Second Time Sweeter Read online

  She had believed that, in some deep, stupid part of herself. She had believed it and she had clung to it, through all of it, that somehow the curtains would part, the veil would lift, and all would become clear.

  But shit didn’t always go down like that, the way you wanted it to, the way it did in love stories. Sometimes life tested you, and tried you, and finally, broke you.

  That was how she felt right now—broken. Like everything leading up to that point had been only child’s play, and this was the real deal. Brodie was going, and this blonde was going with him. The thought of staying in Sweet Pocket was so horrible it had driven him to drink a second time, for a second tilt at grief. It was the end; it was really the end.

  ‘I … I have to go.’

  ‘Sure, honey.’ The blonde smiled. ‘I’ll be sure to tell Bro you stopped by to check in.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Showdown

  Nelly knocked again. The sun was setting and it was almost dinnertime. The door was unlocked, and she was sure she’d heard someone moving around inside there when she had climbed the stairs.

  ‘Gen? Sarah?’

  She opened the screen and poked her head in. She knew Sarah hadn’t been well the last year or so; she wondered if she should go in and check on her. Sarah was notoriously independent and private, so no one in Sweet Pocket had liked to ask exactly what was wrong. Nelly had wondered if it was depression; it seemed so many of her friends on farms had succumbed to the black dog lately, as times got bad. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about her sister Elsie’s lovely husband and the terrible way it had ended for him.

  She shut the screen gently, and decided that whatever was going on for Sarah it was none of her business, and she should try another time to connect with Gen, when she heard a crash from inside. She opened the door again and stepped in. ‘Gen? Sarah?’

  It had been a long time since Nelly had been inside the house at Greenacres. Her mother and Sarah’s mother, Ray, had been friends, and Nelly had sometimes come visiting when she had been a little girl, before Ray got sick and had to be taken into a special home. Ray had been a renowned baker in the region, and Nelly could still remember her way to the kitchen, as if she were following the scent of fresh-cooked gingerbread all those years ago.

  When she got there, she found Sarah, lying on the floor moaning, half-out of an upturned wheelchair.

  ‘Christ.’ Nelly moved forward and knelt beside her. Sarah was much younger than her, but it must have been a couple of years since Nelly had seen her, and in that time the woman had gone from youthful and robust to delicate and wasted. She scooped Sarah into her arms and, even as tiny as Nelly was, she was easily able to lift her and place her back on one of the kitchen chairs while she righted the wheelchair.

  Nelly sat beside Sarah and watched as the younger woman began to cry, tears making lines on her cheeks, and a thin streak of drool tracking like an echo from the right side of her mouth. Sarah’s right arm and shoulder were jerking involuntarily. Nelly reached out and put an arm around her, making soothing noises. ‘It’s okay, hon. What can I getcha?’

  Sarah tried to speak, but all that came out were grunting sobs.

  Nelly’s insides turned to jelly, watching Sarah as pieces of an old puzzle started to slip into place. Then the nurse in her stepped up to the plate. ‘Right,’ she said efficiently, standing up again. ‘I think we should get you back into bed.’

  Sarah eyed Nelly gratefully and managed a small nod. Nelly carefully wrapped her arms around Sarah’s thin shoulders, and hefted her up again, going by feel into the house until she found a bedroom that seemed right. It was warm and pretty, just like Sarah had been, and Nelly could see the paraphernalia of invalidity scattered around the room—a walking frame, and some medicine bottles on a bedside table.

  As Nelly laid Sarah on the old bed, the younger woman settled back with a grateful sigh.

  ‘Now,’ Nelly said, rubbing her hands together. ‘Do I need to call someone? The doctor?’ She was pretty sure she knew what this was, so she knew she had to tread carefully. ‘Or is this normal?’

  Sarah held up a hand and tilted it shakily in the universal sign of ‘maybe, maybe not’.

  Nelly nodded. ‘How far away is Gen?’

  Sarah frowned and looked confused. She finally spoke, with what seemed to be a great effort, her hands shaking jerkily as she tried to use them to help. ‘Went for a walk,’ she slurred.

