When Grace Went Away Read online

  ‘Why has no one shared this news with me?’ Grace knew she sounded hurt, because she was. ‘And just how pregnant is she?’

  ‘Not sure, but she definitely has a bump. And she asked me, no, told me not to tell you because you’d tell Mum and she didn’t want Mum poking her nose in, or some such bullshit. Dad hasn’t said a word about it one way or the other. In fact these days he’s not saying much at all. Not that he ever does, except when I really piss him off.’

  Grace swore. ‘She was probably pregnant before I left and didn’t tell me, not even when I told her I was going away! That is just so like Faith … I don’t know why I’m surprised.’

  ‘Wow, haven’t heard you use the F-bomb for years, Grace.’

  ‘Big deal,’ she said. ‘Is the pregnancy going okay? When’s she due?’

  ‘As far as I know it’s going well but I have no idea about the due date. Don’t ask her though, because I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll tell you herself eventually.’

  ‘Have you talked to Mum?’

  ‘Not recently.’

  ‘How recently is not recently?’ When he didn’t answer Grace growled, low in her throat. ‘You haven’t talked to her since Nanna’s funeral, have you?’

  His silence said it all.

  ‘Tim, she lost her mother and you haven’t even been in touch. I’m over here and Faith’s being a total bitch. I bet Mum’s tried ringing you. You promised you’d look out for her.’

  ‘Why don’t you just butt out, Grace? What goes on between Mum and me and Faith is none of your business.’

  ‘Then why are you calling me?’

  ‘Buggered if I know.’

  ‘Fair enough, then here’s me butting out.’ Grace hit end call. Anger burned its way right through her. Resisting the urge to throw the phone across the bedroom, she slammed it onto the bed beside her. It bounced once before dropping to the floor with a thud.

  Sliding down in the bed, Grace pulled the doona up over her head. It did little to block out the conversations she’d just had.

  When her thoughts wouldn’t settle and let her go back to sleep, she retrieved the phone and called her mother. There was no answer. Grace left a message, and then climbed out from under the covers, padding to the kitchen to make tea, bringing it back to bed. A rare treat, but she was awake before the alarm.

  Later that day, when Grace didn’t hear back from her mother, she told herself not to worry, it’d only been a couple of days since they’d spoken last and her mum had sounded the same as usual. But Grace worried anyway. And when Friday slid into the weekend with still no response to her calls and messages, in desperation she tried her brother and her sister.

  Unsurprisingly, neither answered her calls. After discarding the outrageous idea that she could ring her father, Grace resigned herself to butting out, which was the only option left available to her.

  As a last resort she could contact Aaron, but it wasn’t his role to be the go-between for Grace and her family. And she hadn’t heard from him for days either.

  Feeling lonelier than ever, Grace zeroed in on the phone, sitting innocuously on the coffee table. Maybe she’d text Grant, ask him to meet her for a drink. It was a bit sad to have nothing to do on a Saturday night except her laundry. She flicked him a message before she changed her mind.

  Love to but Lucy has people coming over. Raincheck?

  Disappointed more than she should have been, she sent back a thumbs up.

  Grabbing a light jacket, Grace left the dirty clothes in a pile on the floor and went out, heading in the direction of the nearest cafe with acceptable coffee, or wine—she wasn’t fussed. Maybe she’d eat out too. Ignore the happy families, the self-involved couples and laughing groups of friends. Forget that she was thousands of kilometres from home and loathing every minute of it.

  18

  Sarah

  All that separated me from the angry woman was a few millimetres of toughened glass. Saliva speckled the car window. Her voice was muffled but rancorous. At the bottom of the driveway Liam and Amelia, my grandchildren, watched on with wide eyes. They’d probably never seen their mother this furious before, and truthfully, the woman at the car window was barely recognisable as my youngest daughter, Faith.

  My head throbbed and my heart hurt. My stomach rumbled. All I’d eaten that day was a sausage roll, washed down with a milky cappuccino mid-morning.

