Chapter 32
‘SO YOU SABOTAGED Aunt Dianne and Uncle Paul and they stumbled across these two almost tearing each other’s clothes off?’ Tommy asks, laughing.
A pinkish tinge creeps up Adam’s neck as he stares down at his plate and the barely touched steak on it.
‘Natalia, it’s just a shame that you weren’t there to capture it. That would’ve made Sabrina go viral for sure and helped draw customers to the cafe,’ Gabi says.
‘The cafe is doing fine, Gabi,’ I snap.
Her brows arch. ‘And just what was your net profit last quarter?’ she asks with a smug smile. ‘Your business won’t survive if it doesn’t make any money.’
Anger bubbles deep in my stomach. What did I ever do to her to make her this mean?
Was there something in our childhood, a joke I made, a comment that was misconstrued?
Something that explains why she is so driven to put me down at every opportunity?
Or is it just my mere existence that she finds so annoying?
‘New businesses take time to grow,’ Adam says, his hand slipping into the folds of my dress to find mine. ‘Maybe instead of focusing on the negatives you should be congratulating Sabrina on following her dream.’
Sitting up a little straighter, I squeeze his hand in thanks, loving that there is someone by my side willing to take on Gabi when I struggle to do it myself.
‘It would just be nice if her dream was realistic,’ Gabi says. ‘Like mine is.’
Reese’s lips form a thin line as she reaches for the bottle of shiraz and fills her glass. One knock of the table and it’ll flow over the rim.
‘My dad used to say the same thing about my dreams and if I’d listened to him, I wouldn’t be where I am today,’ Adam says.
‘Oh, ignore Gabi,’ Mum says from her seat at the head of the table.
There’s an intimidating suit of armour behind her, lance in hand, the polished metal gleaming under the flickering lights of the candle sconces on the walls.
Red flags hang from the dark beams of the ceiling, making this dinner feel very ceremonial.
‘My girls may share DNA, but they couldn’t be more different. Sabrina is a dreamer and Gabi is more…’ Mum’s voice trails off as she searches for the right word.
‘Career-minded,’ Gabi offers. ‘Mature. Responsible.’
‘Boring,’ I spit out and Adam’s thumb presses into mine.
Tommy raises his glass to me, lips twitching.
Gabi leans forward, her shoulders bunched as she grips her glass.
‘So your dad wasn’t supportive of you being an author?’ Reese asks, her voice unnaturally loud and high-pitched. She picks at a piece of imaginary lint on her blouse, ignoring the heated look Gabi sends her way.
‘You could say that,’ Adam replies and this time it’s my turn to squeeze his hand.
‘I’m sure he’s proud of you now, Adam,’ Mum says. ‘And if he’s not then I’ll set him straight when we meet.’
‘When you meet?’ I ask and then lean in to Adam. ‘Please tell me you didn’t give her your dad’s number,’ I whisper.
‘Of course we’re going to meet,’ Mum says. ‘The way things are going it might be sooner rather than later.’ She grins at us.
Gabi rolls her eyes. ‘They barely know each other.’
‘Your dad and I only dated for five months before he proposed,’ Mum says. ‘And I could tell back when we first met Adam that he and Sabrina are made for each other.’
I almost choke on my shiraz. Coughing as tears swim in my eyes, I pat my chest. I’d love to know at what point of that evening Mum decided we were soulmates.
Was it when he refused to pull my chair out?
Or flinched every time I touched him? Or flat-out refused to order the gnocchi even though I said it was amazing?
‘So, mark my words, these two will be engaged before we know it. But I want to meet your parents prior to the wedding, Adam.’
I try to silently convey to Adam that I am not expecting an imminent proposal. Or a proposal at any time. Not at this stage. And he does not have to introduce his parents to mine. Ever.
‘Things between my parents and me are, well, they’re difficult,’ Adam says, his voice strained. ‘I’m not sure you’ll get to meet them, Dianne.’
‘Nonsense. Life is too short to be estranged from family. We’ll sit you all down and sort through whatever is making things difficult.’
‘Mum,’ I say, clenching my teeth. ‘You don’t know what’s happened between them so leave it.’
