Other Side of the Season Page 32

  ‘Tilly, I remember how you were always fixing things to get your way.’

  ‘This time I need to make sure I do things right, regardless of the impact on me. I’m starting with the letter Albie left. I was going to tell you soon enough. And now here you are.’ As she flipped open her phone to show him the scanned letter, a gust of bitter cold wind whipped Natalie’s hair in front of her eyes. Were it not for her heart beating so fast and furiously that it reverberated to the tips of her fingers, making her fumble, she might have shivered.

  ‘Blasted things! Why do they make phones so ridiculously small?’ Natalie took a breath to calm herself. ‘David, by sharing what Albie wrote in his confession I might lose the people I love the most, but I can’t keep it to myself. I’ve had the contents checked by a lawyer friend, and Albie’s explanation of the bus accident might go towards clearing your dad’s name.’

  ‘Albie confessed in a letter? He was in the car, like Dad said all along? And you know this?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’m not making any sense. I promise all will be clear soon enough. I wanted you to read it for yourself.’ Natalie’s fingers enlarged the PDF document to show him the part about the crash. She handed him the phone, hoping David wouldn’t ask to read the rest of the letter. She wondered . . . Would she let him if he did ask her? It was one thing to share Albie’s admission, but was Natalie ready for the consequences of full disclosure?

  The crash, all the little kids on the bus . . . It was me. It wasn’t planned and I didn’t think it through, I just remember wanting to die. Taking Ted Hill with me would hurt David and his mother. So I grabbed the wheel and drove us into that bus. I realised I was still alive when I heard the sound of children screaming for help.

  ‘So, you see?’ Natalie said, her hand outstretched to retrieve the phone. ‘Albie caused the crash. That’s your proof, right there.’

  David made no move to give the phone back, instead staring vaguely into the dark. ‘What else does he say in that letter? Is there remorse for ruining my life? An apology for breaking my mother’s heart?’

  The vitriol in David’s remark made Natalie feel sick. What she’d feared was happening already. She was hurting people with the truth.

  ‘David, I’m not going to stop you reading the rest. I want you to know everything. But I’m terrified about what you’ll think of me if you do. We can start over from now, without looking back, can’t we?’

  David looked from Natalie down to the phone in his hand and she thought he might give it back. Her heart plummeted when, instead, he scrolled to the top of the letter.

  He looked at her again. ‘Tilly, we’re too old and we’ve been through too much to be keeping secrets.’

  Shame fell over Natalie like a fog. She couldn’t sit still and watch, waiting for the admonishing look, the disappointment. She stood and walked towards the breakwall, the winter wind having no effect on a body numb with regret. She looked into the blackness and occupied her mind with thoughts of Sidney. Her wonderful, wise, wilful and infuriatingly lovable daughter had done so much more than having a baby. Sidney was the reason Natalie was here now, back in the town and with the man she’d run from. Bringing David closure was the absolute right thing to do, despite the possible consequences.

  • • •

  There was no mistaking the reassuring touch of David’s hand on the back of her shoulder. Still, Natalie steeled herself, closed her eyes, drew breath and waited.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘I understand if you want to just go, David.’

  His hand slipped away from her shoulder, but as Natalie prepared to say goodbye, he stopped at her elbow, cupping it and urging her to face him.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said.

  She could turn around easily enough, and she did, ever so reluctantly. But shame had her unable to look him in the eye.

  ‘Now there’s something you need to know about me, Tilly.’ David rearranged his crutches and Natalie watched the way his feet shuffled into a different position. The simplest things she took for granted, like standing still, required so much effort for him. ‘When I say something like look at me, I mean it. You have to actually look up–at me. In spite of these blasted sticks of mine I can do a lot, but there are some things inherently difficult for me these days,’ he explained. ‘Romantic things, like pressing my finger to your chin to lift your face to me. No. Can. Do. Similarly, reaching out and pulling you to me is likely to see us both hitting the deck. While running over the sand towards each other–in slow motion, or at any other speed–is just not going to happen with me. So, work with me, Tilly. Look at me.’