  And I’d given up on the hope that Ben was home and he’d hear the racket and come to the rescue.

  With the tunnel vision that comes of desperation, I’d been driving slowly up and down Faith’s street, craving a glimpse of my daughter, and my grandchildren. The rational part of me knew this wasn’t the way to go about it, that I shouldn’t have returned to Miners Ridge again, but here I was anyway.

  On my fourth lap, Faith had flown down the driveway towards me, hands waving. Finally getting what I’d wanted—her undivided attention—but then too surprised to start doing anything rational, I’d stopped the car in the middle of the narrow street.

  ‘Faith,’ I implored finally, cracking open the window. ‘All I want to do is say hello to the children and see you. I miss you.’

  She stepped back, folding her arms, her expression set. It was then that I noticed the bruised shadows beneath her eyes, her hair lank and in need of a cut—so unlike the well turned out Faith that I remembered.

  ‘We don’t miss you, and if you keep stalking us I’ll get the cops to put a restraining order on you.’

  Her words squeezed the breath out of me. ‘Why?’ I mouthed.

  ‘You walked out eight years ago without a thought for any of us, so don’t think you can waltz back into our lives now. You made your choice back then.’

  ‘It was never as simple as that, Faith.’

  She looked away, bottom lip jutting. ‘It sure looked simple from where I was standing. You were there one day, gone the next. You couldn’t even come home for the birth of your granddaughter.’

  ‘Faith, if you’d let me, I can explain. Let me tell you how it was from where I stood—’

  She cut me off with a bitter laugh, shaking her head. ‘Yeah, I bet you’d like to do that, without Dad around to defend himself.’

  Faith couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d hit me. Had she been oblivious to how things between Doug and I had deteriorated after Luke died? She was a wife now, a mother herself—surely that had given her some insight?

  By the coolness of her expression and the way her mouth turned in distaste, I decided that perhaps my hopes had been misguided.

  As a child and then a teenager, Faith had always been a little bit self-absorbed. We’d never been close, not like Grace and I. And although she’d been thirty when I left, she and Ben hadn’t been married long and already had a toddler, with another baby on the way. She would have been so caught up in her own new family life, her mother’s plight wouldn’t have registered on the radar.

  And she would have been grieving for her younger brother. The loss of Luke more than likely took up any emotional surplus she had.

  When I put my finger on the button to lower the car window a few more inches, I noticed that my hand shook.

  ‘Can I come in? We can talk. I won’t stay long.’ Even to my own ears I sounded desperate.

  Faith hesitated. It was barely a second, but it was long enough for hope to spike.

  ‘I’m on night shift,’ she said, shaking her head vigorously. ‘Ben’s away and I’m taking the kids out to the farm for the weekend.’ Then she stamped her foot and said through gritted teeth, ‘Why am I telling you all this? It’s none of your effing business.’

  I opened my mouth to say that I wanted and needed it to be my effing business, and I could come in and mind the children so she could have a sleep before she went to work. She looked so tired.

  If I stayed the night the children could sleep in their own beds. I’d sleep on the couch.

  But she’d already turned her back on me and was striding away. I watched with
longing as she shepherded the children up the driveway, across the verandah and into the house. Their looks of confusion tore at me. The sound of the door slamming left me in no doubt that nothing had changed: I wasn’t one bit welcome at my daughter’s home.

  Returning to Miners Ridge two weeks after my first visit was a paradox in itself. I felt driven by a powerful yearning to be in the place that had been the setting for so much happiness, and then the backdrop for such exquisite pain.

  Throughout the three-hour drive, I’d argued hotly with myself, pointing out all the reasons why I should keep away. But I’d kept driving north all the same.

  When I hadn’t seen the children at school that first day, this time around on impulse I booked a motel on the outskirts of town for a night. The next day I’d returned to the school, parked and waited for what seemed like hours, but they hadn’t shown. That’s when I’d taken to driving up and down their street.

  Why I didn’t think that a shiny black BMW would stand out amongst the dusty 4WDs and tired sedans was just another symptom of whatever madness possessed me at the time.

