23. 23
23
Colton
D uke’s barking gave me away before I could even shut the engine off. I was knackered. Kids and teenagers in one day were exhausting. The kids were physically challenging. Had they always moved that fast? And I felt like I could sleep for an entire day after counselling Toby and Maddie.
But I had to do this.
I got the little tree from my passenger seat and took a deep breath before hauling myself out of the ute. Duke had stopped barking, now watching me from the porch with his big tail wagging slowly. Not happy wags. Cautious wags.
‘Hey, Duke.’ The dog seemed to relax at the fact I knew his name and proceeded to sniff at my jeans.
I gave three short knocks against the front door, watching a shadow move behind the stained-glass panes. Granny Beauregard swung the door open, allowing Duke to trot inside. I gulped a little as her blue eyes looked at the tree tucked under my arm curiously.
‘Colton. I see you no longer use the ivy.’ The old woman folded her arms and smiled mischievously. She was wearing an apron and the sweet smell of fresh jams wafted outside.
‘G’day, Mrs Beauregard. Is Honey home?’
‘She sure is, being the best jam pourer and lid twister an old woman can ask for.’ She leant back into the house. ‘Honey! You have a visitor!’
‘Okay! Just a sec!’ Came Honey’s voice from the depths of the house.
I stood awkwardly on the threshold, conscious of Granny Beauregard’s eyes assessing me like an x-ray. Her sharp wit both humoured and terrified everyone around Gumtree Valley.
‘Your brother should be the one standing here, not you.’
I gulped. It reminded me of when I’d picked up Honey for our year twelve formal. Who needed a daddy with a shotgun when you had a granny like her? ‘I’m not here to cause any trouble. There’s just something I need to do for Honey.’
‘Mm …’ She was still watching me as she stepped aside for Honey before disappearing into the kitchen.
‘What are you doing here, Colton?’ Honey also wore an apron, her face flushed from working in a hot kitchen on an even hotter day, and her hair twisted to the back of her head with a hair claw. Even looking like this, she made my heart do a pathetic flip.
She’s not yours anymore.
I gestured for her to step outside and I didn’t miss the way she checked her surroundings as if someone might be spying on us before closing the door after herself. ‘I got us a tree.’
She frowned. ‘Colton, I’m with Beau now. Whether you agree with that or not, I can’t keep jeopardising my relationship. You’ve caused us enough trouble and that was before you even returned to town.’
‘Just hear me out, please.’ I grabbed her wrist as she went to turn away, her skin soft and smooth under the pads of my fingers. I breathed relief when she gave a nod and gestured for me to proceed my case. ‘I thought this would be a good way to get closure … about the baby. Planting trees seems to be a way to mark a fresh start according to Google. I’m not using this as a way to excuse myself for leaving you to deal with it. I just thought it might help us move on. To help you move on.’
I thought Honey’s face was frozen until she blinked down at the green leaves. ‘You’d do that for me? I mean, for the baby?’
I swallowed. ‘Of course. But if you don’t like the idea we don’t have to.’
A small smile quirked her lips, her fingers brushing against the leaves gently. ‘No, I think it’s a great idea. Hang on a sec, there’s something else.’
I moved away from the door and leant on the verandah railing as I listened to Honey’s running steps thump around inside. The sun was beginning to slide down the horizon, throwing the earth into a display of orange and pink. Duke was fast asleep on the couch, which sat beneath the kitchen window, all four paws in the air with his back legs spread. Oh, to have his life. No life-altering decisions to make. No bills to pay. No wrongs to make right. All he had to worry about was pissing on trees and when his next meal was coming.
The front door creaking open had me turning around to see Honey step out with two squares of paper in her hands, apron now gone to reveal a worn set of t-shirt and shorts. I frowned when she gave them to me, my eyes locking on the murky black and grey photograph.
‘They’re the ultrasounds.’ Honey’s arms were wrapped tightly around herself like a shield. ‘In the first one, the dating scan, I was just shy of seven weeks so you can’t see much. But it’s there. In the next one I was at twelve weeks and then … well, you know.’ She leant on the railing next to me. ‘I haven’t been able to decide what to do with them. It feels disrespectful to throw them away but I just about burst into tears every time I see them hidden at the back of my wardrobe. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to bury them beneath the tree.’
I glanced over to her, nodding. ‘Anything you want.’
She stared at me for a little while and I itched to comfort her. But I couldn’t. Was that what made this so much harder? We were two people who’d made a baby together, only to lose it, and we couldn’t comfort one another with touch. Just knowing that we understood each other had to be enough.
‘I’ll get a shovel.’
Neither of us spoke as we stopped off at the garden shed for Honey to get a shovel and full watering can, both of us consumed with thoughts of what could have been. Duke trailed behind us, sacrificing his nap, seeming to sense his owner needed as much support as she could get. The only time we did speak was to discuss where to plant the tree.