  Natalie wanted to smile. She appreciated what David was trying to do. But they stood like soldiers, facing each other. ‘I’m sorry, David,’ she cried. ‘I was too young to realise the repercussions of that one mistake, made in a minute, would last a lifetime. I mourned you and I never forgot you, despite Matthew and I saying we’d never look back. I’ve made terrible mistakes and I’ve hurt people who loved me, but when I say I’m sorry, I mean it.’

  ‘It’s been too many years, Tilly. It’s too late and we’re too old for sorry now.’

  David took a step away. She was losing him. There would be no happy ever after for Natalie. But for once this wasn’t about her happiness. This truth was for David.

  ‘It may be too late for some things, but it’s not too late to have your father’s records reflect the facts.’

  ‘Come back to the seat,’ he said. ‘I’d prefer to be sitting down.’ He walked ahead of her back to the park bench and sat, leaning both crutches to one side. ‘I appreciate your intentions, Tilly, but I’ve never needed proof Dad was telling the truth. Earlier, you hesitated at the thought of me reading the full content of Albie’s letter. Should you go ahead with this, can you imagine how you’ll feel when the entire letter goes on public record? The truth will make no difference to Ted or to my memories, but it might to the relationship you have with your children. I don’t want that.’

  ‘David, for once in my life I’m trying to see beyond what’s best for me. As of now, Ted is someone’s great-grandfather. And one day his great-grandchild will want to know about her heritage. I’m going to write down my mother’s story because I want the truth to be part of who we are as a family. I’ve already told Sidney everything about her. Albie taught me about the importance of saying what needs to be said, and that it’s never too late to tell your side of the story. We have to get this right for our grandchild, David. I have to get this right. Sharing Albie’s letter with you, clearing my conscience, will allow me to give Sid my absolute attention. I want to get her and Grace back home and in familiar surroundings. That is, of course, assuming you don’t mind me telling Sidney the whole truth?’

  ‘That I’m her father, you mean?’

  ‘And how I never stopped loving you.’

  After thirty-five years of denying her feelings, she’d finally spoken those words aloud, but any relief was short-lived when she felt David’s body tense beside her and he edged away. But rather than distancing himself from her, as she’d thought, the move allowed David to reach an arm behind her head and drape it over her shoulder. Then he pulled her body into him and let his lips brush her forehead. What should have warmed her, instead sent a chill through Natalie. She shivered and he cuddled her tighter, fully enclosing her in his embrace.

  ‘Cold?’ he asked.

  He had such a firm hold Natalie could hardly nod her head.

  ‘I don’t recall snow in Dinghy Bay, ever, but it’s got suddenly very cold.’ She was cold, freezing in fact, her head reeling, dizzy, and she was falling–falling in love with David again, and with life. A new little life she couldn’t wait to see tomorrow.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yes, Tilly.’

  ‘Tomorrow, after visiting Grace, I’m going to sit with Sidney and start telling my daughter–our daughter–the truth. Will you be there with me?’

  ‘Let anyone try to stop me being there with
you, Tilly.’

  54

  Pacific Coast Base Hospital, 2015

  An alarm pinged, startling Sid fully awake, although she struggled to understand the noise, or even where she was. Within seconds she saw the kind eyes and comforting smile of a nurse she recognised. The nurse’s face hovered over Sid’s in the semi-darkness, her lips moving.

  Is she speaking to me?

  Sid caught only the low drone of indecipherable words, playing like a talking doll with dying batteries.

  Something was wrong. She felt wet and cold–colder still when the nurse lifted the bed sheet. The sudden action sent the sheet billowing high in the air. It seemed to flutter there, defying gravity, like a red and white flag in a soft wind.

  She was feeling so cold. Freezing in fact, and falling–falling light as a feather, drifting like a snowflake, the white flag stained red now floating back to the bed to cover her body.

  Good!

  Sid’s eyes closed.

  Perhaps I’ll feel warm again soon.

  55

  Pacific Coast Base Hospital, 2015

  Natalie stood with her back to Jake and the door of the small waiting room, arms rigid by her sides, her stare lost in the reflection of the fluorescent tube lighting against the black nothingness outside the window.