  Okay, so Gen wouldn’t be gone long. ‘Well,’ Nelly said, settling down and picking up one of the magazines on Sarah’s bedside table. ‘How about I just wait with you for a bit then?’

  ***

  Something felt wrong as Gen climbed the stairs. Not just wrong like the man she loved canoodling with a blonde goddess and moving to the US—as if that wasn’t bad enough—but wrong deep inside her skin. She yelled out to her mother as she opened the screen.

  But it was Nelly’s voice that answered. ‘Shush,’ she called. ‘In here. She’s asleep.’

  Gen tried to compute what Nelly was doing inside her house, with her mother. Her stomach turned frightened somersaults as she hurried through the house to her mother’s room. Nelly was sitting in the old easy chair by Sarah’s bed, a magazine open on her lap, and her mother seemed to be sleeping peacefully in the dim light.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ Nelly spoke quietly so as not to wake Sarah.

  ‘With Mac,’ Gen said. ‘Is she okay?’ She licked her lips; the sudden bite of fear had sucked all the moisture from her mouth.

  ‘I think so.’ Nelly nodded, motioning to another chair beside her. ‘She had a fall.’

  ‘Shit.’ Hot guilt washed across Gen’s skin. ‘I was only gone about forty minutes.’

  When she had returned from the pub, she’d just needed to get out, go for a walk down to the girls, just watching them going about their chewing and mooing. They always managed to calm her down.

  Not so much today.

  Sarah had been listening to ABC National in the living room when Gen had left. She had been calm, which was unusual for late, and Gen had thought she could slip away to be miserable on her own. Sarah had enough going on; the last thing she needed was Gen moping around, making her anxious. Sarah was anxious enough much of the time these days.

  ‘Did she hurt herself?’ Gen desperately wanted to wake her mother, check her over, and make sure she was okay.

  ‘She’s fine, hon,’ Nelly said, her face very serious. ‘Apart from the obvious.’

  Gen waited. She could imagine what was coming.

  Nelly motioned at the sleeping Sarah. ‘This was why, wasn’t it? Why you made Brodie go away.’

  Pain, guilt and loss swirled in Gen’s brain. ‘I had no choice,’ she whispered. ‘She got diagnosed, and we didn’t know how long it would be before she was properly symptomatic. Could have been years, could have been months.’ She smiled weakly. ‘She was so bloody strong; we’ve had a good run. It’s really been only the last couple of years that we’ve seen the decline.’

  Nelly set her lips and drummed her fingers on the magazine. ‘Don’t you think Brodie could have handled it?’

  Gen looked at Nelly in surprise. ‘Of course,’ she said softly.

  She didn’t think it; she knew it. There was nothing Brodie couldn’t handle, take in his long, capable stride. She knew it. But she also knew he had enough pain, and that he had a dream of going that was so tangible you could almost smell it on him.

  ‘But I didn’t want him to have to.’ She appealed to Nelly with her eyes. ‘I know you never thought we were good for each other.’ She nodded at her mother on the bed. ‘You, and Sarah, too.’ She sighed. ‘Too young, too …’ She shrugged. ‘Too much, I guess.’ She spread open her hands, knowing she needed to make Brodie’s aunt understand. ‘But I loved him, Nelly, as much as you did. Just differently. And he needed to go.’ She gestured again at the sleeping Sarah. ‘And once this happened, I needed to stay. I had no real choice. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I tried
on all the other ways for size, all the ways that let me still have Brodie, have our dream. I lay in bed at night for weeks after we found out, trying to scheme a way to make it happen.’

  Gen reached over and patted Sarah’s hair. ‘But she needed to be here. She needed routine, and her home. And she needed me.’

  Nelly nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

  But Gen wasn’t done. ‘Don’t get like that, Nelly. It wasn’t selfless. Any more than her having me at seventeen was selfless, when everyone told her to get rid of me. It was just what you did.’ She looked over at Nelly again. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me.’

