Fifty
In the back corner of the bar at the Elsie Creek Hotel—which Harper had commandeered—it had been dubbed chaos central. She had her phone and laptop plugged into the wall. Paperwork covered four bar tables she’d commandeered as her desk, with charts, maps and diagrams covering the corner wall where she interviewed farmers, fishermen, storekeepers, the publican and her staff, plus lots and lots of stockmen. Thanks to Cowboy Craig, who’d brought these people over to meet her, all in the name of research.
Harper didn’t even recognise herself.
Once fearful of people hassling her, where her staff sent people away, now, it was Harper who engaged these strangers with small talk before getting into deep conversations with them over how the new mine’s proposal for water rights would affect this region.
Thankfully, the wheels were turning in her head again, the ones silenced by the bomb blast, were now powering at full steam. Pausing her round the world beer tour , she was back to cold coffee, and had befriended the cranky Hungarian chef, named Lenny, who made decadent pastries. She was in sugar-rush heaven, while calling in favours from across the globe.
‘Well, I was expecting you to be hugging it out with a box of tissues.’ Bree stood at the table, tapping on the empty plate of crumbs. ‘Lenny’s pastries?’
Harper nodded.
‘He makes a mean cupcake … So, why haven’t you called me?’
‘I don’t have your number.’
‘Liar.’ Bree pinched Harper’s phone from the table and tapped away at the keys. ‘You could have just said that you’d cracked your phone in half like an FBI agent gone rogue. But Cowboy Craig knows my number, Lenny the chef knows our number, and it wouldn’t be too hard to search master brand makers and beautiful blacksmiths to find our number.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re right. The truth is I didn’t want to bother you.’
Bree plonked one hand on her hip with a don’t give me that crap look. ‘I’m well aware that you’re new to the world of friends, but in times like this you call a friend. See, it says so.’ Bree held up the phone that now had an entry that read: In case of emergencies call this friend.
‘Listen, blossom, I’m the kind of friend who’ll get drunk with you, help you clean up a murder scene, supply you with ice cream, or buy you every packet of shortbread off the supermarket shelf.’ Bree upended her shopping bag, allowing over a dozen red packets of shortbread to spill across the table. ‘See, the darkside does come with cookies.’
Harper wanted to cry at the kindness, and the feeling of guilt. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, honey, stop saying sorry. I don’t even say sorry for being snappy when breaking in a new bra.’
‘Okay…’ She shrugged, trying so hard to not say sorry.
‘So, Mean Rene and Craig both said you’ve been fine, and that you went on a round the world beer fest?’ asked the redhead, whose mere presence commanded the room.
‘You know the world’s greatest barmaid?’
‘Blossom, how many brain cells did you fry yesterday?’ Bree held up her hands. ‘I’m not judging on the beer binge. Believe me, I get why we drink to blur life’s many nightmares—it’s why they invented gin. But you don’t look like rock bottom.’ She glanced over the wall charts. ‘When did you get your attention span back?’
‘Um, today. No, it started clearing when Ruby was bitten by the snake.’ Harper flicked at the paperwork.
‘I hope you’re proud of yourself for saving that dog. I know I was when I heard the story.’
‘So, how did you know I was here?’
‘Well, I was waiting for your homing pigeon to deliver a message, telling me what part of the galaxy you’d absconded to. But thankfully, this little honey in a uniform knew how to pick up a phone and dial my number.’
‘I swear to always call you first. I promise. But can we please skip the guilt trip.’
Bree’s grin was positively evil, but full of fun.
‘So, who told you I was here?’
‘Policeman Porter. He is a friend of the family, and he was worried. Said he saw your car still parked at the pub on his way to work. I’m just sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, but I’m here now.’ Bree picked up a spare chair, carried it around the table to sit right beside Harper, giving Harper her full and undivided attention. ‘How are you doing?’
Harper swallowed, her bottom lip quivering. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call you … I got …’ The tears started again.
‘Come here, blossom, I’ve got you.’ Bree pulled her into her arms and held her.
It’s just what Harper needed, a hug from a friend, and she quietly wept, clutching her packets of shortbread like a teddy bear.
After a while, Harper sat back, wiping at the tears, and began stacking her packets of biscuits. ‘How are they?’
‘Mason misses you. Ash too, but he won’t admit it. Cap told them they’re idiots for what they did.’
‘They threw me out when they found out I was Mason’s aunt. I should have told them sooner. Or at least told you.’
‘Pfft, I already knew who you were. We do get google, that’s a little faster than homing pigeons, and I do know how to make a few phone calls.’
‘Leo knew, too.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. But I was trying to tell Ash, but we just kept putting it off, or something else got in the way. And …’ She looked at her hands. ‘I didn’t want to ruin the moments we had. I was happy out there. Somehow Elsie Creek Station helped me heal.’
‘I get it.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah, when you move to the country, you somehow learn to relax, not just with the place but into yourself.’ She patted over her heart. ‘Everything about you becomes weirdly, calmly, okay. It’s magical when you discover that under all that red dust there’s this hope that eventually everything is going to be okay. You learn to smile again. It may be crooked or bleak, but it’s the start of a smile.’
Harper grimaced, couldn’t help it.
