The detective who emerged from his grandfather’s room was about his own age, with a firm handshake and easy manner as he introduced himself to Owen.
‘I’m Steve Fraser. I’ve heard you had a busy night last night. Thanks for assisting my colleagues.’
Owen brushed off the thanks. With no one else in the vicinity to overhear, he asked straight out, ‘I understand my grandfather asked to see you. Why?’
‘You’ll have to discuss it with him, I’m afraid. Privacy and all that. But can I ask you – your grandfather seems mentally with it. He is, isn’t he? In sound mind, as they say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Knows truth from reality? Not inclined to imagine things that didn’t happen? Or make up stories to gain attention?’
The idea was so ridiculous Owen struggled to keep a biting edge from his reply. ‘Absolutely not, Detective. He’s far saner and more grounded than most people.’
Fraser nodded with a grimace. ‘Yeah. That’s what I was afraid of.’ He took a business card from his pocket. ‘Call me if you need to. I have to go research some laws, and statutes of limitation.’
Another hazy suspicion added to the half-formed ones already circling in Owen’s thoughts. ‘Has my grandfather confessed to some type of crime?’
‘He’s made an admission,’ Fraser conceded. ‘I have yet to determine whether a crime has been committed.’
‘He’s never had so much as a speeding ticket or a parking ticket.’ Not the smartest thing to say, but on top of everything else he could scarcely grapple with the idea that his grandfather obviously believed he’d done something against the law.
‘Yeah, well, I’ll be in touch. Thanks for your time.’ He shook hands again before briskly striding away.
Owen needed a few minutes of space to think before he went in to see his grandfather. The foyer opened on to a garden, but the wind blew in strong gusts, hot and dry. He went instead to the kiosk and bought an apple juice, hoping the chilled liquid might clear his thoughts.
He stared through the window at the rose bushes swaying in the gusts as he drank the juice. What did he know? He looked like Delphi O’Connell’s brother. His grandfather had known Delphi a long time ago. Delphi remembered him, but was more interested in Owen’s mother.
He also knew his grandfather had been a loving and devoted father to his only daughter, despite the challenges of being a single father in the 1950s and 60s, after his wife deserted her husband and child.
Any number of scenarios could fit those facts. For one short moment, he considered the possibility that Delphi was his grandfather’s errant wife. No. ‘She may not remember me,’ he’d said. ‘She may not know the wrong I did her.’ And the name Bernard had provided for the parental details on his mother’s death certificate wasn’t Philadelphia, although it was something equally unusual. Anastacia. A name mentioned only rarely in Owen’s childhood, her absence decades long.
Why go over and over it all, searching for answers, when his grandfather had them?
They’d given Bernard a private room, although in a hospital this small there couldn’t be many of them. He sat supported by pillows in a large armchair by the window, the tube for the oxygen trailing across the bed, the face mask replaced by nasal prongs.
‘Back so soon?’ His grandfather said, his voice weak. ‘You should have got some rest.’
Owen pulled the visitor’s chair closer and sat down, taking his grandfather’s hand. Nowhere near as puffy as last night. A good sign. But his eyes were red-rimmed, and he seemed weary. Perhaps from a broken night, or from his illness, or perhaps his discussion with the detective had tired him.
‘I visited Delphi O’Connell,’ he began, and watched for his grandfather’s reaction, in case he was too tired to talk. ‘She accepted the briefcase, asked after my mother, and told me to come back after lunch.’
‘Ah.’ He fiddled with the oxygen tube, and said nothing else.
‘Granddad, I’ve got some pieces of the jigsaw but I haven’t got enough to fit them together yet. The detective clearly knows more than I do but he wouldn’t tell me. You don’t have to do it now, but when you’re up to it, I’d like you to tell me what you told him. I can’t help you if I don’t know the full story.’
His grandfather clenched his hand tightly, and breathed several rapid breaths in, out, in, out, his face draining of colour. ‘I told him . . . that about sixty years ago, I stole a baby.’
~
Angie ranted and swore, yelled and sobbed, allowing her emotions free-rein because she had the house to herself for now and no-one could witness her meltdown.
