The first part of the drive was four hours down the winding highway that passed through Bathurst and then rose up and up through the Blue Mountains. After the climb and descent, the road opened up like a river reaching its delta, and Rachael entered the motorway hell of Sydney. Her plan had been to start early, get there, do what she had to, and be home by five, but the traffic had other ideas. She spent two hours crawling along the first motorway because of a truck accident, or so said a glowing sign that she read twenty times before she crept past it. Once that was done with, she mistook the directions in her GPS, whose maps clearly hadn’t been updated since 2003. Soon she was seeing signs to the airport, which was completely the wrong side of the city.
Another two hours passed in further misadventures, one including an unexpected tunnel, until Rachael was nearly in tears. When she finally saw and crossed the Harbor Bridge heading north, she would have cheered if her mission hadn’t been so cheerless.
Finally, she turned onto a street where heavy brick pillars, manicured hedges, and lush gardens concealed the harborside mansions within. Learning the right address hadn’t been easy; Sammy would have been horrified if she’d known what Rachael had done to get it.
She was hoping—counting on, in fact—that neither Bonnie nor Matthew was home. They were supposed to be on their honeymoon. Rachael tried not to think about how that was going. Was Bonnie pretending nothing had happened? Was Matthew?
The fence at her destination was an orderly row of slender iron spikes, as if a phalanx of soldiers had gone on a tea break and left their spears behind. The grass verge was as plush and spotless as a green rug, silencing Rachael’s steps as she padded from the curb to the gate. Her heart thumped, not least because the rooftops almost looked fortified, as if snipers were targeting her. But she had to do this.
Set into the side of the gate was a security intercom with a camera lens and a single stainless-steel button. She pressed it.
“Name and appointment?” A man’s voice, bored.
“I don’t have one. I just have a package—”
Click.
Rachael waited, but nothing happened. She pushed the button again.
“No access without an appointment,” the man said. “Packages are not received at the house. We call police for repeated—”
“It’s Rachael West.”
Silence, but no click. The man was still listening.
“I want to pay back the money,” Rachael rushed on. “For the trip to Paris. I have it here for Bonnie right now, and I was wondering if I could leave it—”
“No access without an appointment.” Click.
The old Rachael wouldn’t have pressed that button again. Hell, the old Rachael would never have come in the first place. She would have accepted the obstacle and endured it, while wishing that things had gone differently.
Her fingertip blanched as she mashed the button a third time. The new Rachael knew this was the right thing to do, and she was determined to do it, no matter how uncomfortable it made her.
“We call the police for persistent entry attempts without an appointment. Please leave now.” Click.
Rachael fingered the thick packet in her hand. She couldn’t see a mailbox. Should she leave it on top of the intercom and hope someone picked it up and gave it to Bonnie? Knowing her luck, they’d think she was planting some kind of bomb and then she’d be on the national evening news. Wouldn’t that be a fabulous development.
She’d assumed the repayment would be welcome, justified, even necessary. Now, she realized that from the security people’s perspective, she probably looked like just another unwanted caller—a canvasser, admirer, or any other time waster. They probably had a dozen every week.
Embarrassed, she slunk back to her car and drove away. Desperation and conviction had made her foolish. She could have saved herself the trip.
* * *
Rachael didn’t make it home until midnight. She spent the next two days cleaning the planting equipment and doing all the postplant chores. After that, she peeled four notes off the pile she’d intended for Bonnie and sent Joel, Tess, and baby Georgia away for a break, promising to mind Felix and Emily. For once, Tess accepted without a fight.
The next afternoon, Rachael and the kids were trudging back from the waterhole through the freshly planted fields. Well, Rachael was trudging. The kids were running while she called after them to walk in the tramlines and avoid compacting the seed. It was Emily who spotted the glinting windscreen coming up the drive.
When the car came into view it looked distinctly out of place: low-slung, black, and sleek, gliding on flawless suspension even on the rutted driveway. Dragging a dust cloud, it vanished behind the house.
Rachael’s stomach dived. Who was it? Had Bonnie’s security people tracked her all the way back from Sydney? She glanced at the children; they were tired and dirty and needed a bath. Should she tell them to go hide in the shed?
