She found Tess in the kitchen, stirring a pot, while the children chased each other around the TV room.
“Bloody hell, where have you been?” Tess said when Rachael appeared, then took in her wet hair. “Oh, I see. The rest of us have to work, but you can take off to go swimming and just mosey on back when you like.”
For the first time, Rachael didn’t feel anything at the cutting tone. She saw the fear in Tess reemerging and understood it. Really understood it.
“Could you leave that a minute and come into the lounge? I need to talk to you and Joel.”
Rachael didn’t wait for an answer. She found Joel scrubbing his hands in the laundry. Two minutes later he and Tess were seated on the couch. Tess folded her arms.
“I went through some of Mum’s things today,” Rachael began. She’d decided not to mention the letter. She might one day, but Tess would probably find it hurtful if she hadn’t had one too. “She had a huge collection of lace and buttons and other things, and some photos of her time overseas.”
“Great,” Tess said. “I’m glad we’re finally getting to clearing out. How can I help?”
Rachael almost smiled. She tried to choose her next words carefully.
“It’s not about that. Look, you guys like this place, don’t you? I know you have your farm, but I’m sensing you might not be keen to go back there.”
Tess shot Joel a look. “You told her, didn’t you?”
Obviously Rachael hadn’t been careful enough.
“Not everything,” Joel protested. “Just didn’t want Rach thinking—”
“What?” Tess demanded.
Rachael couldn’t believe she’d ever missed it. Tess wasn’t just scared and angry, she was embarrassed. She didn’t want Rachael to know their farm was in trouble, that they were trying to sell. Tess, who’d always wanted to be a farmer’s wife, who had made it happen, and now had three children to think about. Tess, who thought she was going to lose all that and instead have to watch Rachael keep their family farm, all because she was the one who’d left with their father all those years ago.
Rachael held up her hand. “I’m glad Joel said something. You’re looking to sell, right?”
Tess glared at Joel. “Didn’t say much, huh?”
“Do you want to move here?” Rachael asked. “I’ll sell this place to you for whatever you get for yours. We’re turning a profit most years. Not always a big one, but still.”
Tess’s expression was genuinely shocked. Then came disbelief, joy, and denial in a series of microflashes, in that order. She wouldn’t give in to hope so easily.
“And how is that going to work? You’ll get sick of the kids after a while.”
Rachael glanced down, then out the window. This was hard for her to say, despite how right it felt.
“I’m going away. I’d love to come back to visit, but . . . I want to do other things.” She dropped her voice. “I stayed for ten years with Mum. This part of my life is done. It’s not for me.”
Tess was silent. Really silent, in a way she never ever was, for a whole minute, until Rachael wondered if she’d misunderstood.
“Are you really sure?” she said finally, her voice meek and trembling with possibility.
Rachael nodded, then stood. “You’ll want to talk about it. I’ll go and wash up.”
She got a towel and ruffled the rest of the water from her hair. The bob had grown out just enough to catch it in a band behind her head. With her hair pulled back she looked grim, so she shook it out again and let the drying ends crinkle against her neck. There, better. Now she looked as she felt—light, free, and a little ragged around the edges.
What would she do if Tess said no? This whole madcap plan of hers could fall over before it even got going.
She found the abandoned pot in the kitchen—stroganoff, Joel’s favorite—relit the gas, and checked on the rice. Unexpectedly, a pair of arms flew around her from behind, and she smelled the faint trace of shampoo on Tess’s hair. Her sister hugged her hard, longer than any time Rachael could remember in their lives. Rachael stopped stirring and held the arm she could reach, almost scared that moving would frighten Tess and the moment would collapse.
Tess finally pulled away, sniffling. She wiped under her eyes and dabbed a tissue to her nose. Rachael had never seen her hardy, sharp-edged sister this way, except that glimpse in their mother’s wardrobe last year.
“Where will you go?” Tess asked. “Sydney?”
Rachael laughed. “No way. Europe, I think. I want to make dresses. I don’t even know how to begin, but that’s what I want.”
She waited for a sharp comment, for remonstrations, but Tess simply looked thoughtful.
“What about the travel agent in Parkes? They would help. And you know Dad’s mum was Irish—you should see if you can get an Irish passport.”
“How do you know that?” Rachael asked, astonished.
Tess shrugged. “Dad loves talking about the family tree, which is funny because he hasn’t shown much interest in his grandchildren yet. But Felix and Emily’s friends all seem to have grandparents, so I thought they should at least hear me talk about him now and again, even though ‘Grandma’ isn’t much older than us.”
Tess glanced out the window toward their mother’s tree, now a silhouette against the last of the twilight.
“I missed her when I left,” Tess said softly. “I missed here. I missed you both.”
“Why did you go, then? I never understood it. Mum was heartbroken.”
Tess closed her eyes and shook her head gently as if Rachael understood precisely nothing. “I thought that if I didn’t, Dad wouldn’t love me anymore. Mum, I was sure of. I knew she loved me. But I thought I’d lose Dad if I didn’t go with him. So I did.” She shrugged. “Look how that turned out. If I had my time again—”
“Don’t,” Rachael said, putting her arms back around Tess. “Don’t do that. Just make the best of tomorrow. I’ll need to hear all about it when I’m gone.”
Tess straightened. “Suppose we’d better eat this dinner then.”
