Twenty-four hours have passed since Matts wrote Noted in response to my message.
Not a word since.
A few people smiled at me shyly at the youth centre today, and the Hargreaves barely complained when I told them I wouldn’t be attending trivia tonight, so I suspect Gus might have said something. After I ride Sonnet and lead Strider back to the farmhouse, I shower and change in the refurbished bathroom at the end of the hallway. I haven’t moved into the farmhouse properly yet, but it won’t be long.
The westerly wind is picking up so I stand on tiptoes at the flower room window, push my palms against the frame and press down. It almost closes.
‘That will have to do.’
I straighten the mirror, stand back and straighten it again. My hair was wet so I’d left it loose, but it’s hot on my neck so I plait it, securing it with a piece of ribbon left over from April’s headdress, and throw it down my back. The bookcase is bright with stacks of crepe and shoeboxes. I search one of the lower shelves and find my small curved scissors.
Myriad strips of crepe are strewn across the bench. The blue fairy flower I brought home from the river, softly faded now, lies in a tissue-lined box. It has one dorsal sepal, two lateral sepals and three petals, each of them long and narrow like the points of a star. The labellum, a tiny pouch, sits in the middle of the petals.
Jacqueline said the colours of the crepe were beautiful.
Midnight, royal, navy, peacock, sapphire.
I’ve made five flowers, each a slightly different shade. I line them up on the bench. ‘Now you need something to hold you up.’
I wind green tape around floristry wire to make the stems. For the elongated leaves, I use a template to cut the crepe into shape, lay a fine piece of wire down the spine and glue it into place. I stick another leaf-shaped piece of crepe on top.
Moss, army, grasshopper, jungle, olive.
As I lay the stems and leaves on the bench next to the flowers, there’s a knock on the front door. I look up as the key turns.
‘Sapphie?’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m in here.’
The door clicks shut. Footsteps in the hallway. Matts stands just inside the door, his blue linen shirt light against the black of his jeans. He hasn’t shaved today. His mouth lifts in an almost smile as he holds up Gran’s old keyring. The enamelled rosebuds are pale against his fingers.
‘I let myself in.’
Good-morning kisses. Laughter and tears. Wading through water in sunshine. Children and ponies and flowers. Is that what he wants too?
The red gum rustles. The window rattles. Wind sneaks through the gaps in the frame. Crepe paper flowers fly across the bench and flutter to the floor.
Matts gets to them first, carefully picking them up and putting them back on the bench. He glances at the window.
‘Should I shut it?’
‘It sticks.’ As he walks to the window, I back away. ‘I have to wash my hands.’
By the time I get back, he’s standing at the bench and looking closely at the flowers. When he holds out his hand, I take it. Our palms press together as we stand side by side. He links our fingers.
‘Eastern tiny blue china orchid,’ he says.
‘Or blue fairy.’
‘You found one at the river.’
I look down at my jeans and boots. Should I have worn something prettier? ‘I’m surprised you remember. Lisa had her hand on your thigh.’
‘Sapphie?’ He puts his hands on the tops of my arms and I turn and face him. ‘I only wanted you.’ His serious eyes search mine. ‘Always.’
When I lay my hand on the side of his face, he kisses my wrist. ‘I’m sorry about Inge, Matts. Did Gabriel call you? I didn’t think he would.’
He frowns. ‘I hadn’t talked about my mother in front of my father for eighteen years. That meant we never talked about Kate—even after my father had found the key. But after I left here, I stayed with him in Helsinki. One day at breakfast, he asked why I’d been a bastard for the past few days.’ He kisses my forehead. ‘I told him I was missing you.’
I put my head on his chest. ‘Sorry.’
He wraps his arms around me. ‘I also told him what Robert had done. And by chance I asked whether he knew anybody from Hernandez Engineering.’
‘Oh!’ I look up. ‘Did he know—’
‘In deference to my father, Garcia had stayed away since my mother’s death, but my father had suspected it was him. He’d tried to forget.’
‘He wanted to remember Inge in the way he’d always known her. Your father loved her very much.’
‘I’d asked him a direct question. He’s an honest man. He couldn’t refuse to answer.’