‘But—’
‘Interesting fact,’ Uncle Max says. ‘In 1945 a flock of birds landed on the minute hand of Big Ben and, due to their weight, pushed it back five minutes.’
‘How many birds?’ Amelia asks.
‘What species of bird was it?’ Dad asks. ‘A robin weighs more than a goldfinch so it wouldn’t take as many to move the minute hand. Or if it was the coal tit, that would take a lot more because they’re quite small.’
Amelia giggles, presumably at the word tit.
Uncle Max drops his napkin on his empty plate and pushes it away. ‘That’s a good question. I’m not sure what species, but I wonder how many robins it would take. And how many goldfinches.’
‘Maybe we can find out the weight of the minute hand and work it out that way,’ Dad says. ‘Sabrina, love, how do we find that information?’
Dad’s knowledge of the Internet is minimal. Telling him to google something just blows his mind. He’d be more than happy to return to the days of the encyclopedia.
‘Let me send that question out on my socials and see if someone knows,’ Natalia says, her eyes bright with excitement. Her perfect almond-shaped nails tap away on her phone.
Uncle Max’s trivia fact engulfs the table.
With everyone occupied, I nestle against Adam. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper.
‘It’s fine,’ he says, but he pulls away.
He’s perched on the edge of his seat, dangerously close to sliding onto the floorboards.
Was it the talk of engagements or estranged relationships that created this awkward tension?
His jaw flicks and the hand that was looped through mine moves to rest on the table.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
He nods curtly and picks up his beer.
‘Adam,’ I murmur, unsure of what to say next to bring back the light in his eyes. I chew on the inside of my lip, the unease getting uncomfortably heavy.
A shrill squeal erupts from the head of the table.
Another squeal follows. The table rocks and Reese’s shiraz cascades over the rim of her glass.
Mum and Aunt Carol clutch at one another, their eyes wide and frenzied. Reese, abandoning the mop-up job on her wine, jumps from her seat and races to Mum’s side, hands grasping at her to make sure she’s okay.
‘Clementine,’ Mum gasps out, her pale pink nails digging into Aunt Carol’s bangle-covered wrist. ‘She’s coming.’
‘She’s coming!’ Aunt Carol dances in her seat and they squeal again.
‘What’s going on?’ Tommy asks, holding aloft his wine-soaked napkin.
‘Clementine is coming!’ Mum jumps up, the table rattling for a second time tonight. ‘Bill just sent me a message. He didn’t want to tell me until it was certain because apparently the actress isn’t very reliable, but she’s here. In the village. She’s coming.’
‘She’s coming tomorrow,’ Aunt Carol says. ‘Oh, and I have the perfect T-shirt for the occasion. I was already planning to wear it tomorrow for our last day, but now it’s even more perfect.’
‘She’s joining the tour?’ Natalia asks, and I can practically see her brain working through the online engagement this will bring her.
‘Hurry.’ Mum claps. ‘We can get in one episode, but we won’t run our discussion group tonight. We need to prepare for tomorrow.’
‘Prepare?’ I ask.
‘It’s Clementine, Sabrina,’ she says like that explains everything. ‘We’ll save the final episode for tomorrow night. Ooh, maybe Clementine will come back here and watch it with us.’
‘We should get some champagne just in case. And caviar. Actresses like caviar,’ Aunt Carol says, looping her arm through Mum’s. The two of them scurry out of the dining room with an order for us all to follow.
As soon as the end credits pop up on the screen, the lights are back on and we’re being bustled off to bed so we can all get a good night’s sleep before we meet Clementine, aka Callie Colbett as Gabi keeps pointing out.
I really want to remind Mum that she’s an actress from Australia and not royalty, but she’s so excited that I remain silent and head back to the cottage to get my beauty sleep.
Although as we step through the door and my eyes run over Adam, sleep is the furthest thing from my mind.
I wrap my arms around his waist and hold him. I love that this is something I can do now.
‘Sabrina,’ he murmurs. ‘We need to talk.’
Those four words slam into me with the force of a raging storm. And that’s when I realise that his arms are stiff at his sides and my hug isn’t being reciprocated.
Embarrassment pulses through me. Shit. I’ve read more into the past twenty-four hours than he has.