Bastards for doing this to her. Cowards for sending an email rather than the courtesy of a phone call, at the very least. As for the timing – Christmas Eve – oh, that smacked of her vindictive, arrogant, misogynistic boss. Yes, they’d all known that business was falling and finances tightening, and there’d been hints of a restructure, but this fast and this brutal? Totally unexpected.
She used up all of her mother’s tissues and had to resort to toilet paper to wipe away tears and blow her nose. Harsh toilet paper that scratched because her mother economised in most things.
One more reason to stop crying and pull herself together. If she could stop crying. Damn, this hurt.
‘It’s just a job,’ she said aloud, as if hearing the words might convince her. ‘Just a frigging job.’ With work she loved and a good salary and some okay colleagues and the psychopathic boss from hell.
Maybe she should have put in a formal complaint about him. Maybe then they’d have made him redundant, instead of her.
No. Last on, first off. She’d only been there eighteen months, and she’d taken the grudgingly-given three months of leave without pay after her father died. Other than the fact she’d worked damned hard for the company, they didn’t owe her a lot of loyalty.
Time to just deal with it. She brought her laptop to the kitchen table, made a cup of tea, and with a roll of toilet paper beside her, sat down to read through the email again. Her salt-drenched eyes stung as she read the attached documents on the screen, but the personal hurt and some of the anger dissipated when she studied the revised organisational chart and realised that most of her section had been absorbed into another one and that her boss’s position had been made redundant, too. Maybe he’d received an email this morning as well. Or maybe they’d put him somewhere else in the company.
It should no longer matter to her. Perhaps in time it wouldn’t.
They were giving her two months’ pay as a termination payment, a little more than her contract provided for because of the Christmas holiday timing. Kinda generous of them, except for the whole redundancy at Christmas nightmare they’d inflicted on her.
She should start making a list of what she needed to do. Update her CV. Search the employment sites. Make a list of companies to approach. Work out a budget to see how long her savings and two months’ pay could last her.
She sat with her pen poised on her mother’s notepad but she couldn’t bring herself to start writing. Her gut churned and her eyes leaked again and her thoughts swirled in an incessant whirlpool of fears and insecurities and worries.
Thinking clearly right now? Not going to happen. She drained her tea and shoved her chair back. She didn’t have to solve everything straight away. She needed to get out, walk, get some air, find some chocolate or coffee or salty chips or some comfort food because alcohol wasn’t a good idea at this hour of the day.
Her phone beeped with a message. A photo from Megan, a smiling selfie of her and Lissa with the bundled-up baby between them, not much more visible than a fuzz of dark hair and closed eyes above the tiny nose.
The happy photo made her smile, and also helped to put her problems into perspective. She had family, a home with her mother if she needed it, and savings, skills, and experience. Things might not be easy for a while, but she’d be okay.
Feeling more resolute, she splashed her red eyes with cool water and braided her hair before she ventured out, but the hot wind whipped her face, harsh with heat and dust. And the slight scent of smoke. She instinctively looked north, searching for evidence of a fire. The Dungirri Scrub bordered the town to the east and north, stretching for tens of kilometres of dry forest. A thin column of white rose above the tree-line in the distance into the clear blue sky.
The siren at the Rural Fire Service shed on the edge of town burst in to its warning wail, and before she’d made it to the pub, at least six people had hurried out, leapt into cars, and driven the two blocks down to the shed.
Eleni and George Pappas came out of their general store opposite the pub to stand on the corner, watching to the north. Angie crossed the road to join them as another couple of vehicles passed on their way to the shed.
‘It might be a flare-up from the fire a few days ago,’ George informed her. ‘It’s still a fair distance from town.’
‘Bad day for it, though.’ She didn’t elaborate. George and Eleni knew the dangers as well as she did. If the fire caught in the tree tops the wind would blow burning leaves for miles, starting spot fires.
Eleni kissed her on the cheek and although she gave her a searching stare, and squeezed her arm gently, she didn’t comment on her probably still red eyes. Perceptive, as always. When Angie and her brother Dave hadn’t been hanging around the pub as kids, they’d been over here at the shop, out the back with Lexi Pappas and her older brother Andrew. Or roaming the Dungirri streets with them, biking up to the waterhole, fishing for yabbies in the creek. The shop was never as busy as the pub, so Eleni had patched up her grazed knees and applied ointment to insect bites and wiped up tears from injuries and upsets. It didn’t seem so many years ago, but now Andrew was an accountant, married to a vet, and Lexi taught high school in Birraga.