Rachael knew her sister wouldn’t say anything more, it wasn’t in her nature, but she could see contentment settling in her. Cautiously, because Tess didn’t count chickens, but settling all the same.
* * *
At dinner, Tess and Joel asked Felix and Emily if they’d like to live here.
Rachael watched their disbelief become excitement, then the bargaining that ensued about who would have what room, while the baby threw rice on the floor. Rachael was full of happy dread: she wanted to go, and yet never leave. When Felix started to say that Emily could have Aunty Rachael’s room, and Tess swiftly told him, “No, Aunty Rachael needs her room for when she visits us,” she had to get up from the table to fetch some water, so they wouldn’t all see her crying about it.
After dinner, she told Tess and Joel to leave the washing up. Slowly, she cleared the kitchen, putting away each dish in its proper place, saying goodbye to them too. When she next came back, who knew how Tess would have organized things? It was her sister’s place now.
The clock showed nine thirty when she finished. The children were all asleep, and Joel and Tess had turned in too. Rachael opened the back door and stood among the gardenias at the edge of the verandah. She caught a waft of familiar scent. One creamy flower had opened in the center of the row. She bent and trailed a finger along its silken petals. Her acrylics might be gone, but her nails were smooth. She hadn’t bitten them in days. Sammy would be proud of her.
Her mobile buzzed and Sammy’s face appeared on the screen.
“Hey,” Rachael said. “I was going to call you tomorrow morning.”
“Why are you whispering?”
Rachael smiled—at the great fields running into the darkling sky, at the hidden waterhole and its memories, at the scent of gardenias; the joys of a home she would leave and yet carry with her everywhere. The idea was a just-lit flame, vulnerable to disturbance.
“Everyone’s asleep,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I actually have something to tell you, and I’m not sure you’ll be happy about it.”
In fact, Rachael was deeply worried. Sammy was at a low point and her instincts said this wasn’t the time to be going away. But perhaps there would never be a good time.
“I’m selling the farm to Tess and Joel, and I’m going overseas, at least for a while.”
Rachael thought Sammy’s exclamation was probably audible at the Dish. It took five minutes to explain that she didn’t have any details yet, but hoped to go for six months, maybe longer if she could find some work and top up her savings.
Sammy was silent for a time when Rachael had finished. Finally, she said, “I’m completely jealous. But it sounds like something you need to do. You’ll probably meet some gorgeous prince and he’ll whisk you away.”
“Yeah, right.” Rachael laughed, but she was done with the idea of being whisked away. “But you called me. How are you?”
“Well . . .” That one word was stuffed with relief and hope and a dozen other things. “I have something to tell you.”
“Mmm?”
“Marty called from Sydney. I don’t want to pretend things are great. But he’s coming back. That’s something, right?”
After they’d ended the call, Rachael leaned back on her hands, closed her eyes, and tried to record this moment on some kind of internal tape. The faint background pulse of insects calling, the rustle of tiny creatures in the dry leaves, the wind blowing dust against the shed, then gusting across the verandah. The breeze pushed on her cheek, like she was a sailing ship bound for the sea. Home had been her anchor, and now it was time to cast off. Someday she would come back and tell her mother what she had done.
When she finally went inside, the study door was ajar, the computer still running. Going in to shut it down, she found a single email in her in-box. Her heart trembled when she read the sender as Ferranti, Antonio. The subject said: Your letter.
Should she open it now and spend the night dwelling on whatever it contained? She remembered her mother’s letter. Courageous, it had said. With one eye open, she clicked the email and found only a single line.
Got your letter. Call me. A
With a shaking hand, Rachael found his battered card and dialed the number. When the click of pickup came and Antonio’s voice answered gruffly, she couldn’t speak.
“Who is it?” he demanded after the too-long pause.
“It’s me,” she rushed out.
“Rachael.” Surprise in his voice. And warmth. And something else. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
She bit her lip. “I tried to call you before, but after it kept going to voice mail I figured you didn’t want to speak to me, and I’d write instead.”
“My phone always does that when I’m away.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been in Africa the last few weeks. I just got back today. I probably have fifty voice mails waiting, but I read your letter instead of listening to them.”
“I meant it,” she said simply, thinking of all the apologies and confession she’d poured into the letter, not expecting she would ever hear from him.
“I guess you can see the bad things in people after all, even if it’s yourself,” he said. A pause. “That job is still going if you want it.”
Rachael began to protest. She didn’t want him to think that was why she’d written.
“And I sent you something in the post,” he interrupted. “If you like it, I want you to call me back.”
* * *
A week later, when Rachael collected the post from Milton, it included a small white package addressed in neat ballpoint handwriting. Tearing it open, she found a card of silk and gold lace-covered buttons, the same ones she’d admired that day in Paris. On the back, Antonio had written, La Mercerie des Rêves, Paris.
Rachael cradled them to her chest, relief and amazement competing for supremacy. He’d remembered. And though she and Antonio were far from the promising beginning they’d had, she sensed there was room to move forward.
She didn’t know if she would ever use these buttons, but no matter where she went, she wanted to remember. She searched in her drawer until she found the memory card he’d given her at the Eiffel Tower, planning to print the photo when she was next in Parkes. Then she took out a pen and added to his note, Gorgeous day with Antonio in Paris. Kissed him at the top of the Eiffel Tower. First day of the rest of my life.