“Who’s that?” asked Emily.
A figure had appeared on the verandah: a tall woman in flowing white trousers and a Prussian blue tank top. Despite the warmth of the afternoon, a cold horror gripped Rachael between her ribs. It could only be Bonnie.
“Let’s go and have some lemonade,” she said bravely, which was enough for the children to find a burst of energy up the hill.
“Hello!” Felix called toward Bonnie as the two of them hurtled into the house, slamming the screen door in their haste to reach the fridge.
Rachael slowed to a stop, knowing how she must look. She was dressed in cutoff shorts, muddy boots, and an old holey tank top, and had three wet towels over her shoulder. She’d raked her hair back into a band and knew the top was all lumpy and the short underneath escaping. Her face was red, and dust clung to her damp legs. Bonnie looked ready for a runway; Rachael was only fit to bed down in a sheep pen.
“Hi,” she said, before an awkward silence. “Do you want to come inside?”
Bonnie glanced toward the house. “Are those your cousins?”
“Niece and nephew. I’m looking after them while my sister and her husband have a break.”
Bonnie shaded her eyes. “Will they be all right by themselves? I’d like to talk to you alone.”
The children didn’t care, especially when Rachael allowed them to put on Toy Story and take the lemonade bottle into the TV room. Tess would never know.
Rachael led Bonnie into the lounge, which seemed so worn and diminished in her presence. For moral support, Rachael sat in her mother’s chair, heedless of how dirty she was. Bonnie seemed to consider before she folded her long legs to sit on the facing couch and tucked her ankles underneath. She’d refused tea, and Rachael noticed the big engagement ring was loose on her finger. She made her own hands into fists to stop herself from chewing her grubby nails.
“I guess you must have heard about my coming to Sydney,” she began. “I wanted—”
“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”
Rachael fell silent.
“I’m a direct person,” Bonnie went on. “That’s how I run my business. So I’ll be direct. How much do you want?”
Rachael blinked. “What?”
“How much do you want? You’ll have to sign a nondisclosure, of course. I told Matthew we should have done this in Paris, but he said the whole thing was his fault.”
Bonnie made it sound as if she was talking about Matthew dropping his socks on the floor instead of his nearly running out on their wedding. It took Rachael an age to realize what she meant.
“I don’t want your money!” she said. “I came to give it back, not ask for it.”
Confusion knitted the space between Bonnie’s perfect brows. “Give it back?”
“I didn’t want you paying for my trip after what happened. Look, I’ll go and get it now.”
Rachael jumped up and made an undignified exit by tripping on the carpet edge. The packet was still in the top drawer in her room, crumpled and looking like a bribe in a cop drama. She managed not to trip on the way back, and held the money out to Bonnie.
“That’s all of it, except a few hundred I gave to my sister. I’ll put that back when I can get to a bank again.”
Slowly, Bonnie took the envelope and folded it in her palm. The confusion lifted, replaced with a small smile. “Richard must have misunderstood. I have to admit I was surprised. I didn’t think you were that kind of person.”
“I’m not,” Rachael said, but softly, because she didn’t feel she had the right to protest anything Bonnie might think of her. She sat down again. “Bonnie, I’m really sorry. I know it doesn’t make it better, but I am.”
Bonnie didn’t meet Rachael’s eyes. The words seemed to glance off her as she gazed out the window. “I suppose I should have come out here years ago,” she said. “Matthew offered enough times. It’s pretty.”
“You should see it next week when the wheat comes up.” Rachael’s voice was rough. Sadness had wedged in her throat like a sharp stone. Her apology had meant nothing. How could it?
Bonnie stood as if she was leaving, then turned back. “He’s my husband, Rachael. He was before we left Sydney. I’m not going to be another celebrity couple divorced after forty-eight hours and give people more reasons to talk about us. I believe in letting people redeem themselves. He can do that. And that’s as much as I’ll say to you about my marriage.”
