Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER
With a heavy heart, Nyah watched Caleb drive away for his shift at the station, feeling as if he was taking part of her soul with him.
Folding her arms around herself, she blinked against both the sting of tears and the lingering afternoon sunshine casting a warm amber glow over the sprawling landscape.
Remaining on the verandah after the dust from his tyres settled, she dropped her arms and wrapped her fingers tightly around the wooden railing in an effort not to fall to her knees.
She had to go home. He had to stay here, in his home.
And with that recognition, the threatening tears built and tumbled down her cheeks, and now that she was alone she let them fall unchecked.
A whine sounded at her side, and she felt Jet’s fur brush up against her leg.
Sniffling as she smiled down at him and saw his big brown doggy eyes filled with concern for her, she knelt and gave him a grateful hug as she thought back to the day before, when she’d watched the two men responsible for tearing away a piece of her heart getting shoved into the van.
The conclusion of the court case, with all its horrific revelations, marked the end of a painful chapter that had haunted her for years.
But even with closure, the heartbreak was still raw and stinging.
There had always been a faint hope that Skye was alive somewhere, but now that hope was lost, leaving her with a deep aching sorrow.
Caleb was helping to ease the sensation, but come tomorrow, when she left…
She couldn’t bear to even think about it.
Sitting cross-legged with Jet now resting his head in her lap, she felt as if the world around her was distant and muted, as if she were underwater.
She could hear the sounds of nature—melodious bird calls, thumping of kangaroos bounding through the scrub, the call of livestock—but although it was near, everything sounded far away.
Her fingers absently brushed through Jet’s fur as she silently thanked him for keeping her company, and in the stillness that followed the departure of the sun, she remained rooted in place, her spirit weighed down by a profound sadness that ran as deep as the roots of the towering trees scattered across the landscape before her.
Jet’s tail began slapping the timber floorboards, the sound snapping her out of her internal trance.
The numbness that had seemed to penetrate her very bones gave way to a torrent of emotions as she stood then turned away from the darkening horizon.
Every step she took across the verandah felt heavy, as if she were wading through quicksand, her retreat into the sanctuary of the homestead feeling like a forced march against the relentless tide of anguish threatening to consume her.
Thank goodness she’d been able to hold her emotions in until Caleb had driven away, because he’d shouldered enough, soothed her enough, been there enough.
She didn’t want to burden him any more than she already had.
The next day she’d be heading back to Cairns, and he’d be able to go back to his life without having to carry her through hers.
Although it was inevitable, her heart pounded at the thought of having to say goodbye to him, its rhythm chaotic and discordant.
Why did life have to be so damn hard? Guilt and anger vied for dominance in her fraught mind, each emotion swirling and crashing against the other like waves in a stormy sea.
If only Skye hadn’t been taken that day, life would’ve panned out so very differently.
She’d still be here, and very likely married to the love of her life.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t save you, little sister,’ she whispered as she flicked the kettle on.
Even though, deep down, she knew it wasn’t her fault, the weight of guilt still writhed in her gut, coiling tighter with each recollection of laughter shared and secrets whispered under the vast Australian sky in the town she and Skye had called home.
She suspected the discovery of Skye’s remains and then the ongoing drama of the court case had put such wretched emotions under lock and key, but now, with nothing else to focus on, they were ramping back up.
And with this realisation, hot, bitter anger surged within her towards the three people who’d shattered their world.
The injustice of Robin Keller not being there to face the judge and jury, to pay for her wickedness, gnawed at her, even as she remembered the relief of two of the three being sentenced.
The kettle flicked off, but she was too preoccupied to make her cuppa.
The homestead, with Caleb’s presence, was filled with warmth and love, but it felt hollow without him.
Stepping out of the kitchen and wandering down the hallway, she sought comfort in the familiar living room but found none as she stumbled towards the couch.
Collapsing onto it, sobs racked her body, raw and unrestrained, each heave a release of pent-up sorrow that had been held at bay for far too long.
Within the freedom of her solitude, she allowed the tears to flow.
Trembles coursed through her body as she gripped at the fabric of her T-shirt, twisting and knotting it as the turmoil churned in her stomach.
Years had passed since she’d lost her sweet sister, but now she knew Skye was gone forever, the dam holding back her sorrow was cracking.
As for her birth mother, that relationship was dead and buried too.
Like a river breaking its banks, she found it impossible to stop weeping.
With each ragged breath drawn between sobs, the gravity of her loss took her further into the depths of bereavement, the couch—and Jet’s faithful company—becoming a makeshift raft in the storm of her anguish.
Still there hours later, lying in the quiet aftermath, with the day long gone and the velvet of night enveloping her, she wholly surrendered to the embrace of mourning, for her sister and for Claire.
Left alone with her life now forever altered, she was totally aware that she would find a way to move through it all.
But first she had to allow herself the freedom to really feel the pain.
That, in itself, was the first step to healing.
Silvery moonlight eventually moved across the sleeping landscape and filtered through the windows.
Her gaze, blurred and unfocused, blackened as she closed her eyes against the burn of countless tears.
And within her consciousness, she saw Skye, her voice soft and sweet as she sang while swaying to and fro on their swing set, her striking blue eyes filled with so much life.
And in her mind, Nyah reached out and held her sister’s little hands, and her heart clenched tighter, while the pain turned sharp and accusing, the edges of her consciousness haunted as that fateful day came into blinding focus.
Were there shadows beneath Skye’s eyes that she hadn’t seen?
Had there been words left unspoken that could have revealed a truth too terrifying to face?
Why had Skye never mentioned her time with Nate?
Did she suspect, or think, he was her real father?
The fact that she’d never know the answers stabbed the dagger of grief even deeper.
‘How could I have known you’d be taken from us that day, little sis?’ she whispered to the empty room, her voice fragile amid the stillness.
And then she remembered her mother, rage-filled, pointing the finger of culpability at her, and only at her.
Blame washed over her like an unrelenting tide, eroding her resolve with its never-ending accusations.
As the elder sister, she should’ve sensed the danger lurking so close to home.
She should’ve noticed the subtle shifts in Skye’s demeanour, the signs hidden in their daily routine.
But she hadn’t, and that failure was a brand seared deep into her being.
In her rattled mind, and shattered heart, Skye’s twelve-year-old face was frozen in time, forever young and vibrant, immortalised.
Not ready to move, she curled into herself, seeking comfort in the foetal position, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped tight around them.
The dark curls of her hair formed a curtain around her face, shielding her from the world that had so cruelly snatched away her sister.
And she cried some more. Sobbed some more.
Taunted her thoughts some more. Eventually her sobs dwindled to a mere quivering of her lips, the storm of her grief now a drizzle of silent tears.
Her body felt heavy on the couch, each limb a boulder that seemed to pull her deeper into the depths of exhaustion.
The once bright blue of her eyes was now dimmed, and her face was reddened and swollen from the relentless crying.
It was as if every tear had leached the vitality straight from her veins, leaving her a hollow shell sprawled across Caleb’s couch.
As midnight ticked over, her thoughts continued to spin endlessly.
She combed through every conversation she could recall, every shared giggle and tear with her sister, desperately seeking absolution in a futile attempt to rewrite the past. But the past was unchangeable, and with it came the crushing realisation that she could never go back to the sister she loved with a fierce intensity that now had no outlet.
More sobs rose, and each one was a mournful cry, an unanswered plea to the universe for answers that would never come, an echo of love lost to the relentless march of time and a bitter old woman’s cruel hands.