Chapter 3 #2
She fumbled for her phone and dialled Sabine, fighting back the tears.
“Chelsea, did you arrive safely?”
Chelsea swallowed hard and tried to keep the anguish out of her voice. “Yeah, flight was fine.” She cleared her throat. “When was the last time you heard from the groundskeeper?”
“Darren? He emails me every month with photos of the property.”
How was that possible? “Hang on. Let me put you on video call.” Her finger shook as she pressed the button and then held the phone up to show her mother. “Is this what his photos looked like?”
Her mother gasped. “No. Is it all like that?”
“I haven’t been around the back yet.” Didn’t have the strength. “Do you have Darren’s address?”
“I’ll text it to you,” her mother said. “I can’t believe this. He seemed so trustworthy.” Her voice shook, and Chelsea understood how upset her mother was. “He must have taken photos on the first day and then done nothing.”
Her phone dinged as the message came through. “I’ll check the whole garden and then visit him. I’ll call you tonight.”
“All right. Watch out for snakes.”
Good point. The long grass would be a haven for them, particularly as the block butted up against bushland.
She debated dragging her suitcase inside and changing, but her steps took her down the side path to where the main path through the garden started.
The flat sandals she wore had been comfortable plane footwear and weren’t the best for this walk, but she didn’t care.
Slowly she walked the path from memory, not really watching where she was going.
Her eyes were all for what was left of the garden.
The food garden held fruit trees laden with rotting fruit or needing a good prune, the vegetable patches were a mess of weeds and the banana passionfruit vine which had grown over a pergola was dead.
She closed her eyes as her heart squeezed. Memories of all the times she’d run down the path to pick one of the delicious fruits flooded her. She’d pluck a couple, then hurry to sit under a shady tree, or swing in the hammock and read her book while slurping on the fruit.
Blinking away the tears she continued, weaving her way through the native plant garden with its sweet scents from a flowering grevillea. These at least appeared healthy, being plants which were endemic to the region, but they needed pruning and the garden beds needed weeding.
She ran a hand over the railing of the replica Sydney Harbour Bridge and it came away dirty.
She’d always found the bridge such an odd structure in the garden but had spent many hours playing on it.
It wasn’t until the last summer she’d spent here that Aunt Maggie had told her about its significance.
The real bridge was the last place she’d seen her fiancé.
They’d kissed for the last time, but he hadn’t wanted her to come to the port to see him board the ship to Vietnam.
He’d promised to meet her at that exact spot when he returned at the end of the war.
It was a promise he hadn’t been able to keep.
The bridge still looked structurally sound, but she wouldn’t test it yet. Instead she continued along the outer path where her footsteps slowed as she reached Cupid’s garden.
Someone had pruned the roses and cleared the bed of weeds. It was so strange in a garden otherwise choked to death.
Was it the one garden bed Darren had actually tended?
She gazed at Cupid in the centre. She’d once thought he was her own personal deity, the one who had finally given her a man who loved her and made her feel worthy of love.
An image of when she’d first met Ethan flashed into her mind. He’d been taller than her, skinny, with shaggy brown hair and suspicious brown eyes, as if not one to trust easily.
Then an image of him on this very spot, looking down at her with eyes that promised forever and handing her a red rose as he told her he loved her.
She’d been a fool.
Perhaps they’d both been fools to believe a love at that age could last.
Shaking her head, she quickened her pace to get out of the sun. There were more parts of the garden she needed to assess before she visited Darren.
The shade of the peppermints welcomed her, and she smiled at the hammock still strung between the trees. Another place she’d spent many a warm afternoon. It had been an excellent place to spy on the cute gardener Aunt Maggie had hired to help her before she’d got up the courage to speak to him.
Too many places here reminded her of Ethan. Perhaps it was best to demolish it all and wipe away those memories for good.
No.
As quickly as the thought came, she dismissed it. This place had been Aunt Maggie’s life, her homage to her fiancé and the life they were going to have together.
She couldn’t let it die.
But her steps through the rest of the garden showed it would take a hell of a lot of work to bring it back to its former glory.
More than the two weeks she’d given herself to sort through Aunt Maggie’s things.
Anger grew as she tripped in some long weeds. This blatant disregard for someone’s life work wasn’t acceptable.
Darren had better have a good excuse for what he’d done, though she wasn’t certain anything less than his death would be good enough.
As the fury in her grew, she stalked back to the car and went to see a man about a garden.