Rachael was about to apologize again, to say any number of platitudes she’d carefully practiced before going to Sydney, but they all died in her throat. She could see the hurt in Bonnie’s eyes. No matter how much money Bonnie had, how many fancy clothes, she was as vulnerable to love as anyone else. And Matthew was hers now—her love, and her problem, in whatever balance those things would be. Rachael’s time with him had ended long ago, and the moments in Paris had been stolen from some other life that wasn’t hers. She found no peace in the realization, but it did allow her to understand what wouldn’t help.
“I’d say I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she told Bonnie, “but my mother would have said that’s a cop-out, because hurting other people is always the last thing we think of when we’re only thinking of ourselves. And that’s what I was doing. I wanted to believe I could do my life over. But I can’t. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I liked you. I still do.”
Bonnie turned the packet over in her fingers. “I’m sorry she died. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been, and what you did for her. Matthew told me about it, and I try to remember that. I try.”
Rachael stood as a blast of Woody and Buzz echoed from the TV room. This felt final. She could only hope that, in time, Bonnie could forgive her . . . or perhaps forget her.
Bonnie handed the money back. “I don’t want it. Take it for fixing the dress. Then that’s the end of it.”
After a pause, Rachael took it, and followed her as far as the front door. The sky had come over heavy with clouds, and in the diminished light Bonnie’s Audi gleamed like a rough gem under its coat of dust. Rachael glimpsed the cream leather of the interior as Bonnie opened the driver’s door.
She pushed a pair of sunglasses onto her face. “I liked you too,” she said.
After she’d gone, Rachael went back inside and cried in the hallway. Toy Story was still running, both children sprawled on beanbags, immobile and unblinking. Rachael’s mind was similarly occupied, busy replaying the conversation with Bonnie and unable to complete other tasks, like thinking what to do next.
Eventually, she peeled the children away from the closing credits and into the bath. She kept hearing Bonnie saying she believed in letting people redeem themselves. That had been in her mind when she’d tried to return the money, but maybe she had to go further. She paced about the house, thinking it over.
After the children were asleep, she went into the study and took out a block of writing paper. Her hand had cramped by the time she’d finished the two letters, and rain was spitting down over the fields.
During the night, a storm drummed on the roof and lightning photoflashed outside the window. Rachael opened the curtains and listened to the water tumbling through the blackness. A literal watershed. The letters would mark the end of the Paris chapter. She would never forget what had happened there, and she must endure it. Just as her mother had endured her father pushing off, and her illness, and everything else. Endured it because there was no other choice.
The last thing she did before sleep was to tiptoe out to the sewing table, which, after her frenzy before the Paris trip, was buried under threads and offcuts. She bagged all the excess fabric, repacked the boxes, and defluffed and oiled the machines. In a few months, the school or the theater would be looking for costumes again.
She sighed, pushing away the memory of Martine’s studio in Paris. If she thought too much about it, she would start wondering if this tiny corner—in this house, in the world—could ever be enough.
* * *
Tess and Joel returned at lunchtime the next day. Rachael instantly noticed the difference in Tess, who appeared calmer, unpacking the car with no sign of impatience. She was soon drawing out of the children what they’d been doing in her absence.
“Aunty Rachael took us to town and bought us cream buns,” put in Felix.
“Felix!” hissed Rachael, utterly betrayed.
Her nephew put a contrite finger to his lips as if he’d forgotten it was meant to be a secret.
“Well, weren’t you lucky,” Tess said, much to Rachael’s surprise.
“A white lady came to see Aunty Rachael too,” Emily said.
Tess raised her eyebrows.
“Bonnie,” Rachael said quickly.
“Why would she come here?”
Rachael then had to explain to Tess about her attempt to return the Paris trip money. They sat in the family room, and Tess listened without making any comments.
“How did you even know where they live?” she asked finally.
Rachael blushed. “I, um, asked Peter.”
“And he just told you?”
“Not exactly.”
In fact, Peter had been extremely reluctant to talk to Rachael. She’d managed it only because she’d turned up at AgriBest and caught him alone in the warehouse. She’d told him that she just wanted to return the money, and when he still said no, that it wasn’t worth his life to tell her where Matthew lived, she’d had to imply what she knew about him and Sammy. It wasn’t her proudest moment, but she’d left with the address.