Honey picked a spot at the top of a small rise in Misty’s paddock. The ground had hardened thanks to the summer, so I swapped her the tree for the shovel, noticing she seemed to clutch it to herself tightly as I pierced the ground with the blade. It was hot work, standing in the middle of the paddock with the sun belting down and trying to lift the hard dirt. It was zapping the final bits of energy I had after chasing kids on calves and sweat dribbled from my forehead. But it was nothing compared to what Honey had endured while I’d been riding across the US.
There was a sniffle behind me as I lifted the final pile of dirt from the new hole. Honey was clutching the tree and photos to herself tightly, tears dribbling freely down her face. It was Beau’s job to comfort her. But Beau didn’t know. I was all she had, and she was all I had. I tossed the shovel to the ground and gently took her hand. Duke’s brown eyes peeked up at her worriedly as I guided her over to the hole. The both of us crouched down, Honey clutching the pictures to her chest.
‘It seems silly,’ she managed to blurt between hiccups. ‘I’m sobbing profusely over a jelly bean with limbs when women give birth to their dead babies.’
‘It’s not silly,’ I managed to rasp out. ‘You lost a baby. Don’t ever compare your journey to others, okay?’ I looked at the photos now crumpled in her tight grasp. ‘If you’re not ready, then we don’t have to do this.’
She closed her eyes, her sobs settling slightly. ‘No. This is the right way to do it. It’s just h-harder than I thought it would be. Maybe it’s because it’s more than a little life. It was the last piece of us.’
I swallowed past a stubborn lump in my throat. ‘Something bigger than us knew it wasn’t meant to be.’
Honey looked down at the photos, gave them a gentle kiss and placed them at the bottom of the hole.
I’m sorry I let you down.
The both of us worked to free the tree from its pot by squeezing the sides and loosening the roots before gently placing it down. Using our hands, we dragged the loose soil back into the hole, the grains of dirt rattling against the pictures. Honey’s sniffles were easing by the time we patted the loose dirt around the tree’s base. She gently watered it in, Duke and I watching on. Even Misty had wandered over, now standing above us to block out the sun.
‘It’s a coral gum,’ stated her broken voice as she flicked one of the nuts which hadn’t yet flowered.
I nodded, suddenly feeling wary about my choice. ‘I remember how much you loved them. When they bloomed, it reminded you of good things to come after everything that happened with your parents.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Plus, there’s not a lot of other options at the nursery in a town called Gumtree Valley.’
Honey placed the empty watering can next to her, looking over to me with red-rimmed eyes and a dirty face. The faintest of smiles quirked her lips, before they trembled.
I gently brought her into my side, her head resting on my shoulder. We didn’t need to speak our thoughts. We already knew. Honey and I had always been like that, able to know what the other was thinking with a single look. I knew that like me, she was imagining the life we could’ve had with our little baby for the final time. As I stared at the coral gum’s leaves gently moving in the wind, I imagined coming home to a toddler running down the hallway. I would scoop them up, playing a game of airplane as I followed the smell of cooking to the kitchen. Honey would be preparing dinner, frazzled but beautiful. I would give her a kiss and bathe our child so she could work in peace. Then we would all sit down. Tired but happy. A family.
I hoped Honey would still get that life. A life she’d always wanted with a loving home, animals and children. The type of home she hadn’t known until her grandparents took her in. A life she’d dreamt of with me before I’d crushed it. As much as it made my heart bleed and soul shrivel, I knew Beau could give her everything she wanted. But I was standing in the way of it again. As long as I was in her life, she wouldn’t be happy. Now, though, with the final piece of us buried in the ground, I hoped she could begin to move on.
I was just too damn selfish to let her go just yet.
Duke and Misty remained with us as we sat there. The sun eventually disappeared, leaving us to sit in the paddock glowing beneath the full moon. It wasn’t until crickets chirped their night song that we decided to head back. Honey was weak against me as we walked and when her feet stumbled halfway across the dark paddock, I swept her legs from under her. Her face pressed into my chest, her arms tight around my neck as Duke led the way back to the house. Granny Beauregard saw us approach from the kitchen window, a look of sad understanding on her face as she held the front door open for me.
It was after I left Honey in an exhausted daze on her bed and headed back outside that her granny dragged me into a hug. I was surprised by the old woman’s strength as her slim arms crushed around me. When she stepped back, her eyes were blurred with the threat of tears.
‘You’re a good boy, Colton.’ A warm jar was thrust into my hands. Jam. ‘Be sure to have some on your toast in the morning.’
I gave a weak smile. ‘I’ll be sure to do that.’
My headlights swept across the paddock as I left, showing a small lone coral gum. Misty was standing by it, her head hung low in a sleep. Like she was protecting it.
‘New beginnings,’ I whispered and accelerated away.