piper humming to herself in the kitchen and considered going in to see what the girl was cooking up that smelled so good – something meaty and spicy wafted out into the dining area, where Lou had stationed herself at the table. She heard Franklin’s deep but still boyish laugh rumble out through the open door.
Lou smiled. The boy had been out to Sunset Downs twice in the last few days. Lou knew she had no right to hope that Piper might be starting to see the sense in hanging out more with Franklin and less with the young man with the bush-ranger beard. Just as she popped the chewed-to-hell pencil out of her mouth and resolved to go and have a taste of whatever was cooking in the kitchen, a metallic ring-tone rendition of the latest Pink song bleated in the kitchen and Piper scurried out, heading for the veranda. The girl was in such a hurry she didn’t seem to notice Lou sitting there, and Lou had to chastise herself for feeling disappointed. There was something about Piper that made you want to be in her attentions. Lou sighed and turned back to her papers.
She didn’t mean to listen to Piper’s conversation. But the girl had settled herself out on the veranda, presumably in one of the squatter’s chairs, away from the kitchen but close to a window that opened up near where Lou was sitting, so her sweet, deep voice filtered in clearly.
‘No,’ Piper was saying, making an effort to lower her voice to a whisper but clearly unaware of the acoustics that dragged her voice right in to Lou as though she was whispering in her ear. ‘You know I can’t. I told Dad I wouldn’t.’
There was a pause.
‘I don’t think that, you know that, Jack.’
Lou’s heart sank.
‘That’s what Gage thinks, not me.’
Gage. The name Piper always used for her father when she was either trying to be grown-up, or was pissed at him. In this case, probably a little of both.
‘I told him I wouldn’t,’ Piper repeated stubbornly, but Lou was sure her voice sounded less certain and there was a tone in it that Lou recognised. She closed her eyes and tried to think what it was. She almost clicked her fingers as she realised it was how Sharni sounded every time Matt Finlay talked her back into his bed. Piper was trying hard to resist, but for whatever reason, the voice on the end of the phone was pulling at her defences.
‘Really?’ Piper’s voice had turned decidedly girly now. Lou wasn’t used to hearing it that way. She was used to the grown-up, in-control Piper, who was more like a hardened farmer than a silly teenager. ‘Like what kinds of things?’
During the next pause, Lou agonised over what to do. Mosey out casually to the veranda, alerting Piper to her presence? Remove herself altogether? Go tell Franklin and let him sort it out? He sure seemed competent enough, even if he was still in school.
Then Piper’s voice floated through the window again. ‘Well now,’ she said, her voice so husky and flirtatious it scared Lou. ‘What makes you think I’d ever do those kinds of things with you?’ But the tone in Piper’s voice was talking another language. It said: I want to, oh God, I want to, whatever you’re suggesting, I’m up for it.
Lou tried to recall the boy from the barn; tried to imagine how her seventeen-year-old self might have reacted to his age and swagger and smooth good looks, combined with that cowboy edge.
Stay strong, Piper, Lou willed. But even as she did, she knew it was a vain hope.
‘Well …’ Piper drawled, her voice thick with lust. ‘Maybe I could meet you … in town, in public. That couldn’t be so bad, could it?’
Yes! Lou wanted to scream. That could be very bad. Oh please, please, Piper, don’t arrange a rendezvous while I’m listening. Please don’t put me in the hideous position of having to decide what to do about it.
‘Okay,’ Piper continued. ‘Five o’clock. But only for half an hour. At the library. I’ll hear you out.’ Then Piper laughed, an embarrassed, excited laugh that made Lou sure the guy on the other end of the phone had said something wicked and exciting. Lou wanted to scream.
Piper almost skipped back to the kitchen. She pulled up – cartoon-like – as she registered Lou at the dining table, chewing her pencil.
‘Oh. Hi, Lou. You … been working there long?’
Lou plastered on her poker face and shrugged noncommittally. ‘A while,’ she said, making herself busy with her papers.
Piper stood uncertainly in front of Lou, who felt the time stretch torturously between them. Lou knew that Piper wasn’t sure what Lou had heard. And Lou was even surer she didn’t want to raise the issue with the girl. At least, she didn’t want to discuss it until she’d had some time to think through the right tactic.
