Part 27 (1/2)
”That was lucky for him.” She was making a tremendous effort to remain detached and positive when it was obvious, at least to him, she was heartbroken. But then, he knew how she felt about the man. She'd confided in him that first time they'd discussed her new friend-before she knew the truth. She'd been happy and excited, maybe falling in love. He'd been deeply disturbed and apprehensive. Sharp, jagged edges of rocks loomed ahead.
It was staggering the effect their lie by omission had had down through the years. A tidal wave, a tsunami, gathering momentum and power the further it travelled through time until it crashed with devastating force upon the innocent and unsuspecting victims. Fortunately, Joelle had proven compa.s.sionate and strong. She'd weathered the onslaught. But they could hardly claim the credit for that.
”I'm so sorry, Joelle,” William blurted, surprising her so that her hand stopped, poised over the box of chocolates. She withdrew her arm slowly. Her tongue ran across her lower lip. Her clear blue eyes met his, filled with nothing but forgiveness and love. An unbearable weight rose from his chest.
”It's okay now, Dad. I think I understand why you didn't tell me. But...” She dragged her gaze from William to Natalie and then Melanie. ”Does anyone else have any secrets we should know?” A smile teased the corners of her mouth and her eyebrows lifted as she swivelled her eyes from one to the other. ”I don't.”
”I don't,” said William returning the smile. ”All my dirty secrets are out and flapping in the breeze.”
Melanie said abruptly, ”I've decided I'm going to call Luke.” To Natalie's blank face she added, ”He's the father of my baby.”
Natalie clapped her hands together. ”Thank goodness, Melanie. He should know about his child. You must bring him to meet us.”
”I'll see how he takes the news first,” said Melanie dryly.
”He'll be pleased,” said Joelle firmly. ”You said yourself he wanted to settle down together.”
”I hope so.” But Mel's mouth trembled as she grinned with her usual bravado William's heart melted. His tough, hard-talking, free-wheeling daughter had not only softened but was actively reaching out for a.s.sistance. And she'd found a job she enjoyed-thanks to Joelle. Now she was making an eminently mature decision.
William sat back, sipping his coffee, listening to his girls cheerfully discussing babies and pregnancy. At least he'd got this right. He could claim credit not only for the reuniting of Melanie with Natalie but also for the forthcoming reunion of Mel and Luke.
Then Joelle, out of the general babble of babies and birthing methods, asked, ”Mum, why were you so opposed to telling me I was adopted?”
William's eyes flashed to Natalie's face. He opened his mouth to reply for her but thought better of it. This was her truth to tell, he couldn't answer for her any longer and he wanted to know the real reason, too. There was one; suddenly he was positive of it.
Natalie stared at her hands loosely clasped on the table before her. The knuckles grew white and her shoulders tensed under her soft blue jumper.
When she began to speak, it was softly, as if she were talking to herself. The first words emerged tentative and unsure, dragged from the murky depths of a memory long hidden.
”My father was a violent man,” she said. ”He hit my mother and he hit me sometimes.”
The girls gasped in unison but neither said a word. William waited in shocked silence. Natalie had never told him much about her childhood. He'd never met those French parents who died in the car crash while their daughter was in Sydney.
”No-one would have believed it of him because he had a senior position in the town council and was well respected and liked. When I was eighteen, I had a boyfriend I loved very much. We planned to marry but my father didn't like him-his name was Raoul.” Her eyes were soft with remembering, her face transported by first love. Her thumb rubbed ceaselessly over the wedding ring on her finger.
”My father said he wasn't good enough for his daughter because he wasn't well educated. He was a mechanic and he had a job but that wasn't enough.” Her mouth twisted in anguish. ”Anyway-I became pregnant. We wanted to elope and get married but Raoul was...killed...on his motorcycle. A car...hit him.”
She stopped and a tear threaded its way down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly and sniffed, laughing self-consciously. She glanced at the girls quickly and then away. ”So many years ago. Silly to cry now.”
”No, it's not,” whispered Joelle. ”What happened?” She clutched Natalie's hands in her own. William edged his chair closer leaning in towards his wife, his love.
