Chapter 2
2
Taylor
I stared at the empty food container on my desk. It had been full of Irish stew. Did Ciaron cook it because he was homesick? Was he thinking of Ireland more now and thinking it was time to return?
When the kids had got home last night, Isabelle had shoved the container in front of me and said, ‘Dinner from Dad’. He knew me well. He would have known I’d have toast for dinner. It was my go-to meal when he didn’t cook for us. Until two months ago, that is. After he left, I’d tried to be better for the kids and actually cooked meals. But no matter how hard I tried, I still failed.
I grabbed my to-do list. It took up a whole page. I needed to go out and get some updated photos of horses and the grounds for our website. But none of the dryness of the drought, because no one wants to see that. I didn’t even want to see it. Maybe I could Photoshop a green background in. With the coming breeding season, we needed to attract new clients. But I also needed to update pricing to reflect the current drought situation. I didn’t have time for all that. I needed to enlist help.
I sent a message to Fran: You got a minute?
Within seconds, she was at my door. Her bright red hair was the only thing that brought light to the office these days. “What do you need?”
“I need photos to update the website. Can you send a message to the team asking them to take photos and send them to you? Once you have them, I’d like you to sort through them and send me the good ones. Then we can sit together and work on updating the website.”
She nodded.
“After that, I’d like you to grab the expense statements from the last six months so we can update our pricing.”
“Do you want me to ask Ciaron for help with that? He knows which expenses are abnormal and shouldn’t be included.”
“No. Just get me the figures.”
She simply nodded and walked away. It’s not like Ciaron cared about the business anymore. I couldn’t ask him to help.
But…he had given the kids leftovers for me. So, maybe he cared a little. About me or the business? Who knew?
I sighed. Ciaron still knew me, but I didn’t know who he was anymore. We didn’t talk unless it was about the farm. Not even about the kids. We seemed to have two separate relationships with them. The one they had with him was full of love and conversations. With me, it was attitude and mostly silence. Like I was the one to blame for our separation, even though he was the one who left.
I flicked from tab to tab to tab on my computer, unable to focus. I referred back to my list. OK. The next thing I had to do was look at the schedule of stallion parades to decide which ones I should attend in person and arrange for an invitation to go to our clients. At least we had a few weeks to organise that. Some clients enjoyed the prestige of stallion parades and would choose who their mares would go to based on the animals paraded in front of them. Others were happy to make their decision based on facts and lineage rather than be swayed by the stunning stallions.
My eyes strayed back to the container on my desk, and my mind returned to Ciaron. It was nice that he’d fed me. Or maybe he was pointing out how useless I was. Would Ciaron do that, though? Maybe. Probably not.
How did it even get to this?
For two months I’d thought about that as I lay in our bed, alone. I tried to pinpoint when it all changed and what, exactly, had changed. It’s not like we fought.
I thought marriage was supposed to get easier over time. Like at first, it was all lovely because you were still in that honeymoon period. And then you started discovering things that irritated you, but you accepted them because they weren’t enough to argue about. Then you knew all about each other’s faults, but you were comfortable and loved each other and just accepted them for what they were. And then you got old together. It was at that last step we’d failed.
No point dwelling on it. It’s not like it could be undone. He’d left, and that was it. He hadn’t even said we could try to work things out. He’d made up his mind, and it was final.
I shoved my list of things to do aside. I wasn’t going to get any work done if all I kept thinking about was Ciaron.
I picked up the container, crossed through reception, and went into his office. I took a moment to study him as he concentrated on the computer screen. The golden highlights in his brown hair were more prominent now than the day I’d met him, probably because of the Australian sunshine. And there was grey sprinkled in there as well. He wore it gracefully, like most men could. His shoulders, still wide and strong, drew my gaze. The shoulders I held onto as he railed me. The way I begged for more. How he made me come undone. I blushed and shook the memory away.
Everything about him was bigger, stronger, more beautiful. And I had no right thinking about any of them.
I strode to his desk and placed the container down. My forward momentum made it hit the desk harder than intended. I winced. Ciaron turned his attention from his computer screen to the container and then to me.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said.
“No problem.” He smiled, small, the smile not reaching his green eyes. On the day we met, those green eyes sparkled with mischief. I hadn’t seen that sparkle for a very long time. Was it as dead as our marriage? If anything, one would hope being separated would make him come alive again.
His small smile disappeared. “The kids said they’d text you tonight before dinner. They reckon it’s your turn to cook for me. You can bring me leftovers for lunch tomorrow.” The lightness in his voice was forced.
I clenched my teeth and stared at him, willing myself to be calm. “I don’t need you to remind me of my failures.”