An SUV came down the street and pulled in beside them. Lexi in her RFS uniform, and three young kids. Andrew’s family. Dungirri school kids still recovering from injuries from the bus accident.
Eleni and George helped the kids out, and Angie went to the back of the vehicle to assist Lexi with a wheelchair.
‘School holidays,’ Lexi said in explanation. ‘I’ve been minding the sproggets this week while Andrew and Erin are working.’ She nodded back towards the smoke. ‘But it’s all hands on deck for this one.’
Lexi drove off with a wave as soon as the kids were unloaded. George and Eleni shepherded their grandchildren into the cool inside.
Angie crossed the road to the pub. All hands on deck. Communities like Dungirri ran on volunteers, and everyone did what they could in emergencies. She’d left town at eighteen, never joined or trained with the RFS or SES, but if this fire turned bad there’d surely be something, somewhere, that she could do. Even if it was making sandwiches for the emergency services.
Funny how she still thought of herself as part of the community, although she’d left more than ten years ago and only come home for a week or two a year until her Dad died. And funny how some part of her brain still obstinately labelled it ‘home’.
Her phone buzzed as she pushed open the gate into the pub’s courtyard.
‘It’s your Mum here,’ Nancy said when she answered.
Yes, Mum, I knew that. My phone tells me. ‘What’s up, Mum?’
‘I’m still in Birraga. But Jeanie’s frantic with worry. You need to go out to Delphi’s place and make sure she’s alright. You need to go now. She’s not answered her phone for hours.’
‘She’s probably just doing some work on the farm, Mum. You know phone reception’s not great out there.’ But despite her reassurances, Angie turned a one-eighty and headed back out through the gate. Delphi must be past seventy. Tough as boot leather and fiercely independent, but yeah, not young anymore.
‘She received some news today. That man, Owen, he went and saw her this morning. He might have distressed her a great deal. Jeanie’s worried that she might have . . .’ Nancy didn’t finish the sentence.
Owen distress Delphi? Aside from the unlikelihood of Owen upsetting anyone, Delphi rarely gave a blue fig what anyone thought. Yet Owen had mentioned his grandfather wanting him to do him a favour this morning, and he hadn’t seemed happy about it. Not that she could imagine Doctor Chynoweth, with his old-world gentlemanly courtesy, distressing anyone, either.
But an elderly woman alone on a farm, not answering her phone . . . ‘I’ll just grab some gear and go right out there,’ Angie told her mother.
~
‘I stole a baby . . .’
The words tumbled around and around in Owen’s mind but he asked no more questions. When his grandfather’s oxygen levels rose a little and his breathing became somewhat easier, Owen and the nurse assisted him back into bed. Once the nurse had recorded the routine observations and left, Bernard gripped Owen’s hand again and insisted on telling his story. It came slowly, in whispers and sentence fragments, the telling painful both emotionally and physically.
The late 1950s, and a small town in rural Queensland. His wife was pregnant, the first pregnancy she’d carried to term after three miscarriages. A nervous breakdown – that’s what they’d called it then – after the third miscarriage, with episodes of mania and self-harm, threats of suicide.
‘I was at a loss,’ Bernard said. ‘We did not know then what we know now, about mental health. Treatments were drastic, and I would not let her be committed. But as the due date for the baby came closer, she seemed better, making plans for it, sewing and setting up the nursery. I believed – I truly believed – that having the baby to care for and love would save her.’
Owen held back the questions about the grandmother who had ultimately deserted her husband and child. He let his grandfather talk uninterrupted, although he kept an eye on the screen that monitored his heartbeat.
Bernard told how as a small-town doctor his patients included the residents in the Church-run home where unmarried girls were sent by their families to hide their pregnancies. A strict institution, as if the girls were to blame for their predicament, for being ‘loose’. Young unmarried women often faced the threat of being disowned by their families, with little recourse to employment, financial support, or child care, and were under immense pressure to relinquish their newborns for adoption.
‘Philadelphia . . . ‘ he said, ‘She kept to herself, worked hard. She was very pragmatic about surrendering her child when it was born. Her father would disown her if she kept the baby . . . She knew it would not be possible for a girl of seventeen, without family or community, to raise a child alone.’
