Chapter 66
Katie
“Hello, darling.” Nanna walked out of the house, arms outstretched, with Pa coming in close behind. Bronson was all excited until he saw two strange people. His tail wagged cautiously as he pressed into my leg. She gave me a hug, then pulled back to look down at him. “And who do we have here?”
“Bronson,” I replied.
“He looks like a Bronson,” Pa said, sizing him up. “That’s one solid dog. How are you, love?”
It was his hug that cracked the thin veneer of normality I wore like a mask on the drive down here.
“I…” My throat worked as I tried to answer them, I really did. “I…”
“Come inside and have a cup of tea,” Nan said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and steering me towards the house. “A bowl of water for the dog, Larry.”
“Maybe a nice big bone?” Pa looked Bronson over speculatively. “We’ve got those big shin bones left over from that size of beef.” At his kind voice, Bronson seemed to come out of his shell. He stepped forward with a big doggy smile, and Pa grinned along with him. “Yeah, I think you’d like that a lot.”
“So, tell your old nan what’s been going on,” my grandmother said once we got inside the house. Her messing around in the kitchen, finding mugs and tea bags, had a comforting familiarity about it all. “I hear a lot about your sister’s antics. Who knew you could make a living exercising in front of a camera? Though Jane Fonda seemed to make a pretty penny doing just that.” Once the kettle was boiling, she looked squarely at me. “What about you, love?”
“Still working at the vets.” I looked at my phone and saw some missed calls from my boss. “Though maybe not for much longer. I walked out on my shift.”
“But you had a good reason, right?” she prompted gently.
“Maybe…”
I sucked in a breath, wrapping my hands around the mug once the tea was poured, the warmth bleeding through the ceramic, thawing out my too cold hands. That was when I told her everything that had happened. I didn’t even leave out the polycule. It was like a boil being lanced. All the poison had been building up for some time, and now it was oozing everywhere.
“Always were one for the animals.” Pa had returned and was sipping his own tea. “Thought you might become a vet one day.”
“Didn’t get the grades,” I replied with a wince.
“Well, there’s more than one way to work with animals. Vets, that’s an important job, for sure,” Nan added. “Though I think your pa just wanted a vet in the family so as to reduce the bills.”
“Charge like a wounded bull, they do,” he muttered.
“But what about this shelter thing? Seems like there’s a need for more shelters outside the city,” Nan said.
“Probably because they make little to no money and survive off donations.” I was reciting the Marg playbook word for word now. “Land prices have gone through the roof, so existing shelters are selling up, and new ones can’t afford to buy anywhere.” I shook my head. “It’s really tough work, heartbreaking really.”
“Never thought you were one to be scared of hard work, Katie girl,” Pa said, shooting me a sidelong look. “You were always a tough little kid, bouncing back after a setback faster than Mandie ever did.”
“She was always a drama llama, that one,” Nan said with a shake of her head. “A beautiful little girl, but… sometimes it felt like she expected everything handed to her.”
“But not you.” Pa gazed steadily into my eyes. “You always stood back, let your sister, your cousins, go first.”
“I was the oldest,” I began to rationalise.
“The most responsible.” Nan tipped her head my way.
“The most caring.” Pa drained his tea and then got to his feet. Bronson eyed him from where he was sitting in the corner of the kitchen, gnawing his bone on the lino floor. “So, how about giving your pa a hand to feed that cattle? Hasn’t been enough rain this year, and we’ve had to supplement their feed.”
“You got it.”
It felt like I’d stepped back in time then, and it wasn’t a grown woman, but a child who followed him out to the truck. Bronson did too, toting his bone hopefully.
“Want to come too, boy?” Pa asked. “Well, up you get.”
“He’ll need…”
I was going to say a boost, but somehow he ran at the tray of the truck and threw himself up and onto it with a scrabble of his back paws. Pa nodded and locked the tailgate before getting in on the driver’s side, turning the key in the ignition. We drove past the house, up the hill, past some old cottages shearers used to use, and Pa’s shed, then out to the storage shed where all the hay was kept.
Bronson jumped down as we went to work, loading the bales up on the back, and that was far harder than any gym workout. Then we were off, the fence posts whizzing past until we got to the gate and I jumped out. Opening it, Pa drove through and the cattle came running. I clambered onto the back of the tray, fighting to keep my balance as Pa drove slowly forward, Bronson barking in excitement. The cows paid him little mind, eager for the hay. I dropped it in chunks behind us, creating a trail of feed and the cows creating a line, chewing on the dried grass. I worked and worked until my back ached and a strange kind of exhaustion set in, sitting down in the tray as the sun began to set.