The fact that Isabelle and Callum hadn’t been at home when I’d got there last night was evidence enough. I doubt the only reason they went to his house was for the food.
Ciaron raised his eyebrows. Was he looking for a fight?
Calm. I needed to stay calm.
I crossed my arms. “I wouldn’t have to cook dinner if you hadn’t left us.”
Yep, willing myself to be calm had worked so well.
Ciaron broke eye contact with me, picked up the container and put it next to his. I took a tiny step back and looked down at my feet. What was I doing? I’d come here to thank him, not blame him for our breakup. Ciaron was trying to tell me in his gentle way that I’d been neglecting the kids. Gentle, not accusing. Well, maybe accusing. I don’t fucking know.
“When did we stop communicating?” I asked.
“When you stopped listening,” he said in a resigned tone.
It was back to being my fault again.
“Maybe you should have listened to my silence,” I snapped.
“Like that even makes sense.”
I sighed. There was no point to this conversation. It was getting me nowhere.
“Spag bol OK?” I asked. It was one of a handful of things I did well.
“I love spag bol.”
I nodded and went back to my office. Why was I such an arsehole? Because he was better at this single parent shit than I was? I should be grateful for the kids’ sake that he was. But the selfish me wanted the kids to be angry with him, just a little, for leaving us.
I stared out the window to what should be a lush, manicured lawn, but was now patchy and green-brown under the dull winter sun. I could see most of the paddocks from my window and the colours varied from brown to green the closer they got to the river. This drought felt like it was going on forever.
It had hit the Hunter Valley hard. All the predictions said we were supposed to get rain this autumn. It hadn’t happened. And now the forecasters said it wouldn’t. No rain meant no grass in the paddocks. We irrigated as much as we could, but no rain also meant reduced water allocations. No grass meant that we had to buy hay and feed for the horses. And just like everything else during a drought, horse feed was more expensive, due to high demand and limited availability. We were lucky that the larger studs in the area grew their own hay and sold it to the smaller studs at a discounted price.
The winter gloom had not only settled into the sky, but my heart as well. The feed bills had been piling up over the past few months. I was forever juggling feed bills, payments from clients, wages and vet bills.
I sighed and looked at the bank balance. Wages needed to be paid first. Our employees needed to eat and live. Soon, we’d also be paying the two new employees Ciaron had hired for the breeding season.
I closed my eyes as I remembered the rip-roaring argument we’d had about it. I’d never seen Ciaron so angry in all our years together. He was yelling and talking at such speed even I had trouble understanding him with his accent. That argument put an end to our twenty-year marriage. Twenty years of commitment gone just like that. It was probably a miracle it hadn’t happened sooner. It was inevitable, really.
The same thing had happened to my parents.
My father’s prediction about our love drying up and Ciaron returning to Ireland echoed in my brain. The fantasy lasted longer than he could have expected. Longer than his did with Mum.
The two-way crackled. “Ciaron, are you on channel?” Rachel, the Foaling Unit Manager, said.
“Yes.”
“Can you come down to River Paddock, please? Dior is acting strange.”
“Be there soon.”
Acting strange in what way? Dior was our Group Two winning mare. It was only the end of June, so she shouldn’t be in labour yet. The first foals wouldn’t be on the ground until August. I checked the Repro App on my phone to confirm her due date. She wasn’t due until 20 August.
Maybe she had colic. Should I join Ciaron to see what was wrong? She was an important horse for the farm and so was her foal. No. One of the things he’d said to me during that fight was that I didn’t trust him. I did trust him. I needed to prove that by letting him handle this himself. He was Broodmare Manager for a reason. He was good at his job, smart and would be able to handle just about any situation without me.
I stood at the window and watched Ciaron drive to the River Paddock, dust trailing behind him until he was out of view. Then I waited in the silence that ensued.
I couldn’t see all 2000 acres of our property from the office. What I could see were the foaling unit to the left, the hospital barn to the right and paddocks which stretched all the way to the river with post and rail fencing. Housing was interspersed among that space. Usually four houses or units together, except for our house and Mum’s house, we had our own space and privacy.
Silence always made the thoughts lonelier. Or me lonelier. I don’t know when I started undermining Ciaron and I don’t know why. I trusted this man with my heart, yet I didn’t trust him to make decisions in the business? He’d even been right about hiring night watch staff. We couldn’t stretch our limited staff to cover the night watch as well. Mares gave birth mostly at night and having reduced staff would put them and the foals in danger.
“Taylor,” Ciaron said over the two-way. “I need you down here.”
Shit. This wasn’t good. I spun away from the window, rushed through the office and jumped in my car.