Owen found it hard to imagine the woman he’d met this morning as a teenager. Except perhaps he could. Photos of his mother in her youth showed that same strong face, not fine enough features to be classically beautiful, but alive with spirit and determination and attractive for that.
‘My wife and Philadelphia were in labour on the same night. The midwife from the home, Sister Kendall, had brought Philadelphia in to the hospital, and she assisted me. But my wife . . . her labour was long, and difficult.’
The memories were becoming stressful for his grandfather, but he waved away Owen’s suggestion to stop for now. ‘You must know this. When the baby came . . . she had no heartbeat and she didn’t breathe. I couldn’t get her to breathe.’ He closed his eyes, his hand clutching the sheet. ‘I carried her tiny body out of the delivery room . . . ‘ His voice shook and cracked. ‘My daughter. I tried and tried, and Sister Kendall tried, and we could not save her. I could not save my daughter.’
Tears ran down his face, the grief bottled up for so long still raw and deep. Owen had an inkling of what was to come, and suspected that this might be the first time that Bernard had ever shared his devastating sorrow. Owen reached for the tissue box and offered it.
‘I’m so sorry, Granddad. That must have been heart-breaking. Take your time. You don’t have to tell me all this now.’
‘I do.’ But his grandfather blew his nose and wiped his eyes, and breathed deeply of the oxygen while he fought to compose himself again.
‘Philadelphia delivered her baby, just minutes later. A healthy little girl. The practice then – it was thought kinder for the relinquishing mother – was to take the baby immediately. So that they didn’t form a bond that would be harder to break. Sister Kendall took the child from the room. I followed her . . . I was barely coping, and dreading breaking the news to my wife. I feared for her sanity and her life.’
Another long pause as he struggled for enough breath. ‘When Sister checked the baby and wrapped her up, she . . . ‘ He hesitated, before he finished his confession in a rush, ‘She put the healthy child in my arms . . . and told me to take my daughter to my wife. And I did. I could never tell her. I feared it would break her if she knew.’
Suspicions and jigsaw puzzle pieces fell into place, and Owen struggled to determine his thoughts about his grandfather’s revelations. At one level he could grasp that the immense emotion of going straight from losing one’s own child to the birth of a healthy one, wailing with easy breaths, would undermine reasoning.
A moment’s decision in grief, and a life-long secret that could not be told. Or could it have been? Did the protection of an innocent party – a mentally fragile woman – justify the continued lie? Did the social conditions and knowledge of half a century ago mitigate the decision? He didn’t know. He couldn’t work his way through the complexities, separate logic and emotion.
‘Did your wife suspect? Is that why she left?’
Bernard shook his head. ‘She never neglected your mother. . . but she did not warm to motherhood. She was restless, always restless. When my sister came from England to visit . . . Anastacia went to Brisbane for a short break.’
And never came back. Owen knew the basics of the history from there. His mother, Marion, raised by her father and her Aunt Sophia, who married and lived nearby. Anastacia’s continued absence, her relationship with another man. Marion had never really known her, had accepted, at least as an adult, that some women were not natural mothers. And she had never been short of love.
‘Why didn’t you divorce your wife?’ he asked. Even before the no-fault divorce laws of the 1970s, Bernard could have divorced her for desertion, or adultery. But he regretted the question when his grandfather rested his head back against the pillow, clearly tiring.
‘Wedding vows,’ Bernard murmured in answer. ‘Responsible . . . In sickness and in health. Before God. She never asked . . . for divorce. She still had some episodes . . . of instability. Her partner cared for her. But not well.’
His wedding vows. Owen began to comprehend a little more of why. Why the secrecy, why for so long. How, for Bernard, honouring his wedding vows had outweighed the other competing demands on his honour.
‘She’s not still alive, is she? Anastacia?’
Another weak shake of Bernard’s head. ‘August . . . she died.’
In August. And here was Bernard, in December, revealing the long-held secret, making himself accountable by confessing to Delphi and to the police.
His grandfather gripped his hand tightly again. ‘Can’t give Philadelphia . . . her daughter. Only memories. Memories, and photos . . . and you.’
