Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Two months earlier
The charcuterie board balanced on the edge of the table as though threatening to topple over at any moment. Matilda pushed a piece of melba toast covered in camembert and fig jam into her mouth and then used her hip to prod the board back into place. She nodded in satisfaction as she smoothed the lace-trimmed white tablecloth with a tug. The table was laden with good food—roasted chicken, bread rolls, salads, muffins. Anything the dozens of mourners could think to bring was there. A hodgepodge of kindness and sympathy in gastronomical form served to comfort those in attendance.
Matilda glanced around the room as she chewed, noting the clusters of people gathered together in small groups and speaking in hushed tones. There were her father’s colleagues by the grand piano, and the church folks next to the large horse-riding landscape in watercolour. Her cousins had congregated by the punch bowl. And her siblings huddled together along the far wall beneath the family portraits.
She grabbed another melba toast, slathered cheese on it, and hurried to join them. Stella, her sister, sat with hunched shoulders, nursing a glass of white wine in one hand. Her eyes looked glazed with dark smudges staining the skin beneath them. Matilda rested a hand on Stella’s back as she sat in the empty chair beside her.
“How are you doing, sis?”
Stella inhaled a quick breath as though waking up. “I’m ok. You?”
“Meh.” Matilda ate the snack in her hand as she listened in on her brother’s conversation.
“I don’t think Dad would’ve wanted you to get rid of the Porter painting,” Bryce stated emphatically. “And besides, he knew I wanted to keep it. It reminds me of him.” His voice broke.
“Well, I’m the executor, so it’s up to me.” Todd crossed his arms. “And there’s so much to go through, we can’t get emotional about every little thing.”
“That doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want,” Bryce objected.
Matilda forced a wry smile onto her face. “Not today, please. Can we talk about all this tomorrow? Today’s not the right time.”
Both brothers looked at her. Todd’s face softened and he patted her shoulder. “You’re right. We’ll talk about it later.”
Bryce grunted. “Fine, we’ll talk about something else.” He eyed the table. “I don’t think I can eat anything.”
“It’s all I can do,” Matilda replied with a grimace, still licking her lips. “Someone stop me.”
She pushed her long, blonde hair back over her shoulder, regretting wearing it down for the hundredth time as sweat trickled down her spine.
“You can get away with it,” Stella complained with a gentle shoulder shove. “It goes right to my hips.”
“You can’t claim that every single thing you eat goes directly to your hips. Metabolism doesn’t work that way,” Todd said, with a shake of his head.
“It does with me. My metabolism is different to anyone else’s.”
“That’s scientifically impossible,” Bryce chimed in.
“I’m a scientific marvel,” Stella replied with a wink at Matilda who couldn’t help but laugh.
She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “You’re definitely a marvel.”
“But honestly, how is it you managed to get blonde hair, tanned skin, and narrow hips? Plus that tiny waist? It’s so unfair. When here I am, big hips, tiny boobs, freckled skin and brown curls.”
Matilda’s throat tightened. She missed her mother. “You look like Mum.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she tried to smile them away. “I love the way you look.”
Stella’s eyes filled, and she blinked hard. “Don’t start. I don’t want to cry anymore. My throat hurts, my head’s got some kind of mallet whacking against the inside of my skull, and I’m ready to crash on my bed for twelve solid hours.”
Matilda reached for her sister’s hand and held it tight. “We just have to get through the next hour. Then everyone will leave, and we can go to bed.”
“After we clean up,” Stella replied.
“I’m hoping someone else will stay to do that.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Bryce hissed as he nodded a thank you at a well-wisher.
A steady stream of mourners continued by their chairs, giving their sympathies as they came and went. The four siblings had already gotten used to plastering a thin smile on their faces, nodding their heads, and muttering a soft thank you in response. Although Matilda wasn’t sure how much more she could manage.
The house was full to the brim of people her parents had loved and shared their lives with. But so many of them were people she didn’t know or had only met once or twice. She’d left home when she was eighteen. That was seven years ago. And her parents had lived full lives in that time between work, the church, the lawn bowls club and their horse-riding group. When her mother died two years earlier, Dad’s circle had shrunk a little. But most of her mother’s friends had continued to drop by every now and then to check on him. It was a tight-knit community in the beachside town of Kingscliff.