  The night in the motel room had been grim. I’d sat hugging myself, tempted to check out and go … But where? These days nowhere felt like home.

  I’d made tea with tap water, eaten the packet of biscuits provided and climbed into bed in my underwear, crying into the stale-smelling pillowslip until a wet patch formed.

  I’d wept for the mistakes I’d made, and the missteps I continued to make, and for everything I’d lost as a result. The tears I didn’t shed after Mum died now flooded, tracking down my cheeks unchecked in that lonely, miserable motel room.

  And now, staring at the silent brick bungalow housing three of the people most dear to me, I felt the tears well again. They’d taken a long time to surface, but now they wouldn’t stop.

  A horn tooted and I jumped, realising I was still sitting in the middle of the road, engine idling. Waving an apology to the driver, I put the SUV into gear and moved along fifty metres or so before pulling into the kerb.

  I didn’t want my daughter to think I was loitering when she’d told me quite clearly to go. But at that moment I wasn’t capable of driving any further than fifty metres. I turned off the engine.

  Common sense told me I needed to move soon, to have something nourishing to eat and drink before getting on the road before evening fell. I’d be travelling a chunk of the journey back to Adelaide in the dark as it was. But the thought of doing it made me feel physically sick; and booking into that sad motel for a second night was out of the question.

  The scene outside the car—small, country town suburbia in the late afternoon—blurred before my eyes. Resting my head back, closing my eyes, I tried breathing myself into a less fractured state. All the self-help books I’d read and the CDs I’d listened to had assured me that it would.

  I was startled into wakefulness when someone rapped on the car window. It took me a moment to remember where I was, and longer to recognise the concerned face peering in at me through the front passenger window. It was Carol Claremont.

  When she saw I was awake she opened the passenger-side door.

  ‘Sarah Fairley, I thought it was you. I recognised Grace’s car when I went past earlier.’

  ‘That was you? Sorry for blocking the road.’

  ‘Never mind. You look like shit, love. Is everything all right?’

  ‘No,’ I said, because I didn’t have the wherewithal to pretend otherwise. ‘I had a run-in with Faith.’

  I searched for my bottle of water and chugged down half of it.

  ‘Faith always was a headstrong girl.’

  Acknowledging this with a nod, I soldiered on—as if this whole situation wasn’t already painfully mortifying.

  ‘The run-in was my fault entirely. I shouldn’t have been driving up and down her street like a complete nutter. I just wanted to see my grandchildren.’ I sighed. ‘I must have dozed off.’

  ‘The things we do,’ she said, watching me with understanding eyes. ‘I’m just around the corner. I’ll make you tea and something to eat. Then you can decide whether you want to drive home. You’re welcome to stay the night.’ Relief and gratitude surged through me like a wave of warmth.

  ‘A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you Carol.’

  ‘Follow me.’ She slammed the door making me wince. BMW doors didn’t need slamming.

  Moments later her white, early model Mitsubishi Magna sedan pulled out from behind me and onto the road. I started the car and followed.

  I didn’t hesitate or delve into reasons why this mightn’t be the brightest move I’d ever made, and minutes later I nosed the SUV into a rutted driveway. She drove into a single car garage and I pulled in behind her.

  The small weatherboard house was in desperate need of a coat of paint, but the roof was new and the yard tidy. I couldn’t remember ever visiting before.

  ‘Not much, but it’s a place to call home, and I own it,’ Carol said, slinging a sizeable bag over her shoulder, laughing that husky, smoker’s laugh I remembered. ‘Probably not what you’re used to.’

  It was my turn to laugh—my laugh husky with irony and grief rather than cigarettes. ‘You have no idea what I’m used to.’

  She looked at me square in the eyes. ‘You’re right, Sarah, I don’t. I’m sorry for being presumptuous. I was thinking of Joylene Fairley and what a snobby cow she could be. She never had time for the likes of me. Do you have an overnight bag?’