“Beautiful place,” Pa said, leaning against the tray as he rolled himself a cigarette. Nan wouldn’t let him smoke anywhere near the house, hating the stink of it. “That old stone barn…” He gestured to the old buildings that had now become a black silhouette against the reddening sky. “Never could find a use for it. Pity really.”
His sidelong look, that sly smile, it got me thinking.
“What about…?” I didn’t want to voice my idea out loud, because as soon as I did, I’d cop criticism. What a ridiculous idea, Katie. How impractical. Thing was, I was done being the bitch of the voices inside my head. “What if we turned them into a shelter? That one could be the office.” I pointed to the smaller cottage. “And the barn could be turned into a series of kennels. That’d cost a lot of money though.”
“Makes no sense working on the land.” Pa nodded, then took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaling a plume of bluish smoke. “Weather’s always against you, and you either have a good year and prices are down because there’s a glut, or you’re trying to keep the cattle alive during a drought but can charge a premium for the animals you bring to market.”
“So why do people do it, then?” I asked.
“Because they love it.” He watched me closely, the reddish orange of the sunset reflected in his eyes. “The head makes sensible decisions.” A finger tapped at his temples. “But the heart…? It’s all pie in the sky thinking, preoccupied by dreams, by visions. When they work together.” He winked at me. “Well, anything’s possible.”
As the air grew cooler, as the sun sank lower, I stared at those buildings and did something I hadn’t done since I got the news about my Year 12 grades: dreamed. Of the ruins of the stone buildings rebuilt better than ever. Of dogs coming to the property beaten down and broken, only for me to use every trick I knew to help them recover.
Just like I had with Bronson.
As if summoned by my thoughts, the dog went to the edge of the tray, his whole body tensing as his nose worked. A rabbit stood up on its haunches, and that was enough for Bronson. He launched himself off the tray and went barrelling after it, scattering cows in his wake.
“Get it, boy!”
Pa laughed, and the sound of it, the way Bronson sprinted after the rabbit, it had me laughing too, right as I jumped down.
“Bronson!” I called, hustling after him. “Bronson!”
Of course, he ended up empty-handed and panting in the remains of the stone buildings.
“What do you think, Katie?” Pa looked around at the buildings. “Reckon you could make something of this place?”
“But how…?” He smiled as I spun around. “And this is your farm…? My job…?”
He watched my hands rise and fall with a patient smile, just waiting me out as I turned back around. Being a vet was my dream, and it’d failed to come to fruition. Working as a receptionist? That was never what I wanted to do. I coasted along because it was easy, and what he was talking about? It would be beyond hard, but… If I closed my eyes, I saw shadowy shapes moving around the place, rebuilding the shed and turning it into something completely new.
“I put a roast on for dinner,” Nan said when we returned. “It’s going to take a bit, so we’ll have a late meal, but seeing as we have company…”
I thought she meant me and was going to protest that she didn’t need to go to this much trouble, when she nodded to the living room. Bronson went barrelling in, barking enthusiastically, which should’ve given me a hint who was here. I blinked as I walked in, seeing all three of the guys sitting there, cups of tea on the coffee table.
“Katie…?” Rhys was the first one to speak, to take a step towards me, but he stopped himself from going any further.
“What’re you—?” I started to ask.
“We’re here for you.” Rhett did close the gap between us, grabbing my arms and then giving them a squeeze. “As soon as I heard what happened, we got in the car and drove down here.”
“Pretty sure I just quit my job.” Garrett looked a little stricken by that admission, but when he approached, the fear faded away and was replaced by something far warmer. “And honestly, that’s probably a good thing. I fucked up.”
His eyes dropped down to look at my dog.
“You trusted me. Bronson trusted me, and I wasn’t there. The entire drive down here, I’ve gone over it in my head. How scared he must’ve been, left alone as that damn dog next door…” He shook his head. “I can’t go back and undo what I did. I thought I was doing the right thing, and it's really clear that wasn’t it, but…”
I watched his hands rise, as if he was going to reach for me, but at the last minute, they fell back to his sides.
“I swear to you, Katie, if you give me another chance, I will spend every damn day making sure neither of you feel abandoned again. And if…” He swallowed hard. “If that was the last straw, if I blew it for good, just say the word. I won’t try to talk you out of it. You deserve someone who shows up.” When he glanced at the others, my eyes followed his. “And I will do anything it takes to prove I’m capable of that.”
Had anyone ever apologised to me like this before? If they had, I couldn’t remember it. I felt the urge to say something, anything, but instead, I just stared. Back when I was with Dave, I would’ve died a happy woman if he’d shown even half the kind of contrition Garrett did now.
So why wasn’t it enough?
