Olivia looked out the window as they drove down the main street of Rankins Springs. It hadn’t changed much—who was she kidding, it never changed. She’d love to see some of the shops open again. In other parts of the state there was a push to revamp small country towns and she hoped that one day this momentum would reach her home town.
It hadn’t been that long since she’d been back home—only a few months—but it felt a lot longer after the trauma of the past couple of weeks.
Ollie had decided to go home to get started on harvesting. There was nothing he could do in Sydney and, unfortunately, the season didn’t allow for family emergencies, it just rolled on relentlessly. If they missed the window for harvesting the canola and wheat, it would be a waste of a whole season’s work, not to mention the money they’d lose.
Her grandfather had bought the property after the Second World War and named it Moorbrook after the village he had left behind in England. It had been a sheep property for most of its life, growing wool, but after years of drought Bill Dawson, along with most property owners in the district, had replaced the wool with crops.
Although there was never a good time for something like this to happen, their father’s accident couldn’t have come at a worse one. Ollie had tried to downplay the situation, but it was clear that Moorbrook would struggle if they couldn’t get the crop in.
‘I’m going to take a few weeks off and go home with you,’ Olivia had announced a few days earlier.
Ollie had looked at her doubtfully, and instantly Olivia had straightened her shoulders. ‘What? I spent my fair share of time in a tractor. I’m pretty sure I can remember how to do it.’
‘You can’t take off time from your job, love,’ her mum had said.
‘Yes, I can.’ In fact, she was pretty sure her boss would think it was an excellent idea to have some time away in order to get her head and priorities sorted. She’d taken some personal leave as soon as she’d heard about her dad’s accident and had popped back into the office to deal with some minor emergencies, but she didn’t have anything pressing to deal with so there was nothing stopping her from taking time off. She hadn’t given any more thought to the boardroom disaster of a few days earlier—almost losing her father had put life firmly in perspective—but maybe getting back to her roots would give her a chance to figure out what she wanted. ‘Look, Ollie needs help. He can’t manage the farm and the books. Dad’s just going to stress over it and that won’t do him any good. I’m an extra pair of hands we don’t have to pay and I can handle the bookwork side of things. It makes perfect sense.’
It had taken a day or so before she’d managed to convince them, then they’d organised for Sue’s sister to come down and stay in Olivia’s flat with her mother—if for no other reason than to offer some company—and Olivia had finished up a few last-minute work tasks before they’d left early for the drive back to Moorbrook.
Unlike their neighbours the Callahans, with their two sons, the Dawsons didn’t have as much manpower to rely on, so Olivia had often pitched in. In her younger days she’d loved it; during her teenage years, not so much. As the idea of returning home to help Ollie had begun to unfold, she’d started to think a lot about those early days. Maybe the shock of almost losing her dad had prompted these sudden wistful memories. When she was little she’d loved helping her father. Those days had been some of the happiest of her childhood. She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d lost interest in it all … but she had. Instead of racing Ollie outside and fighting over who got to sit beside Dad, she’d started to drag her feet and need to be coaxed into helping. Of course she did it—there was never any real choice: if you were needed, you helped. There were lots of times when the whole family put in extra hours to feed cattle or drive a truck when things got busy. But once she’d started high school, the days of helping around the farm simply because she wanted to had ended.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Ollie asked, dragging her back to the present as they drove through town.
Olivia turned away from the window and raised an eyebrow at her brother. ‘It’s a bit late to ask me that now, don’t you think?’
‘I can get help. There’re always fellas looking to pick up extra cash around the place, and I know Griff would lend a hand. I’d manage.’
‘I know you would. But the Callahans are busy with their own place, and I don’t see why you should have to stress over all this when I’m capable of helping.’ She knew that at this time of the year help wouldn’t be easy to find, but he was clearly trying to play down the seriousness of the situation.
‘I feel like there’s more to it,’ he said after a moment of silence.
Olivia turned away. Her twin brother still knew her better than anyone else. She had watched the Callahan siblings growing up, and even though they were a close family, they didn’t have the same closeness she and Ollie had. They fought just like the Callahan kids, but at the end of the day they were always best friends. It was a special bond they shared. ‘I just wanted a break for a bit. Is that too much to ask?’
‘All right,’ he said, his tone indicating he was backing off. ‘I just think it’s strange, that’s all. But I’m glad you’re here.’
She reached across and gave his hand a squeeze. ‘It’ll be okay. You’ll get the harvesting done and Dad’s going to be fine.’
She saw him swallow hard then give a hasty nod. ‘Yeah. Of course.’
It had been hard on Ollie. Not only had he suddenly had the responsibility of running this place thrust on his shoulders, but he’d had his own distress to face, from dealing with the accident. She could only imagine the terror he must have felt upon discovering their father trapped under that tractor. But he’d remained calm, and his actions—giving first aid and calling for help—had saved their father’s life. Olivia thought there had been a cost, though: Ollie was in survival mode, his emotions shut down so he could cope. She didn’t know what would happen when those emotions forced their way to the surface to be dealt with.