  Forty-eight hours ago her daughter had been shouting at her, telling Natalie she was as cold and hard as steel. The moment the door to the waiting room opened and she saw David’s reflection, that cold, hard exterior disintegrated. Collapsing into his body, almost knocking him over in the process, Natalie sobbed like never before.

  ‘We lost her, David. Sidney’s gone.’

  ‘Pearl told me. What happened?’

  ‘Postpartum haemorrhage. She started bleeding in the night. They couldn’t stop it and they couldn’t replace the blood fast enough. She went into haemorrhagic shock. She’s gone. Sid’s gone.’

  Too numb with her own disbelief and grief, Natalie hadn’t noticed Pearl’s arrival. She was cradling Jake’s head in her lap, stroking his hair and wiping his face like he was a baby, like Natalie had done when the boy had screamed uncontrollably for weeks after losing his father. Natalie had been lost for what to do or say then, too. Whatever Pearl whispered in Jake’s ear made him look up and attempt a smile. He kissed her on the mouth, then she kissed him on both cheeks, his forehead and his lips again, lifting his face, nudging his body, coercing him out of the chair and shoving a wad of tissues in his hand. She smiled brokenly in Natalie’s direction and led Jake outside just as a nurse came forward, hesitating.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt. I have some jewellery belonging to Sidney.’ The nurse extended her hand and Natalie took the beige envelope. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you, Mrs Hill. Of course, when you want, I can take you to see Sidney. She’s ready.’

  Natalie wanted to scream.

  Ready for what? Motherhood? A long life? The truth?

  ‘Perhaps give us a minute,’ David said and the nurse nodded, her own eyes moist.

  ‘I’m at the end of the hall,’ she told them.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you, Tilly?’ David asked.

  Natalie couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move or shake her head. She couldn’t feel anything at all.

  ‘You do want to see her,’ he said gently. ‘Believe me, you do.’

  ‘A mother should never have to say goodbye to her child like this, David.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Her lying there is not how I want to remember my daughter. She’s gone. What will she know?’

  ‘Saying goodbye is for you, Tilly.’

  ‘David, I couldn’t even say goodbye to you.’

  ‘So you ran.’

  ‘Yes, and if I’d run when I was five years old I wouldn’t have sat beside my dead mother for three days pleading with her to wake up. Three days, David. You can’t imagine how awful and how confusing that was for a child. It has never left me. Then, finding Albie . . .’ Natalie’s head shook in silent denial. ‘Why can’t I remember Sidney the way she was before–sassy, spirited, strong?’

  ‘Because one day you’ll wish you had said goodbye. Come on. I’ll take you. We can say goodbye to our daughter together.’

  • • •

  David had let Natalie bury her face in his shirt while she sobbed through the sad and silent farewell. He’d held her without speaking, just a hand stroking her head, eventually calming her. As they sat with Sidney, Natalie had been surprised to feel a sense of serenity fall around them. Seeing her beautiful daughter to say a final goodbye had been the right thing to do after all.

  ‘I don’t think I could bring myself to walk out of this room if that was my daughter lying there,’ Natalie said. ‘It’s not. Sidney is in here, always.’ She clamped both hands over her heart. ‘Thank you for making me, David, but I think I’m ready to go now.’

  Once in the corridor, Natalie wiped her eyes and took David’s elbow. ‘Speaking of sassy, spirited and strong . . . You need to meet someone,’ she said.

  • • •

  Looking in on little Grace, her body so tiny that even the mess of wires keeping her alive seemed enormous, it was impossible to think something so fragile would survive when someone strong, like Sidney, had not.

  ‘Perfect, isn’t she, David?’

  ‘She’s a fighter.’

  ‘I hope so. I want her to be.’

  When the nurse suggested, very subtly, that it was time they left the neonatal ward, Natalie and David walked slowly, in perfect unison, stopping outside the hospital’s foyer, where Natalie took out her phone.

  ‘Are you calling Jake?’