She remembered Piper’s method in situations such as this: Three pieces of advice. By all that’s holy, please don’t let her ask Skye for advice this time … Or Franklin. Lou thought about how hurt the boy would be if Piper brought man trouble to him. There was nothing for it, Lou would have to talk to Piper. She glanced at the clock. Cripes. And she was going to have to do it sometime before four o’clock.
Piper studied her foot where her toe made slow circles on the floor. ‘Want to come taste my lamb madras?’
Lou raised her eyes from her fake paper-shuffling. ‘Is that what we’re having for dinner?’
Piper nodded uncertainly, still searching Lou’s face.
This was the opening. Lou could do it now. She could, and she should. She could just say: I heard you on the phone, wanna talk about it? But somehow it was so intimate, and so all rolled up with Gage, and with Piper’s lack of a mother and the whole damn thing, that Lou wasn’t exactly sure where to start.
Then her brain snapped into place like the pinging of a bra strap. Sharni.
Sharni would know what to do. Lou would call Sharni for advice. As soon as she had tasted that lamb madras. But she didn’t need to wait, because almost as the thought formed, Sharni was standing at the door.
Lou gulped. ‘How did you do that?’
‘What? Walk up the front stairs without knocking? Easy, I’ve had years of practice. Where’s Skye?’
Lou motioned to the bedroom. ‘Dead to the world.’ She swallowed hard at the unfortunate analogy. ‘The meds make her really sleepy.’
Sharni nodded and waved at Piper. ‘What’s cookin’, good lookin’?’
Piper rolled her eyes but grinned. ‘Lamb madras. Wanna try some?’
As Piper spoke, Franklin came hurtling out of the kitchen. ‘Is that the time? Sorry, guys, gotta go, late for my shift.’ He was all red hair and long limbs as he scooted past them down the stairs, blowing them a big exaggerated kiss as he went.
Lou barely managed to stop herself fist-pumping at this perfect turn of events. Kitchen. Food. Sharni. Perfect opportunity for girl talk.
Lou beamed at her best friend. ‘Great to see you, Sweetie Pie.’ She grinned, looping an arm through Sharni’s as they followed Piper into the kitchen.
Sharni licked her lips. ‘Not as good as it is to realise I arrived during MasterChef.’
Piper and Lou laughed and the strange moment that had been building between them dissolved.
It was the sound of the plate glass in the front door splintering that alerted them to the problem. That, followed closely by the crunch of wood breaking, a scream of pain and the worst series of swear words Lou had ever heard outside a documentary she once saw about soldiers in a war zone.
And it was bad timing, too, if that kind of thing can ever be considered good timing, because Lou and Sharni were standing alone with Piper in the kitchen, eating chocolate and trading cooking disaster tales, and Lou still had thirty minutes before she had to rendezvous with Skye at the cemetery. Given that everything in Stone Mountain was only about ten minutes away from everything else, to Lou’s mind this left plenty of time for the conversation that had to be had. So she was just gearing up for it when the glass smashed, the trail of obscenities let loose, and the women froze, sure the voice uttering profanities belonged to Bo Westin, but not letting their brains compute it.
They rushed through to find Piper’s grandfather sprawled in an ugly pile of glass, flailing like an upturned beetle and yelling in a voice that was at least three sheets to the wind.
‘Grandpa?’ Piper’s voice was so small, so completely confused and scared, that Lou swung into action.
She threw her phone at Sharni. ‘Get Gage,’ she barked. Then, to the barefoot Piper: ‘Stay back, honey. Grab a –’ She paused. ‘You got a dustbuster, or a broom or something?’
Piper nodded, her face drained of all colour, and headed back to the kitchen. Lou squatted next to Bo and positioned her hands under his arms to try to heave him up. He sure didn’t seem capable of it himself.
‘Bo,’ she said, as gently as she could manage with all the adrenaline coursing through her body telling her to scream, run, or kick something’s arse. ‘I need to get you up.’
Bo slurred something into the floorboards, where his face was firmly planted.
‘Bo,’ she continued, ‘I’m gonna need your help. Can you help me?’
Maybe something about the desperation in her voice broke through to him, because he moaned gently. ‘Okay,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll try.’
She heaved hard, not prepared for what a deadweight Bo would be – he seemed so fit and toned, but Lou supposed she had no idea how much a man weighed when he was essentially an unhelpful log. Luckily, Piper returned at that moment, with a broom and dustpan, and, more importantly, a pair of runners on her feet.