He closed his eyes, breathed out on a sigh, and his clasp loosened. For an instant, Owen’s own heart faltered in fear. But his grandfather drew breath again, evenly in and out, and his pulse rate steadied.
The relief of laying down a heavy burden, perhaps. Or of passing it to stronger shoulders. His shoulders. Just as he’d taken up the responsibility for his sister and brother after their mother died, now he had to accept responsibility for navigating the situation, the relationship, with Delphi. His grandmother. If she wanted a relationship.
‘Your mother – was she happy?’ The longing in the words, the years of not knowing . . . Delphi might not want a relationship, not an acknowledged one, but she might crave more, more information perhaps than the memories and photographs in his grandfather’s briefcase. Given his grandfather’s frailty, he would have to carry that duty for him.
He stayed with his grandfather a little while longer, mostly in silence to allow him rest, sometimes a word here and there as he offered him some water, rearranged his pillows. He stayed to assure himself that Bernard was not about to slip away, that revealing the truth had not stressed his heart too much.
When the kitchen lady brought lunch around, Owen rose to his feet and moved towards the door while she set up the tray. ‘I’d better go, Granddad. I’ll go back and see her now.’
‘Thank you, Owen. I hope one day . . . you will forgive me. For betraying your trust in me.’
Owen returned to the bedside and waited until they were alone again. ‘Granddad, it was a different time, and you only thought of others. Your whole life, you’ve put others before yourself. I’ve always loved and respected you. Nothing changes that.’
He hugged his grandfather close, and as he left the room he dashed away some moisture from his eye.
Before he left the hospital he went in search of Lissa’s room, in the other wing. A seventeen-year-old with a new-born baby. A teenager with no family support who had grown up in a welfare system still so far from perfect.
How much had really changed, in sixty years? Despite all the laws and regulations and policies, the protection of children still relied, ultimately, on those who cared for them having the decency, compassion, and the commitment to love and nurture them.
What would his mother’s fate have been if she’d gone through the adoption process? A period in a babies’ home perhaps – and there were nightmare stories about some of those emerging now – before placement with an adopting couple. Despite the vetting of those wishing to adopt, there were no guarantees. No guarantees then, and no guarantees now.
At least Lissa had the choice to keep her baby. Unlike Delphi.
But the hard truth remained that with no official register of an adoption, his grandfather’s actions had denied his mother the chance to meet her natural mother, and denied Delphi the chance to know her daughter.
When he knocked on the door of Lissa’s room he found her dressed and in an armchair, the baby contentedly asleep in her arms. Her friend Megan – the teenager from the pub, Gillespie’s daughter – sat with her, the two of them deep in adoration of the baby.
Lissa greeted him with a shy smile. ‘Doctor Morag said we can be discharged tomorrow. I’m going to stay with Megan and her Grandma for a little while. I’m very lucky, very grateful to them.’
‘Grandma was a mothercraft nurse,’ Megan added. ‘She knows about babies. She said it was a long time ago, but that babies haven’t changed.’
Some of the theories might have changed, but Owen kept that thought to himself. The calm and experience of a mothercraft nurse would be a good support for Lissa as she learned to care for her child. ‘I’m glad you have things sorted out. All the best, Lissa. She’s a beautiful little girl.’
In the carpark Angie’s mother Nancy and Jeanie unloaded several shopping bags from the car, although Jeanie had her phone to her ear, her face creased with concern. She signalled him to stop when she saw him. ‘Could you go and check the woolshed, Angie?’ she said into the phone. ‘And see if the quad bike is in the machinery shed? Hold on a minute – Owen’s here.’ She didn’t lower the phone as she asked him, ‘How was Delphi when you left her, Owen? Did she say anything about where she was going? She hasn’t answered her phone for hours.’
Delphi missing. He tried to recall what she’d said earlier. ‘She said she had to fix some fencing.’ Would that take hours? He had no clue. ‘But she was a bit shaken. I didn’t understand why, then. Now I do. I’m on my way back there.’
‘Good. I’ll go with you.’ She spoke directly into the phone again as she passed her car keys to Nancy, ‘Angie, we’ll be there soon. Your Mum can bring my car later, when she’s finished here. If you can check the sheds and the garden, we’ll meet you at the house in half an hour or so.’
