22 AMELIA

22 Amelia

Amelia had noticed that Charlee seemed emotionally younger than her age, but she found that neediness and Charlee’s tendency to emulate her both flattering and endearing. Her new understanding of the tragedy of the Brennans’ lives helped smooth things over with Heath. She could see that he loved his daughter, but struggled to find the best way to help her. That insecurity was endearing, tempering the surliness that she now recognised as armour.

‘We will be in it together,’ she assured Charlee. ‘At least for a while, to get the farmyard up and running. I don’t imagine that will be an overnight thing. But the biggest problem we have is that small animals tend to grow into large animals. We’re going to have to put out feelers to see if there’s somewhere with land enough to agist all these animals when they grow too big. I don’t think we want to be piling five billy goats into a horse float, nor do suburban mums want a full-grown bull munching on their flower beds. So we need a retirement plan for them.’

Charlee was watching for her father’s reaction and Amelia hoped Heath wouldn’t realise the lines had been rehearsed, and that he was being manipulated into offering to house the animals. Or, if he did realise, that he’d intuitively know Charlee would appreciate his surrender more if she thought it reluctant. Amelia had quickly learned that Charlee loved a chance to prove her arguing prowess, even if her logic was sometimes sketchy. The travelling farm would engage her attention far better if she felt she’d had to fight to justify it.

‘Speaking of large animals …’ Heath said, as their plates were delivered to the table, steak overflowing the slabs of sourdough.

‘Dad!’ Charlee screwed up her nose.

Heath picked up his knife and pointed at her plate. ‘Don’t see you going vegetarian over there. No point pretending not to know where your food comes from.’

‘Friends or food, the age-old dilemma,’ Charlee said lugubriously, though she tackled her sandwich with gusto.

‘I don’t know about age-old,’ Heath said. ‘Don’t think the Neanderthals had too much of a problem deciding.’

‘Different race, Dad,’ Charlee said, her words loaded with the full force of teenage scorn.

Amelia caught Heath’s small smile and realised he’d successfully diverted his daughter’s train of thought. Either he was aware of the need to play her or he was buying time to consider the idea of housing the animals. ‘I’ve always had kind of a weird thing about that, too,’ she said. ‘We butchered our own stock; it was a necessity because the property was so remote. And, while I can carve up an animal, I could never eat anything I’ve named. Got to draw a line somewhere, you know?’

‘A property? That’s where you learned to fly?’ Heath asked.

She nodded. ‘Where, but not why. I’m not a stock pilot, that’s a whole ’nother ball game. I just love the freedom of flying. The solitude.’

‘So dangerous, though,’ Charlee interrupted, her forehead creased.

‘Statistically less dangerous than—’ Amelia broke off, pushing a chip around her plate as she tried to cover up the comparison she’d been about to make. Charlee’s missing mother was proof that car travel was more dangerous. ‘Maybe it’s that, in the air, you realise that the world is so much vaster than your own little experience. We’re so … inconsequential. But it’s hard to see that when you’re one of the ants, milling around on the ground with a billion other ants. Up there you get the big picture …’ Dropping the chip, she spread her arms wide to illustrate. ‘And you realise that no matter your emotions or hurts or joy or anything else, you’re such a tiny little atom in the universe that you have no impact on anyone else.’

Heath shook his head. ‘I don’t think you’re right. I get the bit about us being ants in the scheme of things, but everything we feel, everything we do, every decision, every behaviour impacts others.’

He looked at Charlee as he spoke, though she was focused on her food now, and Amelia could see the sorrow in his eyes. It was clear that his wife was not all he had lost in the car crash. He might not always make the right decisions, but this man loved his daughter with everything that was in him. And that was grounding: for so long, she’d felt that she had a monopoly on that kind of love, that no one hurt over Noah’s death as much as she did. Her parents had sold the property and run from any pain, Tim had turned to drink and his mates to drown his sorrow. Each had found a way to deal. Only she had been left to bear the grief, and she’d thought perhaps she was alone in the world. Yet, behind Heath’s often brusque exterior, she could see he hurt every bit as much as she did.

So was there a hidden danger? Should they stay away from one another? Because what if their grief fed off the other’s, their addiction to punishing themselves multiplying and intensifying? Could they actually be toxic to one another?