Tess sighed. “I can understand your wanting to, but was that really the best way to go about it? You could have been arrested or something.”
“For what? Besides, she wouldn’t take it.”
“Humph,” Tess said, but with none of the judgment Rachael had come to expect. “Well, you tried, and I’m sure the money is better put to use out here.”
She broke off as the children came in to go through the carrier bags, demanding to know if there were any presents.
“Did you do your chores?” Tess asked them.
“Yes,” they chorused.
She nodded, and didn’t even react when Felix tugged on Rachael’s hand and asked if they could watch another movie. Tess simply stuck the baby on her hip and shooed Emily and Felix into the spare room to check their bed making, telling them they could have more movies if everything was in order.
Rachael stared after them. Just as she was thinking that now would be the time to talk to Tess about her own farm, when she was in such a good mood, the phone rang in the study. When Rachael heard “It’s me,” from Sammy, she pushed the door closed.
“How’s babysitting?” Sammy asked, so brightly that Rachael instantly knew something was wrong.
“What happened?”
“I told Marty,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’m sitting in an empty shed.”
Rachael knew this wasn’t a conversation for the phone. “Come over,” she said.
“Isn’t your sister still there?”
“Yeah, but I need to check the fields after the storm. We can do the rounds.”
An hour later, Sammy and Rachael trekked slowly down the rows, the pickup parked on the hill, Sammy huddled behind her sunglasses. Rachael had her eyes open for standing water that might kill the seeds. So far this section seemed fine, which was more than could be said for Sammy.
“The instant I told him, I regretted it,” she said. “I know what I did was awful, but now he has to live with it too. And what about . . . ?” She gestured helplessly to her middle.
“Peter wouldn’t be any help?”
“Complete radio silence.”
“Do you know where Marty went?”
Sammy shrugged. “When he didn’t come back yesterday, I checked the credit card. He bought fuel in Bathurst, and went to a café near Katoomba, so I guess he’s heading east. He won’t answer his phone. Must have been a hell of a shock—I didn’t think he’d go that far for anything—and he left a mess when he packed.”
“I’ll come and help you clean up,” Rachael said. “And stay so you’re not by yourself.”
Rachael didn’t know why, but Sammy abruptly stopped and spun toward the house, her hand held up against the glare. Rachael followed her gaze and found her mother’s tree, standing alone at the top of the hill.
“Come on,” she said, dragging Sammy by the hand to another tree nearby. “Let’s get out of the sun. I need to ask you a few things.”
They hauled themselves up on a low branch, just as Rachael had when she was a child. Those times felt so long ago.
“First, have you been to the doc?”
Sammy pulled a face. “No. Been too much of a coward.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Maybe,” she said in a small voice. Her lip trembled. “I was hoping that maybe Marty would, but that’s just wishful thinking now, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Sam.”
A cloud rushed across the sun and the sky momentarily dimmed, before the dappled brilliance lit through the leaves again.
“But you want to stay with Marty? And you want the baby?” Rachael asked.
Sammy nodded. “I don’t know if I can do anything to convince him to come back, or to ever make it right again.”
They sat in silence.
Finally, Sammy said, “Rach, do you wish you had run away with Matthew? What would you have done if you hadn’t found out about him being married?”
Rachael’s shoulders twitched as if hundreds of tiny creatures were crawling over her skin just thinking about if she’d learned that information later. “No idea. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
Sammy grunted. “Because the present moment is more powerful than tomorrow. Been there.” She slid down to the ground. “There’s one thing I didn’t mention.”
“What’s that?”
“When Marty left, he said, ‘I need some time to think about all this.’ That doesn’t sound like he’s absolutely decided not to come back, does it?”
“Sounds encouraging,” Rachael said, though she didn’t dare suggest that everything would be fine. Instead, she hugged Sammy and told her to call anytime.
* * *
Rachael went back to the fields. With each step, dozens of what ifs streaked through her thoughts like shooting stars.
When the sun had sunk and she was returning to the house, a real shooting star burst overhead, a match struck on the heavens right above the tree on the rise.
In that moment, she knew the farm would never be enough.