‘I’m gonna need a hand, Pip,’ Lou grunted from her position among the broken glass.
Piper squared her jaw and joined Lou on the floor. She took one side of her grandpa, murmuring to him as the two of them lifted. She was so together, so caring and practical, that Lou could imagine what an amazing farmer she must be. She just hoped to God the bits of her that were still crazy teenage girl didn’t blow her chances.
They hefted Bo up and onto the couch, just as Sharni stabbed at the phone and threw it on the table. ‘He’s coming, Lou,’ she confirmed, her face grave. ‘He said he’s no more than five minutes away.’
Sharni and Piper stood facing Lou, and it was clear they were awaiting instructions. Bo was slumped, slurring and wild eyed on the sofa, muttering something about not being fools. He was clearly very, very drunk, and a wild stab of pain assaulted Lou for the scene Gage would find when he came striding through that door, his face no doubt murderous, in under five minutes. Gage had lived with this a long time, but not for a long time, and Lou knew he really believed now that his father was a changed man. It was going to hurt like hell to come home to this. What could she do? She slid automatically into what she knew best: giving instructions.
‘Sharni, do you think you can clear up the glass a bit so anyone who comes in doesn’t trail it everywhere?’
Sharni nodded and sprang into action, grabbing the broom and pan like a lifeline.
‘And secure the door too, so no more of the shards fall out, or hurt anyone.’
Sharni nodded again, the colour returning to her face as though she was glad of a job to do, and someone to tell her to do it.
‘Piper,’ Lou continued, assessing the calm-faced seventeenyear-old girl. ‘Call the ambulance.’ She groaned, thinking how Sunset Downs was going to have the goddamn paramedics on speed dial if this kept up. First her concussion, then Skye’s collapse, now Bo. She shrugged the thought away. ‘And then I need the first aid kit. I’m going to need some tweezers if there aren’t any in the kit. I’m going to try to clean your grandpa up a bit.’
Piper nodded, moving forwards to pat her grandfather on the knee gently, before dashing off.
Lou sat down next to him. ‘Bo,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s Lou. You know me, right?’
Bo nodded, his eyes pale and hunted, his face crossed with lines and looking like a shrivelled caricature of the man she had been getting acquainted with the last week or so. ‘Louise Samuels,’ he slurred, then he smiled brilliantly through the drunken fog. ‘Skye’s girl. Gage’s honey.’
Lou was pretty sure that both she and Gage would dispute that characterisation, but she wasn’t about to take Bo up on it right now.
She took a breath. ‘Bo, you’ve hurt yourself. You’ve got some glass in your face.’ She paused, considering the whole picture of the man who sat before her. His face was covered in bloody streaks, and punctured by pieces of glass of varying sizes and depths. His arms where his shirt was rolled were similarly decorated. He was in bad shape. All Lou could think was that she wanted to try to clean him up, at least a little, before Gage arrived and had to confront this scene.
An image of Gage as a young boy flashed across her mind – his jaw so set, his face so frozen in a pantomime of ‘fuck you, world’ that they had all really believed that was how it was. It was only now, as an adult, that she could see him for what he was, what he must have been: a small boy whose mama had gone, and whose father had gone mad with the strain. A boy left to cope alone with a wasted old man and a property he loved and had to try to hold together. No wonder all the other stuff – school, friends, the whole lot of it – had seemed pretty incidental. No wonder he’d learned early to pare it down to what he really needed and what really mattered. He’d never had anything of his own. It made Lou think, watching Gage’s broken father, how it must have been for Gage, when Lou had whispered those words to him, given her body to him, and then left him so ruthlessly. She could have wept.
But there was no time for that right now. She couldn’t make that better, but she could do this.
Piper returned from the kitchen. ‘The ambos will be at least half an hour,’ she said quietly. ‘They got called to a farm accident over Miller way.’ She looked carefully at Lou and held up a wet cloth, antiseptic, tweezers and bandages. ‘I asked about the cuts. They said it was a good idea to remove any bits that looked real bad.’
Lou grunted and set to work. She didn’t know how long it had been since Sharni had called Gage, but surely she only had a few minutes left. She focused on his face, and noticed there were two or three larger pieces of glass stuck in his right cheek. It must have been where he had first landed. She turned her focus on them, and Piper sat down beside her as she did.