“You know, with Mum and Dad both dying of cancer, I think it’s time we talk about getting tested,” Todd said, in his best doctor voice.
“I don’t know…” Stella said. “Is that really necessary?”
“We should check to see if we have the gene,” Todd replied. “It could be lifesaving for all of us.”
“I guess we could do that,” Bryce added. “Where would we go?”
“I can do it in the lab at the hospital,” Todd replied.
“Okay, well, I guess we should line it up while we’re all here,” Matilda said, glancing at her smart watch to check for messages. She wasn’t sure when she’d get a chance to go back to Brisbane, but projects were piling up and she needed to get on top of it. There were rumours of impending layoffs at the graphic design studio where she’d only been working for the past six months, and she didn’t want to give them an excuse to add her name to the list. “I might not get back to Kingscliff for a while.”
“You’re always dying to get out of here,” Stella said with a pout. “Can’t you stay for a while. We’re going to need your help with getting the house sorted.”
“I suppose I could do some work in Dad’s office. I brought my laptop with me.”
“That would be good,” Todd said. “We all have work to do, but we’ve got to make some decisions and sort through Dad’s paperwork. There are so many unknowns at this point.”
Matilda knew that Todd liked to have everything organised. His thick brown hair was always perfectly combed to one side. He had the physique of a man who never skipped a gym workout. He hated for anything to be uncertain. And the fact that he wasn’t sure yet what their father’s will contained, or exactly what he should do with everything in their parents’ estate, made him uncomfortable. But it didn’t bother Matilda. She took things as they came. There wasn’t anything else she could do other than accept life the way it was.
“Speaking of tests,” Stella began, “have any of you done that DNA test kit Dad got us all for Christmas yet?”
“The family history one?” Bryce asked. “No, not yet. I can’t remember where I put it.”
“I haven’t looked at it,” Matilda admitted. “Besides, I have no idea why Dad gave us a DNA test kit for Christmas. We all know what it’s going to say. We’re Irish, Scottish and French, don’t we already know that?”
Stella shrugged. “You look Swedish to me. So who knows?”
Matilda had heard the same thing all her life. Wherever she went, people asked about her Scandinavian heritage—she had none. Not as far as she knew. They also questioned why she looked so different from the rest of her family. And of course, when she was a kid, there were the inevitable jokes about being the postman’s daughter. Her own father had dark hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin, just like the rest of the family. Still, she was used to it. It didn’t bother her the way it had when she was younger.
“Okay, enough with the jokes. If you care about it so much, I’m happy to take the test. We can do all our tests at one time and get it over with. Find out if we really do have Swedish heritage and whether we’re all likely to die of cancer. Sounds like an absolute riot.” She rolled her eyes.
Stella laughed softly. “Don’t do it if you don’t want to.”
“No, no, I’m sure it’s going to be fun. I’ve always wanted to know if I’m destined to die early.” She tended to delve into sarcastic retorts when she was feeling emotional but was too tired to cry. She’d cried so much over the past week, she was fairly certain she was seriously dehydrated.
“Fine, it’s settled,” Bryce said. “We’ll do all the tests. And we’ll figure out what to do with Dad’s things. And, well…” He swallowed, unable to finish his sentence.
But Matilda knew what he was about to say. They would be finished with Kingscliff. All four of them lived in the city. And now that Dad was gone, they’d have no reason to return. It was their childhood home, and she loved the place, but other than the occasional holiday, would she spend time there again? Probably not. She was busy with her life in the city. Her boyfriend was making noise about moving in, although she’d already told him she wasn’t that kind of girl. So maybe he would propose. She was well and truly ready. They’d dated for two years. She’d hoped to get married before Mum died, but he hadn’t taken the hint.
Surely, it would be soon.
Regardless, the fact was, Kingscliff was her past. Brisbane was her present. She had no idea what her future held, but she hoped it would be a family, a thriving career, and an annual trip back to the seaside town of her childhood to swim in the surf and catch up with family. They’d been through so much grief over the past few years, nursing sick parents and watching them fade away. She was ready for some relief. It was time for her life to begin. To put the past behind her and step into a new adventure.