  ‘No, I’m looking for Sid’s old work number. I still have it here somewhere.’

  ‘Why?’ David sounded surprised.

  ‘I have to tell Damien.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Tilly, why would you?’

  ‘The man is Grace’s father. Sid would want him to know.’

  ‘Not the way I heard it,’ David said. ‘Sid told me he had refused to be listed as the father on the birth certificate.’

  ‘David, she was upset. She loved him and he broke her heart. Who knows what he said, and what she heard? And he may have had time to reflect now and be wishing he’d handled things differently. I understand that. We have to give him a chance to speak for himself.’ She steeled herself, wishing the situation could be different, but cutting Damien out was something the old Natalie might have done. ‘Don’t you see, David, that’s how one wrong choice can last a lifetime. I accepted without question what Matthew told me about you dying and because of that lie your daughter was kept from you. I won’t make that mistake again. I won’t keep a father from knowing his child. I’ll be honest with Damien and let him make up his own mind.’

  ‘Do you understand what might happen if he changes his mind and wants the baby? What about what Sid might have wanted?’

  ‘After what I did to you, surely you have to see that giving Damien the option is the right thing.’

  ‘Don’t use Sidney’s life to correct your mistakes, Tilly.’

  ‘David, I think I know my daughter better than you.’ Natalie immediately regretted her words and the snappy tone, wishing she could take them back.

  ‘Why don’t you at least wait a few days until you’re–’

  ‘Don’t you see, David?’ she said, frustrated. ‘I have to do it now because I will change my mind if I put this off. All my life I’ve made decisions that were right for me and damn anybody else. That has to change and it has to change today. Now, I’d like to make the call in private.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘David! David, please, I’m sorry.’ Natalie gripped his arm with such fervour he had to steady himself. ‘Forgive me. For the first time in my life I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had to deal with anything this–’

  ‘It’s painful, I understand.’ He leaned in to kiss her forehead. ‘There’s a vend
ing machine inside. I’ll get us some nice cold water.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘As long as you’re here when I get back.’ The smile he cast her way before heading back into the foyer was small.

  It was enough.

  • • •

  ‘Well?’ David asked, returning with both trackpants pockets bulging. He took a bottle of water from the left side and handed it to Natalie before guiding her to a retaining wall where they could sit under the giant shade sail that covered the hospital’s forecourt. ‘You got through to Damien?’

  ‘I did,’ Natalie said. ‘First, he wanted to let me know he’d had to step out of a meeting to take the call. Can you believe that? Then he said he knew Sid was in hospital because his mother had told him, after Sid had called Kath and Bill.’ Natalie removed the screw-top lid and took a sip to remove the bitter taste left after her communication with Damien. ‘I had no idea until recently that Sid remained so close to his parents, or that she’d called them from the hospital. She was apparently the daughter they never had. I’d best make them my next call.’

  ‘I can understand how they might have connected. Sidney was an easy girl to love,’ David smiled. ‘Tell me what Damien said.’

  ‘First he said he was sorry. Then he said he’d text me later.’ Natalie almost spat water. ‘Text me? For goodness sake. And what was he sorry for? Having to rush back into his precious business meeting? Why didn’t I listen to you?’

  ‘Did you ever?’ David might have winked, but Natalie only saw that his eyes were red and swollen from tears. He was trying so hard.

  She took the handkerchief he offered and wiped her nose.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you can explain why it is you know Sidney better than I do?’

  ‘Because . . .’ This time his smile was bittersweet. ‘She’s my daughter.’

  56

  The Blue Mountains, 2015

  Natalie’s first trip from Watercolour Cove back to the Blue Mountains was torturously long and desperately sad. She was leaving everyone she loved behind, including baby Grace, still in the care of the hospital’s neonatal team. But Brushstrokes in the Bush wasn’t going to pack up and sell itself. Things needed doing before Grace was discharged into her care and Natalie needed a plan if she was to make a home for her granddaughter and a life for two. Sid was gone and Jake no longer needed his mother’s hugs to get him through the tough times. He had Pearl.