  ‘Not as such,’ I said, reaching for the plastic supermarket bag I’d stowed on the back seat. When I’d decided to stay in town the night before, I’d purchased a three-pack of knickers, toothbrush, toothpaste and a few other essentials from the local IGA.

  Funny how we’d both decided I was staying over. I straightened up and locked the car.

  ‘Joylene wasn’t the easiest of women,’ I said, and Carol snorted.

  ‘That’s a polite way of putting it.’

  I followed Carol up a couple of steps, across the narrow verandah and into a small entrance hall. The house was clean but cluttered, and the smell of stale cigarette smoke lingered.

  ‘You can put your bag in the spare room,’ she said. ‘I’ve had Louise staying, but she went home a couple of days ago.’

  ‘She’s your youngest, isn’t she? I think I met her briefly at Luke’s twenty-first. They would have been around the same age.’

  ‘She’s my baby … Turns thirty this December. Lives in the south-east, near Naracoorte, so I don’t see her as often as I’d like.’

  ‘Is she married? Children?’

  ‘Married, and there’s Emma, gorgeous girl that she is. I know grannies aren’t supposed to have favourites but …’ She lifted her shoulders with nonchalance. ‘April, my eldest, is divorced and she has three kids, all brats. The women in my family don’t have a problem breeding, but we have more trouble holding on to our men.’

  ‘Tricky thing, holding on to your man.’

  ‘Bed’s comfortable and sheets are clean,’ Carol said brightly, changing the subject, and I followed her into the spare bedroom.

  The queen-sized bed did look comfortable, the doona colourful and covered with half-a-dozen scatter cushions. Matching curtains hung at the window.

  ‘It’s lovely, Carol. I don’t know what to say.’

  What I wanted to say was how grateful I was that she’d stopped; how I didn’t have the strength to drive myself home; how truly embarrassed I was to be in the predicament I’d put myself in. And, how I appreciated that she owed me less than nothing.

  I was searching for the words, for something to say, but Carol held up her hand.

  ‘Please don’t think you have to explain anything to me, Sarah. I’m a mother and a grandmother too. Enough said.’

  Bobbing my head up and down gratefully, I blinked, praying I wouldn’t cry. It would be the final humiliation in a day full of them.

  The supermarket bag looked awkward on the end of the bed. I moved it to an old wicke
r chair by the window, loaded with more cushions.

  ‘Chuck ’em on the floor,’ she prompted, but I couldn’t possibly do that so I sat the bag on top.

  ‘Bathroom’s down yonder,’ she said. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  She left and I stood at the end of the bed like a statue. How had I come to be here? Not just in this room in this house but at this point in my life?

  I was sixty-eight, an orphan, and I might as well have been the only child for all the succour I received from my only sibling. That very afternoon my youngest daughter had threatened to put a restraining order on me because I wanted to see my grandchildren. My only remaining son wouldn’t answer my phone calls. I lived in a unit I rented from my eldest daughter that was barely big enough to swing a cat. My bank balance was $4273 and the car I drove also belonged to my eldest daughter because I couldn’t afford one of my own.

  And then there was the man I’d promised to love, in sickness and in health. It had taken three years for him to chip away at our marriage vows until they became totally meaningless. I knew all about not being able to hold on to your man—mine had departed me emotionally—but I just didn’t know what I could have done differently.

  Did he think about me at least once a day, the way I did about him? Did he wonder if I was well, if I had everything I needed? Did he think about me at all?

  I didn’t know the answers to any of it, and the not knowing, I realised, was destroying me.

  19

  Ask me now and I couldn’t remember what Carol fed me. She offered wine but I declined. In my fragile state, with a glass of red I would have been rolling on the floor blubbering.

  She didn’t ask questions or offer answers, and I found her company soothing. She talked about the town, how she volunteered at the art gallery when she wasn’t working cleaning jobs, and filled the silence with amusing anecdotes.

  Soon after we’d eaten and cleaned up, and I’d yawned four times in succession, she said, ‘Why don’t you go to bed, love?’

  ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’