‘You’re like him.’
‘He gave me Garcia’s name but nothing more. I called him.’
I blink. ‘He told you?’
Matts nods. ‘I asked for proof. He showed me a copy of the withdrawal slip, and a receipt for the sapphire.’
‘He didn’t want to hurt you, Matts. That’s why I knew I could trust him.’
‘My father should have told me.’
‘He was protecting you too.’
He presses his lips together. ‘Kate paid the price.’
I don’t want to leave the circle of his arms for a tissue, so I wipe his eye with a fingertip. ‘No one knew how bad it would turn out. Mum didn’t—’ I shake my head. ‘She didn’t want help, from my father or anybody else. She refused to share her burden.’
‘I was with you and Kate every day. She was forced to remember.’
‘She wanted to remember. Inge was kind and gentle and caring. It must have been so hard for her to—’
‘Be unfaithful.’
I take his hands and yank until he looks at me again. ‘You weren’t a snob like my father. You respected my grandmother.’
‘You remind me of her.’
‘She talked about perfection. When we made flowers together, she said I was far too fussy, that it was the imperfections that made the flowers perfect. Bruised and faded petals, softly bowed heads and crinkled leaves, that’s what made them real. People are like that too.’
‘This is my mother?’
‘Perfect imperfection. My mother too.’
He runs his thumb over the tops of my hands. ‘Garcia had no letters from Inge, but he told me she gave him a gift.’
‘Oh.’ I whisper. ‘What?’
‘In Inge’s personal items, my father found the key to the box, but also cards, jewellery, mementos and the flowers you made.’
‘The bougainvillea?’
‘Garcia had one too.’
‘I didn’t give him—’
‘She was pregnant and he was going away. She sent him a flower.’
‘He kept it.’
‘Yes.’
I grasp his shirt with one hand and put my other hand on his cheek. ‘She loved you, Matts, more than anything else in the world. Nothing changed that.’
His eyes still shadowed, he steps back. He takes my hand in his. ‘And you, Sapphie?’ he says quietly. ‘What do you feel?’
‘Didn’t you read my message?’
He touches my mouth. ‘I want to hear it.’
‘I adored you.’
He growls and pulls me close. ‘Not that.’
I repeat the words he used the last time we spoke: ‘I think you already know.’
He kisses me swiftly but firmly. And then he kisses me again, running his lips over mine and warming my body. I open my mouth and sigh. Our kisses are careful then careless, savage then sweet. We’re both breathing deeply when he lifts his head.
‘As a child you were fearless.’ He loops his finger through my ribbon and lifts my plait over my shoulder. ‘You sat still only to make your flowers. Anyone you met—my classmates, babies, old people—you were their friend. You were physically beautiful, but that held no meaning. You wanted to be known for other things.’
‘I followed you around like a kitten.’
‘When I came back, I told myself we would have little in common. You taught young children. You lived a quiet life.’
‘That’s true.’
‘You totalled your car.’ He tightens his arms. ‘You ride wild horses.’
‘Not wild.’
‘Disobedient horses. You scale cliffs without ropes.’
‘Rarely.’
‘That first night, why did you climb the tree?’
‘I thought you might be up to no good.’ I undo one of his buttons before fastening it again. ‘You need me to keep an eye on you.’
‘We climbed well together.’ He’s very serious.
‘I was more flexible. Your reach was better. We complemented each other.’
He puts his hands over mine, still on his chest. ‘I had a choice of twenty committees, Sapphie. I couldn’t go past yours.’
‘They’re good people.’
‘The land, the river, the wetlands. I work from the ground up too.’
‘Are you saying we do have things in common?’
‘Too much.’
‘We always did.’
He narrows his eyes. ‘Tell me our age difference.’
‘A little under three years.’
‘Two years, eight months and four days. I had to wait.’
‘You had so many girlfriends.’
‘You should have had boyfriends.’
‘So you could be jealous too?’
‘I wanted you to be certain. I wanted you to choose me over the others. You never did.’
Strong and sensitive. Arrogant and vulnerable. I stand on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck. ‘I didn’t want the other boys.’ I kiss his mouth. ‘I only ever wanted you.’