”My father discovered I was pregnant and he hit me. I fell and lost my baby. When I recovered, I left Lyons to stay with a friend in England. I didn't think I could have children after that.”
”But you did,” said Melanie.
”Darling, why didn't you tell me any of this?” asked William. Here was the source of the ripples. Her father-casting the original stone, setting the whole thing in motion with his violence and his desire to control.
Natalie reached a hand towards him and he held it tightly. ”Because I was ashamed,” she whispered. Her eyes clung to his. ”And when I was beginning to love you I didn't want you to think I was...a tramp.”
”I'd never think anything of the sort.”
”It was in the past,” she said. ”Forgotten. My old life.”
But it wasn't forgotten. The ripples travelled silently through calm waters until they struck an obstacle.
Natalie turned to Joelle. ”When I held you in my arms it was as though I held the baby I had lost. You were mine. No-one else was going to claim you, I knew that. You became my baby. And your father's.” She smiled at William with the smile he had loved from the first moment he saw her. ”Babiey's are so precious. They are treasures. This is why, Melanie, I was angry with you for falling pregnant with no care for your child and its future. As if you didn't care.”
”I care now, Mum,” Mel said in a more subdued tone than William had heard from her for many years.
”I can see that, my darling,” Natalie replied.
Joelle sat with the love of her family a palpable force around her. How could she have turned her back on this? Why had she not considered the reasons behind the decision her parents had made? Nothing comes from nothing. There's a reason for everything. Shay had tried to make her see how selfish and unreasonable she was being. Stan had succeeded. Or maybe it was simply that enough time had elapsed. As it had for her mother.
The secrets were out in the open and their family was the stronger for it.
Except, of course, for the one secret she could never reveal.
Chapter 13.
Shay returned to the surgery on Tuesday with leaden feet. Kavita greeted him with her usual cheer, the patients presented the usual array of infections, rashes, aches, b.u.mps and lumps. His colleagues, when asked, didn't produce any arguments against his proposed swap with Cathy O'Brian.
”We'd need to see her credentials, of course,” said Steve, and Jane commented on the desirability of another female doctor on staff.
So, there was no problem with his leaving. Except his own reluctance to put hundreds more kilometres between himself and Joelle. The week plodded on. He procrastinated about contacting Cathy and telling her to send her resume to Steve. Next week would be soon enough. Cathy would be in touch if she was anxious to get things moving.
Joelle haunted him. In his dreams she wore the expression of dismay and confusion he had deliberately planted there by his carefully calculated indifference on the return journey. The tremulous way she'd asked if somehow she'd done something wrong, replayed itself over and over in his head. The brave smile when they'd said goodbye and she'd thanked him politely for taking her to visit his family insinuated itself into his memory. She was with him every moment of every day. So many times he'd come within a breath of s.n.a.t.c.hing up the telephone to blurt out his love, but always he prevented himself.
Torture.
He lay awake at night telling himself he'd done the right thing, indeed the only possible thing, telling himself he should phone or email Cathy in the morning. He would.
But in the morning, he didn't.
Almost a fortnight later, Cathy emailed him. When he read the sender name Shay's heart sank like a stone. Crunch time.
Greetings Doctor Shay, How are things back in the Big Smoke?
I have good news and bad news regarding our discussion about changing places-depending which way you look at it. The good news is, I'm engaged to be married. The bad news is ( for you) I don't want to leave my job here after all. My fiance is a teacher at Tamworth High and we want to buy a block of land in the area and build on it.
I'm sorry to do this to you when I know how keen you are to return to Birrigai but I'm sure something else will come up. You could set up pretty much anywhere you liked, I think.
Best wishes Cathy O'Brian Shay stared at the screen, reading and rereading her message. Good news and bad news. Which was it for him?
He pounded out a congratulatory reply with a *don't worry about it' sentence tacked on and sent it off.
Without the lifelong obsession of finding his sister, Shay's life seemed almost devoid of meaning. In limbo. He went to work at the surgery and did his s.h.i.+fts at the hospital. He functioned adequately but all with a curious sensation of observing himself from a distance, detached. He thought perhaps it might be a type of grief. Separation from sensation.