‘Hold still, Grandpa,’ Piper said, her voice so even Lou considered asking her to do it. But she couldn’t – for all her competence, Piper was still a child. And Lou knew better than anyone how hard it was to have to do all the grown-up things when you just really wanted someone looking out for you instead. She would not put this on Piper; she would not ask her to clean up her drunk grandpa’s bleeding face.
Lou reached up and removed the first piece of glass. Bo grunted and closed his eyes. She wiped the area around the wound carefully with a damp cloth and then applied some antiseptic, following it with a small butterfly plaster Piper produced.
She moved to the next largest one. She could see the shard was embedded in Bo’s cheek, and as she got closer, fat tears rolled down near the wound site. Her hands shook.
‘Are you okay with me doing this, Bo?’
Bo nodded, and more tears followed the others. ‘Do it.’ His voice was thick with the effects of alcohol, but in some ways he seemed quite lucid, and Lou was thrown off-kilter, wondering what had happened to him today, to fall off the wagon so spectacularly after so long.
Lou grasped the piece of glass and pulled, the glass grabbing slightly as it resisted before it gave way. Blood followed the glass out, but it wasn’t too bad, and Lou repeated the procedure with the cloth, antiseptic and plaster. As she finished, she sat back to consider her work and realised Bo looked much better with two of the larger pieces removed and the excess blood cleaned away. She hissed out the breath she only just realised she’d been holding during the procedure, as Piper handed her the things she needed and sat like a statue next to her. As Lou exhaled, she started to become aware of her surroundings again – Sharni sweeping and cleaning; the ticking of the big old grandfather clock in the corner; the rhythmic breathing of Piper beside her. And then, finally, the sound of a familiar ute pulling up with a screech in the driveway. Gage.
Lou’s skin buzzed at the thought of his impending nearness, just as her heart raced at how he must be feeling. She closed her eyes and determined to keep going; let Gage see Bo was being tended, and that he was coping, and that everything would be okay.
As she raised her hand to go at Bo’s face again, his eyes flashed open and he grabbed her hand, his grasp surprisingly strong for someone so drunk. ‘Do you know?’
Lou searched Bo’s eyes for his meaning. She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what you –’
But Bo grunted by way of interruption. ‘Do you know what you are to him? Gage?’
But Lou didn’t get to find out, because as Bo finished his sentence Gage thundered into the room. Lou turned in the seat, trying to project as much calm as she could, for the sake of Bo, and Piper, and – all of them.
But it wouldn’t have made any difference if she had stood on her head and juggled firesticks: Gage was lost in a world of his own. His face radiated fury and bitterness – his jaw clenched like it might shatter bone and cartilage in the process; his spine so stiff he looked to have been carved from volcanic rock. And those green eyes were darker than Lou had ever seen them; so dark she wondered if there were tears in them, but by the look on Gage’s face he had not yet had time to move from fury to sadness.
‘Stand up, you old bastard,’ Gage barked.
Bo made to move unsteadily to his feet, but Lou put out her hand and held him down. ‘Gage,’ she said. ‘He can’t.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Gage stalked over to the couch and reached down to grab Bo’s shirt. ‘You’d be surprised what the old man can do when he’s pissed. I know better than anyone.’ His eyes narrowed as he made again to drag Bo onto his feet.
This time Lou got up and knocked Gage’s arm away with the full force of her body, placing herself between Gage and his father. ‘No, Gage,’ she repeated. ‘He’s hurt.’
‘Oh boo hoo,’ Gage snapped, stepping back a little as he took in Piper on the couch next to his father, her face white. He stood still for a moment, Lou standing defiantly in front of Bo. This wasn’t right; Gage would regret acting like this in front of Piper. As she watched, Gage looked like he was summoning every millimetre of his willpower not to drag Bo out of the chair and throw him down the stairs. For his part, Bo seemed to have zoned out again, his stare far away, as he muttered unintelligible things under his breath.
Gage stepped back still further, surveying the three women staring at him. Then he turned back to his father. ‘You promised me,’ he spat, his voice pitch black and scornful. ‘You said never again.’ He laughed, a mirthless sound that scraped shivers down Lou’s back. ‘And more fool me, I believed you.’ He stepped closer to Bo again but held up a hand as Lou moved in front of him. ‘Don’t worry, Lou, I’m not going to hurt him. And I wouldn’t have thought he had any more power to hurt me either.’ He laughed again. ‘Just goes to show how wrong you can be.’ As he spoke, he looked at once so young and so old Lou was sure her heart splintered in her chest just watching him.