‘I’ve been there too, blossom. I’ve learned through my many, many mistakes that there are always new ones to make, but that’s okay—it’s just the death part that sucks the most. You are grieving, Harper.’
‘I called it my brain fog.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘It got so thick, and I let it, to help me forget that my parents, my family were gone. I got so lost that all my plans got thrown out the car window.’
‘What were you planning to do?’
‘To come back to Australia, close up my parents’ house. I was supposed to put the car in storage and catch a plane to meet up with Mason. But when I learned that Mason was coming here, and that my father had slipped in his own caveat for Mason’s welfare, offering Ash twenty-eight days, as a choice.’
Bree leaned closer. ‘You mean Ash was given an escape clause? That if he didn’t want the boy—’
‘I stayed in case Ash rejected his son, my nephew.’ She’d been keeping a tally of the days. ‘Today is day nineteen. We’re just nine days shy of the twenty-eight-day agreement.’
‘Wow.’ Bree sat back. ‘So you drove here…’
‘To be close. I’ve been living in limbo ever since. If Ash didn’t want Mason, I had to think about work, day care, where we would live, everything. I have plenty of job offers. My boss, the Ambassador, even offered to let me work in Canberra, until I got Mason a passport. But …’
‘You can’t do anything until the twenty-eight days is over.’
Harper nodded, even though the stabbing pain rolled around her ribcage, and an anxious sweat brushed across her skin. The fear of missing out on time, or losing time, created a sickening stomach squeeze.
Harper was a fixer, but she couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t turn to her parents for advice, nor ask her sister questions about Mason, her work, or living arrangements for a child because it would always be the same answer. Complete silence. The weightlessness of silence from those you’d loved and would never hear from again, was like floating in space with the earth and the moon rolling past, like tiny stars stuck in an endless galaxy of silence. It was depressing.
‘Have you ever lost someone?’ Harper asked.
Bree nodded, but remained expressionless. ‘I could give you all the nice words that they’d say at funeral homes, but …’
‘The funeral home said some words, but I didn’t hear them. Have you got any words of wisdom?’
‘Far from it.’ Bree shrugged. ‘Only that life happens. Life hurts. Life sucks. And you’ll have days where you’ll want to chug down a jug of gin—’
‘I did beer.’
‘Good. Which means you’re stumbling down the path the overpaid shrinks call the healing process.’
‘What did you do to get over your grief?’
‘Oh, I got freaking mad.’ Bree even chuckled. ‘I wanted to burn the world. And I did for a time. But then I learned to let go.’ She leaned closer, patting Harper’s hand. ‘As you are the queen of watching time, let me tell you that time does something as part of this process. Some say time heals as it passes, and it does get a little less painful. I think time helps to make the memories blur a little around the edges, and the guilt of not being there, or not doing enough for them, starts to pass. But you also have to think of what your parents would have wanted you to do with the time you have today.’
‘They would want me to be happy.’
‘And Mason’s mother, your sister?’
‘To watch out for Mason, to make sure he was happy.’
‘Which is what you’ve been doing. And you found your happiness out there at the station, didn’t you? Not just with Mason, but with Ash, too.’
She licked her lips, pushing down another spate of tears that went with the heartache of missing Ash. ‘I’d never planned to, you know, with Ash. Believe me, I tried to push him away. It just happened. But none of the brothers will let me explain myself. I never lied to them.’
‘But you were playing politician, cleverly deflecting the truth.’
Harper couldn’t lie now. ‘Because I didn’t want to …’
‘Leave.’
Harper nodded at the truth she’d only realised now.
She’d loved the station’s mornings, even if it had taken her a while to find the courage to step outside, to peer at a strange and foreign world. But once she let that screen door shut behind her, to stand beyond the farmhouse’s shadow, she fell in love with the sky. The way that colossally large sky would change colours continuously throughout the day, from soft pinks, cool grey blues, to arctic blues so deep it was like looking for secrets in the deepest ocean. There were the blazing reds, scorching oranges to vivid magenta and mauves, where the sunset surrendered to the galaxy of stars that lowered over the earth, putting the red dust to bed and the outback world was quiet once more.
There were no terrorist threats out here. No peak-hour traffic, no sirens screaming, no phones ringing, no click clack of the many shoes across the pavements, no crowds bundled in big coats hiding from the weather.
Her time at Elsie Creek Station had been an adventure, from the moment she’d arrived. And those days, when she’d climbed into the saddle to ride through the Stoneys, had helped her to see the beauty in a world that had once seemed so desolate, where beneath that harsh shimmering scorched surface, she saw paradise.
She’d never forget the flavour of the spring water at Cascades Spur, or her shower under the stars at Wombat Flats. Sure, she had her own scary tales of the bird spiders, the tussle with a snake, and her own high-speed trip into town. But there were the cuddles from the dogs, the giggles of a child curious to learn a new word. There were her cooking lessons with Bree, lingo lessons with Charlie, or those conversations with Ash about his plans for the station, long after dark.
She missed the station and the family that felt like hers.
When her phone beeped alerting her to an incoming message, she peered at the screen. Her eyes widened. Her fingers shook as she quickly tapped on her keyboard and opened her emails.
‘Good news?’
Harper pointed to her laptop screen. ‘I think I know how to save the station.’