Heath pushed away his plate, and Amelia realised he’d eaten less than her or Charlee, despite them having morning tea only a couple of hours earlier. ‘The thing about retiring animals,’ he said slowly, as though he was thinking the problem through, ‘is that it’s not only about housing them.’

‘Yeah, they have to be fed. Obviously.’ Charlee rolled her eyes.

Heath shook his head. ‘Not that. If these animals are accustomed to being petted, it’s not fair to take them away from that and just stick them out in a paddock. They’ve become habituated to human touch and attention. They’ll still need that.’

Charlee looked a little deflated.

Guilt coiled uncomfortably inside Amelia. Had she encouraged Charlee to get excited about an unrealistic dream? ‘I guess I’ve always kept my animals with me, so I’ve never really thought beyond the fact that “retirement” seems to be a universal goal. You know, older animals get “put out to pasture”, and that’s when they get the good life. But you’re right, maybe it’s not so great in these circumstances. I know I’ll never let Karmaa and Kismet be put in a paddock where they’re not close enough for me to pet every day.’

The last words were almost a challenge to Heath. They still hadn’t discussed whether her sheep were fostered or adopted, and she hadn’t worked out how or where she planned to keep them long term. But the fact that she wouldn’t contemplate having them agisted more than a few minutes from her meant that she should have thought this travelling farm scheme through more thoroughly, instead of getting swept up in Charlee’s enthusiasm and her own eagerness to provide the teen with something that was clearly missing from her life. And perhaps she’d been too focused on the unexpected opportunity to fill a deep-seated need in her own life—the child-shaped hole in her heart.

Heath gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Don’t panic. I’m sure we’ll be able to work around the issues. You know Roni Krueger, don’t you?’

‘You mean Roni who Amelia had a fight with at the RAG meeting?’ Charlee said.

Heath flinched and Amelia realised that he didn’t know Charlee was teasing nor that she was okay with it.

‘It wasn’t an argument, but an adult airing of differing views,’ she corrected Charlee primly. ‘Yes,’ she added to Heath. ‘Her husband, Matt, is the local vet. They’ve been my go-to for Karmaa and Kismet.’

‘And mine,’ Charlee said, eager not to be left out. ‘Matt filled me in on how to start weaning the sheep, because it looked like Amelia was going to bottle-feed them forever.’

‘I didn’t hear them complaining about it.’ Charlee was right, there was a good chance she would have continued to bottle-feed them if she hadn’t been ill. Cutting out that last bottle was going to be hard; she loved the lambs’ eagerness to suckle, the frothy milk bubbles dribbling down their velvet chins as they gazed deep into her eyes. They were her babies.

‘Okay,’ Heath said, sounding relieved. ‘Well, as I understand it, Roni runs a rescue of some kind. Is that right?’

Amelia nodded as she tried to work out where he was going.

‘I’m thinking perhaps there could be some kind of cooperation between the two ventures.’

Charlee shook her head. ‘How? Doesn’t she have kennels? We’re not doing dogs and cats.’ She sounded sulky, as though she didn’t want to risk sharing any of the animals they’d not yet purchased.

‘Hang on, Charlee,’ Amelia said. ‘Your dad’s onto something. Actually, Roni has a whole menagerie of animals, though most are older. And, from what I saw, she’s on pretty decent acreage.’ She turned back to Heath. ‘What exactly are you thinking?’

‘Spitballing, not thinking. You ladies have only just landed this on me, remember? It’s just that I see some similarities between your ventures. You have a mobile petting zoo full of farmyard animals and Roni has a farmyard full of non-mobile animals.’

From the corner of her eye, Amelia caught Charlee sit up straighter, her eagerness reignited by her father’s apparent acceptance of the scheme.

‘So you think she’d potentially take our older animals?’ Amelia said doubtfully. ‘But she’s really set up as a rescue—it doesn’t seem right to dump ours on her. I mean, it’s not like we don’t want them. And it doesn’t sort out the problem of them needing constant affection and attention either.’

Charlee leaned forward, curling one leg under herself on the chair. ‘Unless the mobile petting zoo was part of a farm visit kind of program. Do you know what I mean? Customers have the option of us coming to them or they could come to us. “Us” would include Roni. Like, there could be entire school groups come out to see the older animals at her farm.’