“New year, new me.” I smiled at their confusion. “That was my new year’s resolution, and I think it’s only now I’m realising what that means. In my head, it was getting fitter at the gym.” I shook my head. “I think I could never lift another free weight and die a happy woman.”
“You got it, babe,” Rhys said. “You’re banned for life from the gym.”
“When I started dating each one of you, I thought that was who I needed to be. Someone who was cool with keeping things casual, not getting in too deep.” I could see my sister’s smiling face then, and, for once, it didn’t feel like my end goal was to become just like her. “But I don’t do casual. I fall easy and I fall hard, and that’s just who I am.”
“It’s why I was always drawn to you.” Rhett pulled me in closer and, resting my head on his chest eased a tension I hadn’t realised I was carrying around. “Your heart, it was always too good for dickheads like Dave. I just… didn’t realise you’d be too good for us too.”
I looked up at him, then Rhys, and then Garrett as they drew closer, but I was forced to take a step backwards. Rather than look at them, my eyes were drawn to the crazy paisley carpet Nan had put in when Dad was still a kid.
“I think that’s what I need to get back to.” Instead of the dark purples and greens of the pattern, I saw all the different me’s that had walked across the carpet. With the toddling steps of a baby, then running as a child, sitting down in front of the TV and watching cartoons early in the morning, then with the more sure steps of a teenager. There were so many different Katie’s, and right then I knew I needed to honour each one of them. “My heart.”
I couldn’t believe I was going to do it, and yet I knew I had to. The same girl who had put up with Dave’s bullshit without a word was going to break up with these three men for something far less heinous.
“That’s why I need to stay here.” I looked down at Bronson. “We need to stay here. The city is no place for him. Too many noises to trigger him.”
“But Katie—” Rhys said.
“And I think I want out too.”
I remembered the drunk resolutions I’d made with Mandie and Natasha in the early hours of the morning. Flush with wine, the world was my oyster. Well, if that was truly the case, it meant I had to make some tough decisions. I didn’t know if I could turn the old stone buildings into a rescue. I might go scuttling back to the city the minute I discovered how bad the lattes were at the local cafe, but… I needed to know.
For the first time since I got my year 12 results, it felt like there was something worth me focussing on. When I refocussed on the guys, I saw how pale Rhys was, how tightly Rhett was clenching his jaw, how wide Garrett’s eyes were. I was the one doing the hurting this time, and I don’t know how Dave bore it. I didn’t want to. I really, really didn’t want to, but this was my chance. To stop coasting through life and really try.
“I’m going to stay here,” I said.
“For a while.” Rhys seemed intent on believing that. “To get your head together, right? It’d be good for Bronson too.”
“I think I’m going to stay here and see if I can set up a dog shelter on my grandparent’s farm. I’m not sure how yet.” My brows came down in a frown. “Where the money or the labour is coming from, but…” I nodded. “I’ll work it out. I’m sorry, but?—”
“You’re breaking up with us.” Garrett stepped backwards, shaking his head as if I’d struck him. “You’re breaking up with us.” When he recovered, he looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Gar…” Rhys sighed and then said, “I need to go after him, but we’re not done here.”
I watched him rush out after Garrett, the atmosphere getting more awkward by the second.
“This is what you want?” Rhett’s words came out in a clipped tone. “To be here and look after dogs?”
“I think so.” I dared a smile, one he didn’t mirror. “Animals were always my special interest. You discovered yours and started work for the fire service, following your passion.” If this was the right thing to do, why did it hurt so much? “I need to do the same.”
“Of course you do.”
That was when the mask broke. He shook his head, let out a small hiss, and then lunged forward. His lips collided with mine, and I couldn’t help but kiss him back. This was the last time I’d do this, so I had to make it good. To remember him. To remember us. But all good things come to an end, and that was what happened now. We stood there, foreheads pressed together, until he pulled away.
“I…” Hearing Rhett’s voice crack broke something in me. “You do what you have to, and I’ll do the same.”
And with that, he walked out the door.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at the open doorway, as if willing him, them, to return. The sound of a car starting made clear that wouldn’t happen. A tear rolled down my cheek, unbidden, and that’s when Nan and Pa arrived.
“Didn’t go so well?” she asked, and all I could do was sniffle in response. “Oh darling, everything will end up alright in the end.”
Maybe, but that didn’t mean this bit didn’t hurt like freaking hell right now. I was like a butterfly fighting my way free of its cocoon, and it was only now I realised what a torturous process that was. What you were, your past, everything, it conspired against your every attempt to fight free. But I would, I vowed, as I wrapped my arms around Nanna’s shoulders. I would. Because the new me I kept bleating on about? I wanted to get to know her most of all.