Chapter 6 #3
moving Mia into her dorm room, then a somber Sunday night spent watching a movie. He got up early and went to the gym just
as he always did, and when he came home, I was sitting at our dining room table eating my oats and reading email on my laptop.
He sat opposite me with a cup of green tea and I asked him what his day looked like. He told me he was planning his team’s
performance reviews, and then he said he had something to tell me. I thought it was something about work so I barely looked
up until he raised his voice.
“See, Fiona? You barely even know when I’m in the same room as you! A man needs to be needed and Keira needs me!”
Mum sighs suddenly, and for a second I think it is a sigh of disappointment in me. How could I be so blind as to miss what
was happening right under my nose, so clueless as to not wonder why they’d grown so close? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times over the past few months. Keira was widowed in late
2004, and in the wake of her husband Rob’s death, Lucas and I agreed we’d do everything we could to support her and her sons.
For me, that meant carrying more than my share of the workload at our firm. For Lucas, it meant acting as stand-in father
to her young twins whenever the need arose. At what point did that innocent, altruistic act become something more, and why
didn’t I see it? I might never know.
But I realize I’ve misunderstood Mum’s frustration when her lips thin further and she shakes her head in disgust.
“You deserved better than that. Especially from them. I’m . . .” She clears her throat. “I really am very sorry this happened to you.”
I stare down into my coffee and blink until the tears that prick my eyes are gone. I’m left feeling guilty that I doubted
even for a second that Mum would take my side in this, especially given the circumstances. In my defense, even that small
display of regret and sympathy from my mother is about as close to vulnerable as she’ll ever allow herself to be with me.
“Thanks,” I eventually croak. “It’s been a rough year.”
“The girls seem to be adjusting well, at least.”
“They have their own lives now. In some ways I’m grateful for the timing.”
Mum makes a sound of agreement, then we fall into silence again.
She was a tough but fair parent for all of my childhood—firm and consistent to Uncle Tad’s soft and unpredictable, cool and aloof to his intense and warm, at least when it came to me.
She’s not demonstrative and she rarely says the words, but I do know my mother loves me.
It’s one of the few things I’m sure of when it comes to Virginia Edendale.
She doesn’t like to make a fuss, so I rarely know if she’s displeased or thrilled by something.
With the exception of tech support from her granddaughters, which we all recognize is actually just an excuse to call them, she refuses to ask for help, so I’ve never seen her sad or low or stuck.
She’s shy with strangers, shy sometimes even with friends. She’s
much more likely to mutter under her breath or make some passive-aggressive comment than she is to stand up for herself.
Virginia Edendale is not the kind of woman to shatter glass ceilings or burn her bra. She’s most comfortable at home, and,
I suspect, most comfortable home alone. She’s a deeply anxious person, although she’d never admit it. It’s like she’s been
on high alert, afraid to let her guard down even for every second, for my whole life, even when it comes to me. Maybe especially
when it comes to me, and I have no idea why.
I wish I understood my mother. I wish she’d let me know her.
“It’s not too late,” she says hesitantly. I look at her, startled. Did I say that aloud? Or does she mean—
“Not too late for me and Lucas?” I blurt, horrified by the suggestion. Even when he left our house that day in February, I knew there was no going back.
“Oh, I assure you it is.”
Mum’s lips thin. “Wurimbirra, Fiona. It’s not too late for you to back out. To tell Jon you’ve changed your mind. He’ll understand.”
“What on earth gives you the impression that I’ve changed my mind?”
“Haven’t you?”
Images flash through my mind—glass shattered on the kitchen floor, a bucket that moved itself across the parlour, me stalking the hallways carrying the barrel of a vacuum cleaner in lieu of a weapon, me lying wide awake staring at the roof listening to sounds through the house that I can’t make sense of.
I shake my head fiercely anyway.
“No!”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to see you, Mum,” I say. She gives me a look and I suddenly feel like a silly teenager again, caught out on a lie . . . then doubling
down on it despite the fact that she already knows there’s an ulterior reason for this visit. “I did!”
“Hmm.”
“The house is full of Tad’s things. The storeroom alone is . . .” I break off, wincing, as a flush steels up my cheeks. “And Jon said there’s
been interest from libraries and museums about a collection?”
