12
Rhett
Rhett sat on the top step of her porch, watching a large skip being placed on the driveway. The scene alone made the changes real all of a sudden. It was finally happening. The home she knew would soon be no more. She wished she could say the same for the memories it held.
Heath was over by his truck, talking to a couple of builders, and Florence was teaching a teenager to horse ride in the paddock.
There was no sign of Vivien. She wasn’t sure if her sister knew what was going on. If she even cared.
Rhett stared across the field that led to Silver Wish Farm, remembering how often she wished she lived there back when she was a child.
It didn’t take Vivien long to run in that direction. As soon as she could take charge of the Gatehouse, she was off. If only life was as easy for Rhett.
She stood and made her way to the office, glancing around at the room haunting her the most. It was so dark and dull, filled with doom and gloom everywhere she looked. The thick drapes, doing little but gather dust, needed to go first.
Rhett pulled over a kitchen chair that Willow had once placed in there and never put back. She balanced herself, grabbing for the tops of the curtain, unhooking the pleats one by one. As the material fell to the floor, it was almost as if one tiny piece of weight from her shoulders went along for the ride.
One down.
She jumped off the chair and made a beeline for the bookcase. It wasn’t exactly filled with anything joyful. Accounting guides, riding manuals, horse breeds, business knowhows, and dust. Lots of dust. A set of torn, beige encyclopedias lined the bottom shelf. Their hefty weight alone holding the furniture in place.
With the exception of anything to do with horses, Rhett decided the whole lot could go. She pulled out a couple of boxes from beneath an old bureau and created two piles. One for the charity shop, the other for the bonfire she couldn’t wait to start.
Roland Smithson fully occupied her mind. All she wanted was all traces of him gone.
Leaving the boxes on the desk, she sprinted out the room, heading straight for the bedroom that once belonged to her parents.
Wave after wave of adrenaline kept Rhett alert and focused on what she felt really mattered.
His things.
She flew into the room as though it were on fire and she needed to save someone, but those days of trying to save her mother were over. There were no more nightmares for her to face in that space.
It had been over ten years since the death of her father, and six years for her mum. The room still smelled of them, and it made her gut churn. She quickly went to the window and pulled back the mustard-coloured drapes, allowing daylight to reveal beige walls and scratched wooden flooring.
Rhett turned from the view to meet the double bed, wondering how often her mother had wished to flee the scene. The bathroom at the side of the room caught her attention next. Her little finger twitched as she approached to peer around the doorframe. She bent to grab the empty mesh bin and took it over to the glass-door cabinet to clear out her mother’s medication stash.
So many small bottles lined the middle shelf, whilst his things took up residence on top.
Rhett grabbed the deodorant, as for some reason it didn’t feel as personal. It clanged in the bin, and the sudden noise woke her from her trance with her parents’ possessions. With one swoop of the hand, she cleared the bottom shelf, then the middle, leaving her father’s aftershave till last.
Lowering the bin to her feet, she unscrewed the lid of the cologne and inhaled the scent of her father one last time. Bile hit the back of her throat, and she quickly added the half-used bottle to the rubbish.
A wave of anger consumed her. She grabbed the cabinet, tugging and twisting, ripping it from the wall, and threw it with all her might across to the small white bath. The glass smashed, chipping the tub and shattering pieces of broken mirror everywhere.
‘Argh!’ she screamed through clenched teeth. She slumped to the cold tiled floor and simply stared at the mess she’d made.
‘Rhett!’ Vivien stood in the doorway, covering her mouth with one hand. ‘What are you doing?’
She raised her eyebrows on hearing her sister’s voice and tilted her head up slightly, feeling resentment take hold. ‘What I should have done years ago.’
‘You can clear their things without smashing them up.’
Rhett wasn’t sure if Vivien was hurt, annoyed, or just blind. She flapped one arm towards the bath and breathed out an empty laugh. ‘You want to do it?’
Vivien didn’t respond.
A sarcastic huff left Rhett. ‘Thought not.’
‘It’s not that. I—’
‘Shut up, Viv. I don’t want to hear your excuses. What are you even doing here? Go live your free, wonderful life. Don’t let a little thing like sorting this place get in your way. You’ve never bothered before.’
Vivien slammed her hands on her hips. ‘That’s not fair. I—’
‘Fair? Fair?’ snapped Rhett, rising to her knees. ‘You want to talk to me about fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. You!’
Vivien went to speak, but Rhett had only just begun.
‘You never had to do anything around here. You never took care of Mum. You, Daddy’s favourite, didn’t do sod all. Where were you when he was hammering down on her head? Where were you when she was knocking back more pills than her body could handle? Where were you when I needed help?’
‘Why do you always make it sound so much worse than it was?’