Amelia hated to dash Charlee’s enthusiasm, but someone needed to rein her in. ‘I don’t think that would work. Matt and Roni are fabulous, but they’re already flat out. With the vet practice, the rescue, the farm and … kids.’ Damn, she hated it when the longing stuck in her chest and choked her ability to speak. ‘And I’m not sure they’d want people traipsing all over their property.’

‘I don’t see why not. It’s a great business model,’ Charlee said petulantly, subsiding back onto her chair.

‘Don’t give up yet, kiddo,’ Heath said. ‘That thought was simply a starting point. You could be on to something with your farm visit idea, you just have to nut out the details. Come up with ideas, then list the pros and cons.’

Amelia caught his eye, noticing the slight crinkle as he hid a smile, and realised that he’d known all along that pairing their venture with Roni’s wouldn’t work. He had used the idea to totally play Charlee—and, to a lesser extent, her. Instead of immediately giving in to his daughter’s scheme or taking the opposite approach and quashing her enthusiasm with a heavy-handed dose of reality, he was encouraging her to think bigger, to dream more and to work out how to action the plan. Within minutes of her mentioning how important she felt it was to encourage Charlee to become invested in something, Heath was not only onboard, but had already worked out exactly how to do that. Evidently, the current prickly relationship between father and daughter hadn’t always been the status quo; Heath not only loved his daughter, but he understood her. If the tragedy of Sophie’s death had driven a wedge between them, it was obvious that Heath was determined to chip away at it.

And now Amelia didn’t only want the petting zoo for herself, or even for Charlee. Instead, she wanted to help Heath and Charlee heal. And, maybe, help herself. For the first time in such a long time, it seemed there was a spark of promise in her life, a glimmer of light at the end of the longest night.

Charlee picked up her phone as it flashed alongside her plate. ‘Ethan’s almost here. He said to grab him a coffee if we’re not done.’

Heath looked at his watch. ‘Lucky he can get time off in the middle of a work day,’ he muttered.

It was fortunate his gaze remained on his watch, because the utter contempt that crossed Charlee’s face would have crippled him. ‘He’s picking me up because we have a meeting at four. You know, a meeting like Daideó’s meeting. Because some of us try to handle our own issues instead of constantly piling crap on others.’

Amelia’s phone also flashed. Normally at the table she’d politely ignore it, but there was nothing she could say to retrieve the situation, so becoming suddenly invested in an email from Kmart or a reminder from her dentist seemed the best option. Why was Heath incapable of allowing Charlee some leeway? No matter how much he loved her, his expectations of the teen were unrealistically high. Even without the trauma of her mother’s death, Charlee needed to be allowed to grow and find her own way, without constant judgement.

Hannah (Gav) appeared on the phone screen. Amelia’s heart stuttered. Why would Gavin’s wife text?

She knew why. The only possible reason.

And she also knew that she should never have become invested, should never have allowed herself to care, because it was always going to come to this: Gavin’s last days.

‘Are you okay?’ Heath reached across the table as though he’d cover her hand, but then stopped.

She shook her head. ‘My friend. Gavin. He’s—’ She forced herself to thumb open the message. ‘No!’ Blood thundered in her ears, the pressure building. Her vision wavered and she blinked furiously, her brain searching frantically for a way to deny the words on the screen. She must still be sick, hallucinating.

‘He’s worse?’ Heath’s voice was gentle, coming from far away.

But Charlee’s gasp was harsh, a hiss of shock and … guilt?

Amelia whipped toward the girl. ‘You knew?’

Charlee’s chin trembled, but her tone was defiant. ‘The message came early the other week, but I didn’t tell you because you were still so sick.’

Amelia shook her head, staring at Charlee in dismay as her brain tried to process what had happened—what Charlee had done to her.

‘There was nothing you could do,’ Charlee said defensively. ‘You could barely even string a sentence together, much less rush to his bedside.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Heath demanded. ‘Do you need to get to Gavin’s? Where is he, Adelaide? Or you said he lives out Bordertown way, didn’t you?’

‘Nowhere. He’s nowhere,’ she whispered. The phone dropped to the table. ‘Hannah is reminding me that it’s his funeral on Monday. He died two weeks ago. And I didn’t get to say goodbye.’

Again.