“Yes, we’ve fielded several inquiries over the past ten years from institutions looking for donations for an exhibit about
Tad’s life.”
“Well, I just—” I clear my throat. “I was hoping you might help me sort through all of that. That’s all. I don’t know how
to make any of that happen but I think we should.” Mum calmly sips her coffee, then rests the cup carefully on the breakfast
bar. I suddenly have a vision of her in the house with me, working to figure out what from that mammoth collection of paperwork
is worth donating to a museum. It wouldn’t fix the noises at night or the fact that I’m feeling unnerved about the house,
but at least I wouldn’t be alone, all day every day, for the foreseeable future, which sounded perfect just a week ago but is now starting to feel like a bit of a nightmare. “Maybe just a few hours a day, Mum. It won’t take us
long—”
“I can’t.”
“But—”
“I have not set foot in that house since the day of your uncle’s wake and even then it was . . . uncomfortable.”
“I know,” I say softly. “I can imagine what it was like to find—”
“But you can’t imagine, Fiona. You weren’t there.”
“So tell me about it.”
Mum looks at me, startled, as if I’ve asked for something else ridiculous—first help with the paperwork, and now this.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snaps.
I don’t want to upset her. I really do want her help figuring out that paperwork but even more than that, she’s my mother and I’d love to have a better relationship
with her. It might be nice if I could call in here sometimes, to share a cup of coffee and a chat, or if we could get to the
point that she’d stop by when she’s driving past, just to say hi.
I moved home for Wurimbirra. But maybe, at least on some level, I also moved home for her. But if I push too hard, she’ll
shut this conversation down. I know that for sure, because it’s what she’s always done when I’ve asked her about the hard
things.
Her childhood.
My father.
I don’t remember the first time I asked Mum about him, but by the age of nine or ten, I understood the subject was off-limits.
She’s always reacted like this—she gets prickly and wound up, even if I’m asking for the most benign details. But Uncle Tad,
lovely, patient Uncle Tad, was always happy to talk about things. Even the difficult, awful things. But for Uncle Tad, I’m
not sure I’d know much at all about Aaron West.
Tad had flown home for my parents’ wedding and was about to return to Australia when the accident happened. Aaron was killed
instantly—the news came as such a shock that Mum collapsed. Tad delayed his return to support her but couldn’t stay forever,
so convinced her to come visit him here in Australia for a while.
Mum realized she was pregnant after she arrived, but in those days, it was unclear if air travel was safe for pregnant women and so she had to stay until the delivery.
But by the time I was born, Mum had reached the conclusion that there was nothing back in the US for her anyway, so she stayed for good.
Aaron had died so soon after the wedding, she hadn’t even had the chance to change her name.
She flew to Australia as Virginia Winslow, and she was only supposed to be here for a few weeks, so of course she didn’t bring her marriage certificate with her.
It was very late in her pregnancy that she and Tad realized they should have had someone post the certificate over, but by
then it was too late for them to do so. At that time in Australia, particularly rural Australia, it was commonplace for single
mothers to have their children forcibly adopted. Mum and Tad became worried that if she told the story of my conception and
her widowhood at the hospital, but didn’t have paperwork to back it up, I might be taken away from her.
My birth certificate lists Mum’s maiden name as Virginia West and her married name as Virginia Winslow, which was still her name on her driver’s license. My father is listed as Aaron Winslow.
There’s even a signature beside his name, which I’m pretty sure Mum or Tad forged.
There are so many things I’d love to ask my mother about, especially now that Tad is gone and I have no one else to ask. What
was it like to realize she was going to be a single mother in 1960, in a brand-new country where she only knew her brother?
How did she meet Aaron, and how deeply did she love him? Did it feel like she would never get over his loss when he died?
When did it start to get easier?
I can only dream that she’d let me close enough to ask things like that.
“Do you remember if Uncle Tad had an author friend named Charity Wilkie?” I say instead, changing the subject before she does.
Mum pauses as she thinks, then finally shakes her head. She gives me a wary glance, as if she can’t believe I’m not going
to ask her more about the house or the paperwork or the day Tad died.
“I don’t think so, no. Why?”
“Just curious. I’m reading one of her books.”
“He liked to correspond with other authors. You’ll probably find letters in the—” She breaks off, as if she’s afraid to even