‘Hey, how are the Callahans going?’ she asked, to change the topic and take Ollie’s mind off things.
‘They’re okay.’
‘I know Hadley was really worried about Griff and Linc there for a while.’
‘Yeah, that was some heavy stuff that went down.’
‘So how’s Griff dealing with it all now?’ She tried to keep the exasperation from her voice but, seriously, it was like pulling teeth trying to get information out of the men around here.
Ollie gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘He doesn’t really talk about it.’
‘Because it’s not like anything major happened … he just got into a fist fight with his brother at his sister’s wedding.’ If she hadn’t been talking to Hadley over the last few months, she’d probably believed it had been nothing, listening to her brother brush it off so calmly.
‘Linc and Griff have had stuff brewing for a long time. It was bound to happen sooner or later.’
‘Linc completely lost control, Ollie. It was a lot more than two guys blowing off steam. Griff could have been killed, and he was really badly hurt. Surely he must have talked about it?’
‘There wasn’t anything to talk about. Everyone knows Linc only did it because he was messed up from combat. Griff knows it wasn’t about him.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, how do you really know he’s okay with it? Did you ask him how was feeling?’
She heard her brother give a brief snort. ‘We’re guys. We don’t ask about how we’re feeling, Liv.’
‘He’s your best friend.’
‘Yeah. And he’s okay with things. It’s over and done with. There’s no point talking it to death.’ He took his eyes briefly from the road to shoot her a stern glance. ‘And don’t go getting any ideas about stirring things up either. It’s done and dusted and doesn’t need to be brought back up.’
‘As if I would,’ she said, giving an annoyed click of her tongue.
His doubtful grunt told her he wasn’t entirely convinced, but he needn’t have worried—they had enough of their own problems without taking on their neighbours’ family drama on top of it all. It was, however, a stark reminder of that stoic she’ll-be-right attitude people lived by out here. It really needed to change. It was one thing to get on with the job at hand; it was another thing altogether to just ignore emotions like grief and loneliness and stress. Preaching about it to Ollie wasn’t going to change anything, though; he never took anything she said seriously. It drove her mad. It was a relief when they approached the familiar turn-off and the house appeared at the end of the driveway.
The Federation-style home had been built by the original owners, before her family had bought it, and it always reminded Olivia of a fairytale cottage from a storybook. The peaked roof, wraparound verandah and original fittings gave the house an olden-day charm. Her mother’s rose garden, tucked in behind a white picket fence, was the only lush growth for miles. Out the back, her parents had splurged on an in-ground pool and it was a stark contrast to the traditional look of the front of the house. It made life bearable, though, in the hot summers out here and featured in almost every happy family memory Olivia had.
It was weird not to see her parents coming out to greet them as they pulled up.
The two of them carried the luggage inside and Olivia walked down the long hallway, the timber floorboards gleaming under her feet, to drop her bags inside her old room. It was still painted candyfloss pink, a present her parents had given her for her fourteenth birthday—a whole bedroom makeover. She glanced down at her bags and decided to deal with them later. It had been a long drive and she really didn’t feel like unpacking just yet.
Ollie left straightaway to meet with the financial broker to sort out the insurance on the tractor their father had rolled, while Olivia busied herself getting the house back in order. She looked over at the dishes still in the sink, imagining her mother washing them up, then interrupted by the radio call from Ollie after finding their father. She quickly blinked back tears as she forced away the image and got to work.
She loved her mother’s kitchen. It brought back so many memories every time she walked into the room. The high ceilings made it feel spacious and airy, and large windows overlooking the pool area let in plenty of bright, natural light. A few years earlier her parents had decided to renovate, painting the tongue-and-groove timber walls a soft blue. Her mother had always had a great eye for colour, and the various shades of blue throughout the room, ranging from the palest robin’s egg to denim, teamed with white, gave the kitchen a fresh country feel.
Although there was a separate dining room, it was only used when they had guests or for Christmas dinners. The kitchen table was where the majority of their meals were eaten, and it was the heart of the house. Olivia lightly ran her fingers across the table and smiled. This was where she and Ollie had done their homework, while their mother prepared dinner each day. After-school snacks had been eaten here and school projects had come to life with glue and paper and paints scattered across its gleaming timber top.
She felt a quiver run through her as she thought back to the bright hospital lights and her father’s pale face. There was so much uncertainty hanging over them. Her dad was a proud man, self-reliant and used to hard work. Being stuck in a hospital bed, dependent on other people to help him with even the most basic things, wouldn’t be easy for him.
It felt so strange being in this house without her parents—as if the heart and soul of the place was missing. Olivia shook her head. This wasn’t helping anything. She had to stay strong for Ollie’s sake. If she fell apart, she’d be no good to him, and right now he needed her to be strong.
Squaring her shoulders, Olivia set about cooking meals to freeze in preparation for the long days and nights of harvesting ahead. The last thing she’d feel like doing after a long working day would be cooking dinner, and it helped take her mind of all their problems for a while.