Rhett almost choked on saliva. ‘Are you for real? It was worse than worse. How can you be so blind to what went on? Your precious dad was a narcissist. He destroyed our mother. Every. Single. Day. The woman was just a shell by the time he died. She was so far gone, even his death didn’t bring her back. And you want to stand there and act like I’m exaggerating.’ She banged the side of her temple. ‘Are you insane?’
‘Rhett, I really don’t think this is helping you.’
‘Oh, what would you know?’ Rhett waved her little sister away. ‘Get out. Go on. Go back to your perfect life with Finn.’
‘I didn’t always have a perfect life, remember?’ Vivien snapped, waving a hand back.
‘Well, that’s your own fault, isn’t it, for choosing someone just like your dad. But what about me?’ Rhett slapped a hand across her chest. ‘What choices did I have? None, that’s what,’ she yelled.
‘You had choices.’
Rhett was filled with a mixture of torment, bitterness, and regret. ‘What choices, Viv? I couldn’t even get married because I was busy doing CPR on our mother. I was eighteen. Eighteen, and it was my wedding day. It was supposed to be the best day of my life. Instead, I’m over there,’ she pointed to the bath, ‘breathing life into our mum. And that wasn’t the only time I saved her life. Five times, Viv. Five. That’s how many times Mum tried to kill herself.’
Vivien didn’t speak, and Rhett knew why. Their mother, Dianna, had always begged Rhett not to tell. She feared the worst, and it wasn’t at the hands of doctors. Vivien was hearing about her mum for the first time, and Rhett was damned if she made it easy for her.
‘That’s the crap I had to deal with when we were kids, when you swanned off to open the Gatehouse Café, while you lived happily ever after.’ Her clenched fist slammed into her chest again. ‘I didn’t get to have a life, because Mum begged me not to leave her. Even my own child preferred to live with the Silvers, spending most of her time over there, and who can blame her? What? You don’t think I ever wanted to run. Of course I did. Every day, but I had to care for Mum.’ Her arm shot out to the bedroom. ‘I’m still surprised he didn’t kill her.’
‘Don’t say that.’
Rhett could see the water weighing heavily in her sister’s eyes, but she didn’t care. Words that had clouded her mind for so long had finally reached her mouth, and not for love nor money could she stop them from flowing. ‘Stop sugar-coating the past, Viv. It was all bad. The whole lot. And I gave my life to it. I’m still stuck in it. Not you. Me.’
‘I can help,’ said Vivien sheepishly.
‘And do what? You’ve never helped me. Do you even see me, Viv?’
The question hung in the charged air for a moment.
‘I’ve got no life. You have. Go and enjoy it while you still can. There’s nothing here that concerns you. Never has been. Never will be.’
‘I think you’re being really cruel to me, Rhett, and I don’t deserve this.’
‘Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we deserve. Did I deserve this life? A father who hated me. A mother who relied on me. A sister who’s never there for me. A daughter who prefers to be somewhere else. Heath. Bloody Heath, Viv. My only chance at happiness, and I had to stay here. So, excuse me if I don’t want to chat merrily away to you about cruelty, fairness, and who deserves what. Because what the hell would you know?’
Vivien stormed off, and Rhett threw a bottle of shampoo after her. It bounced off the side of the bed, then was scooped up by Florence, who then sat on the floor in the doorway.
‘I was coming to see if you wanted to come for a ride. I’m about to take Jamie out.’ She gestured behind her, even though the lad she was teaching was in the stables. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.’
It no longer mattered to Rhett. Her shoulders flopped to the depths of hell, where she felt she lived most days. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not,’ said Florence softly. ‘I felt your pain from the stairway.’ She smiled gently as she met Rhett’s eyes. ‘I’ve not shared the same experiences as you, but I do know what it’s like to live a life where I don’t feel I belong. It seems to me you had one of those.’
Rhett lowered her gaze and nodded.
Florence placed the shampoo bottle to her side. ‘The past can only destroy us if we hold on to it. That’s why I’m here. Not to run away or avoid, but to breathe some fresh air so I have a clear head. That way I can make better decisions for myself. I’ve been here such a short time, and already I know I want to stay. Rhett, you need to start over as well. The changes this house is going through might help, or you could sell, leave, start again somewhere new. The destination isn’t what saves you. It’s your thought process. If you want your freedom from whatever nightmares you have, you have to let the past go.’
There’s just so much.
Florence leaned into the bathroom and lightly patted Rhett’s knee. ‘Don’t expect overnight miracles. Take it one step at a time, but do expect ups and downs if you’re going to start the healing journey, which I think you have, judging by this mess.’
Rhett’s mouth twitched into an unwanted smile. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I just want it all gone.’
‘Good. That’s a start.’
Rhett lifted her chin to look directly at Florence. ‘Do you think I should throw it all away?’
‘I don’t know your full story, but from what I do know, I think it’s time you did something different.’