Half an hour for fifty-five kilometres? Mostly long straight road, so doable. Jeanie buckled herself into his passenger seat quickly, urgency holding her tense. Her concern for her friend made him more worried, too. All going well, Angie would have found her by the time they arrived. But if not . . . With the wind and the heat and the dust, it wasn’t a good day for an older woman to be missing.
As he turned on to the main road, Jeanie said frankly, without beating around the bush, ‘I know that Delphi gave up a baby for adoption, when she was very young, And you’re the image of her brother, Patrick. I knew him well. I can put two and two together, so you’d better tell me the rest. You and Delphi can trust my discretion. I’ve known her for more than fifty years.’
He hoped he could trust her discretion, because as the kilometres sped by, he outlined the history. Delphi might never want it publicly known that she’d borne a child, and he understood and respected that.
He didn’t exceed the speed limit often because the wind still blew strongly, dust swirled in the air, and every kilometre or so leaf debris or tree branches littered the road. At one point an SES crew worked to clear a fallen tree, its huge trunk straddling the road with debris spread over a large area from the impact of its fall. They’d cleared a narrow track, and Owen had to edge through it, slowly and carefully.
Jeanie made few comments and asked only a couple of questions as he related what Bernard had told him. He didn’t gloss over or gild his grandfather’s actions. He doubted Bernard would want him to.
Some of his unease must have shown, because when he finished Jeanie said gently, ‘Don’t judge him too harshly, Owen. Those were different times, different understandings of adoption. We know how problematic it can be now, but back then, many adopted children were never told of their origin by their adoptive parents. And for mothers giving up their babies, it was expected to be forever. Reunions only became possible in the 1970s.’
‘Mum was never adopted,’ he pointed out. ‘She was registered at birth as their child.’
‘That and similar things happened a lot more than you might think. Even in small communities.’
Something in her tone made him think that she held some of those secrets. A compassionate woman, grounded in good sense – yes, she would be the type of woman others confided in.
She’d checked her phone frequently, holding it to the window for reception for much of the trip.
‘Have you always worked at the pub?’ he asked, in an attempt to distract her from worrying.
‘No. I had the service station and café until recently, but a fire destroyed it.’
Which must be why she was staying with Delphi. ‘That cleared block across the road from the pub? Was that it?’
‘Yes. I’m a little old to start all over again, but we’re working on a plan to rebuild it. The town needs a fuel station.’
Owen glanced at his fuel gauge. He’d have to remember to fill up next time he drove to Birraga.
A fire tanker overtook him as smoke mixed with the dust haze, tinging the air an orange brown against the blue of the sky. A burning leaf blew against his windscreen.
‘There’s a fire to the north,’ Jeanie said. ‘They’ll have a hard time controlling it today. I’ll go down to the RFS shed just as soon as we know Delphi’s okay.’ She pointed towards a gate up ahead. ‘That’s her place there.’
Angie’s ute was over in the working area by the garage, next to Delphi’s. She came around from the back as he pulled up in front of the house, her hair tucked up under a broad-brimmed hat, a cotton work shirt over moleskins and boots.
‘No sign of her yet,’ Angie told them. ‘Her quad bike’s gone, so she could be anywhere on the place.’
Owen looked out over the paddocks, the pockets of forest here and there, the low hills to the east and south, the snaking line of trees in the distance, and the glint of a dam. ‘How large is her property?’
‘Four thousand hectares,’ Jeanie replied. ‘Ten thousand acres.’
Neither measurement helped him envision the area, but they had to mean a few kilometres. Not a small place.
Movement caught his eye, in grass down beyond the garage. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. An animal, jerky in its motion. A dog, limping heavily.
Angie set off towards it, and he followed.
Delphi’s cattle dog. Angie dropped to her knee and it approached her cautiously. Owen held back a little so as not to scare it.
‘He’s hurt,’ she said over her shoulder to him, as she carefully felt over the dog. It flinched and growled when she touched the hip, but permitted the examination, and even from a couple of metres away Owen saw the bleeding lacerations on its side.
Angie’s face held nothing of her usual lightness when she turned to him. ‘We’ll have to take him up to the house then go and look for Delphi. If the dog’s this badly hurt, chances are she’s hurt, somewhere, too.’