Here I am thinking that when we get back home there’s a first date on the cards but he’s probably hoping this is a holiday romance and we’ll go back to barely acknowledging one another. I am so utterly stupid.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, hoping he doesn’t notice the quiver to my words as I unravel myself from him, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. ‘I understand.’
‘You understand?’
‘Yep, I understand. We can forget this ever happened.’
‘What? No,’ he says and takes my wrist. With a gentle tug, I’m in his arms. ‘I don’t want to forget what’s happened.’
‘Really?’ I squeak.
‘Really.’
‘Then what do you want to talk about?’
He leads me to the bed and sits beside me. He gathers my hands into his and holds them in his lap. ‘When we get home, I don’t want this to end.’
A rush of relief floods through me.
‘But I need you to know something about me.’
Anxiety blurs the edges of my relief.
‘With Dianne talking engagements, I just…’ he trails off, brows knitted as he stares at me.
‘It’s just Mum being Mum,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m not expecting you to drop to one knee.’
A heavy sigh escapes him. ‘I’ve been married before.’ His thumb moves over mine. ‘And it was…well, it was tough. So tough that I haven’t been in a long-term relationship since.’
‘When did it end?’
‘It’s been about five years.’
I nod and wait for him to continue.
‘I met her my first year of teaching and we were married less than a year later.’ He trails a finger over the inside of my wrist. ‘Looking back, I know I did it because she was from a good family. Her parents had a loving marriage and she had four siblings and it was everything I didn’t have and wanted.
They’re not unlike your family.’ He goes quiet, his finger still trailing my wrist, either to soothe me or himself.
I don’t rush him even though the silence is killing me and the air is thick with questions I want answered.
The soft crackles of the fireplace fill the room. Outside the trees are rustling in a frantic murmur as thunder rumbles in the distance.
‘There’s something you need to understand about my family,’ he says, his voice soft.
Cautious. ‘My parents had me when they were teenagers. My mum’s parents disowned her so she moved in with my dad and his parents.
’ His finger stills. ‘There was a lot of resentment. Towards me. Towards each other. My grandparents did what they could and made sure I felt loved. Safe. I wanted to stay with them but my parents moved us out and it was awful. They’d have screaming matches that lasted all night and would only stop when one of them left the house.
Eventually things would be okay again—until they weren’t. ’
‘Are they still together now?’
‘As far as I know,’ he says. He shakes his head with a rough laugh. ‘My dad spent years telling me my dream of being an author was a joke and that I’d never make it. When I did, guess who was on the phone asking for money?’
‘Adam,’ I breathe, my heart breaking into a million pieces for him.
‘They’re not in my life anymore and I’m okay with that. But because of them I craved stability and a solid family and I put that on her. On Zoe,’ he says. ‘I loved her. Or at least I thought I did. It turned out I loved her family more and she realised that before I ever did.’
‘Is this your way of telling me you like my family more than me?’ I ask, wearing a smile that I hope doesn’t show my nerves.
‘No,’ he whispers and takes my face in his hands, his palms holding me gently like I’m something valuable. To be cherished. ‘No,’ he says again, more forcefully this time. ‘I’m telling you all this so you understand why I might move slower than people may like.’
‘You mean Dianne Fogerty.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m not asking you to propose tomorrow, Adam. Or even next week. But,’ I add when the tension in his shoulders eases. ‘I do want to get married. One day. At the right time. With the right person. Once before, I thought I’d found that person, but I was so wrong.’
‘Brent?’
‘I had blinders on with him and rushed into things. I moved my life from Coffs Harbour to Melbourne a month after meeting him and I promised myself I wouldn’t rush things again. So, if you want to take things slow, I’m on board with that.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asks.
I squeeze his knee. ‘I’m sure. So can we just go home and have a first date? For all we know, it’ll be a complete disaster. Maybe I’ll get food poisoning and vomit on you again and be forced to move out of sheer embarrassment.’
He laughs. One of his perfect Adam laughs that I want so desperately to bottle.
‘I would like to get married again. One day. At the right time. With the right person,’ he says, echoing my words. He pulls me in for a kiss so sweet that I fall a little bit more in love with him.