Piper’s eyes moved from one man to the other. Lou realised Gage’s daughter had probably never known what her grandfather had been like before. Lou supposed she may have heard the odd reference, or rumour, but it’s amazing how your own experience shapes the way you see the world. The whole scene must be very confusing for her. She sat back down and slipped an arm around the girl’s shoulders, and Piper leaned in to her.
Suddenly, Bo seemed to come to life. He stood violently, jerking up out of his seat, and grasped Gage’s arm. ‘We need to make a deal,’ he whispered, spraying spittle in his son’s face.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Gage said, so slowly and menacingly Lou wondered if there really would be more blood shed this night. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’
Bo’s eyes were darting around the room like he expected someone to be hiding behind the couch. ‘They’ll come for us,’ he whispered again. ‘They’ll hurt her.’ He flapped a hand in Piper’s direction.
Gage was suddenly very still. His eyes narrowed and his face shut down further as he grabbed his father’s arm and swung him around as though he weighed no more than Lou. ‘Who?’ He shook the older man. ‘Who’s going to hurt her?’
As Lou watched the unfolding scene, it became clear what was going on. Bo was terrified. Something had happened today. Something to scare the living daylights out of him and make him fall off the wagon at the same time.
Bo muttered to himself again, becoming unintelligible once more, his eyes swerving wildly around the room. Then they came back to lock on Gage’s. ‘They cut the fences,’ he said, his eyes appealing to Gage’s. ‘And they told me, if we don’t make a deal, they’ll cut her.’
‘Shut up,’ Gage snarled, pushing his father back onto the couch. He looked quickly at Piper and Lou. ‘Get her out.’
Lou nodded quickly. Whatever was going on here, Piper didn’t need to see it. She stood and held out a hand to the girl, and Piper held tight to her as they walked together into the kitchen, Sharni following. None of them spoke as they sat down around the old kitchen table, until Sharni finally broke the silence.
‘My ma would say we need tea,’ she said, moving towards the kettle with determination.
Lou’s reflexes creaked into action. ‘And biscuits,’ she said, reaching for the jar she had become well acquainted with in the last week.
Once tea was made, crockery laid and biscuits distributed, the three women sat silently at the kitchen table.
‘What’s happening?’ Piper said, a little of the colour returning to her cheeks. Gage and Bo had still not returned from the living room.
Before anyone could answer, they heard the high squeal of an ambulance.
It was only later, once Bo and Gage had gone to hospital, and Sharni had done all she could and decided it was best for her to head home, that Lou looked at the clock and realised it was six pm. She had never had the conversation with Piper. Piper had never made her date. And Lou had never made it to the cemetery.
After all that had happened, she couldn’t pretend with the girl any more. ‘You missed your date,’ she said.
Piper’s eyes widened a little, then she nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, chewing her lip. ‘Lost track of time.’ But her face told a different story. Sure, they’d been preoccupied, with Bo’s accident and its aftermath, but there was a shift in Gage’s daughter, and Lou was sure she was maybe thinking things happened the way they did for a reason.
Lou nodded as well. ‘So did I,’ she said, fussing with dishes at the sink. ‘I was supposed to be somewhere this afternoon too.’
Piper nodded. ‘The grave.’
Lou’s stomach dropped. ‘You know?’
The girl nodded again. ‘I’ve been there, with Skye.’
Lou’s brain worked hard to rearrange itself around this new information. She wondered what exactly Piper thought she knew, about Skye, and about what had happened. She studied the girl’s face. It was open and composed, but there was definitely something she wanted to say. ‘Shoot,’ Lou said.
The girl chewed her lip some more. ‘Well,’ she said, slowly and finally. ‘Sometimes stuff happens. Like my mum leaving. It sucks.’ She fiddled with the ends of her hair. ‘But at some point you’ve got to say: these are the crappy cards I’ve been dealt. I can either get over them and move on, or die from the unfairness of it.’
Lou didn’t blame Piper for her strange, adult advice. In fact, it sounded very much like some she might have been given herself. Something about the arrangement of the words – the crappy cards you’ve been dealt – rang of Gage. So Lou didn’t blame her, and she knew that the advice was solid. But.
‘Piper.’ Lou’s voice was harsh and hoarse. ‘Leave it. Please.’