  Nelly shook her head slowly. ‘I feel sorry for both of you,’ she said softly. ‘You and Brodie.’ The older woman stood up and came over to Gen, taking one of her hands. ‘You should have told him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have gone.’ Even as she said the words, Gen knew it was true. Brodie would have stayed, and all his dreams would have stayed just that. Gen could not have borne it. ‘Anyway,’ she said, squeezing Nelly’s hand a little, ‘we didn’t know then, about me, either. It was a couple of years before I was game enough to have genetic testing. I always thought I could have had it too. I would never have let him stay around for that crap shoot.’

  Nelly smiled sadly. ‘Your grandmother, Ray. She had it too, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gen confirmed, nodding. ‘We think so now. She had a fast decline; the diagnostic and treatment systems weren’t as good then.’

  ‘But you’re okay?’ Nelly squeezed her shoulder.

  Gen nodded. ‘We know that now, but we didn’t then.’

  ‘And the kids?’

  Gen’s fists clenched at the memory. ‘I always told Mac, no. No kids. I couldn’t bear the lottery. But Will ….’ She smiled, the way she always did when she thought about the happy accident of her firstborn. ‘Well, he was a bit of a surprise. An accident, I guess. Happened after I was sick one time.’ She frowned. ‘Anyway, we got in-utero testing. He’s fine; so is Bea.’

  Nelly smiled. ‘I’m so glad, honey. They’re beautiful kids.’ Then she sat back down hard on her chair. ‘But Gen, why didn’t you tell someone? We could have helped. The town would have pitched in.’

  Gen reached across and smoothed her mother’s sheet, feeling the starched cotton between her fingertips. ‘She wanted things to be normal as long as they could be.’ Gen thought about how it had been. ‘And they were, I guess. After the first episodes, she was symptom-free for a long time. Then things started slowly, and we were able to adapt, really, bit by bit. It is really only the last couple of years that things have accelerated.’

  ‘And that’s when Mac left.’ Nelly looked as if she wanted to castrate him.

  ‘Hey,’ Gen said, feeling all of the old guilt surface in her. ‘Don’t blame him. It was more than anyone should be expected to cope with. The kids, the problems with the farm, then Mum. He didn’t sign up for that.’

  ‘None of us do,’ Nelly snapped. ‘We just get what we’re given.’

  Gen nodded. ‘Yep.’

  ‘You need help now,’ Nelly persisted.

  ‘I’m getting some,’ Gen confirmed. ‘I can’t afford a lot of in-home care, but I’m getting some physiotherapy, and speech therapy, and the doctor we see at the base is great.’ She paused, hating to look in the face of the thing that haunted her every day. ‘But yeah, some time, some time soon maybe, we won’t be able to manage here at Greenacres.’

  ‘A home?’ Nelly was blinking hard, and Gen was sure she was trying not to let any more tears fall.

  Gen just stared at her mother in the bed, not even able to nod her agreement with the word. In her most decadent daydreams, she imagined her Sweetiepie Sarah products becoming so successful that she could afford full-time, in-home care. Her mother could finish things where she had begun them, where she felt safe. The Huntington’s made Sarah scared and worried sometimes, and Gen hated the thought that at the end she might be away from the place she had been born and always lived, with her daughter and grandchildren. Sarah would need her home and all of them so much more as the end came.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gen said. ‘One step at a time.’

  Nelly nodded but Gen could see she had more to say. Gen badly needed to change the subject. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you came out to see me? And I guess it wasn’t about this. I assume you finding Mum was coincidental. Cuppa?’

  Nelly nodded and they moved through to the kitchen.

  As Gen fussed with the kettle and teacups, Nelly honoured her need to move away from the topic for a moment. ‘I came to see if you were okay, about the certification.’

  In all that had happened in the last couple of hours, that particular catastrophe had been pushed to the bottom of Gen’s Crappy Things to Deal With list. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, pouring tea. ‘I just don’t know what I am right now.’ She held up the sugar pot with a question in her eyes.

  Nelly shook her head. ‘Just milk, please.’

  Gen poured and stirred and settled the cup in front of Nelly, joining her with her own brew a moment later. ‘I don’t really know what happens now,’ Gen admitted. ‘I guess I can keep trying to find markets for my stuff, even without certification.’

  ‘Brodie will have a plan,’ Nelly said emphatically.

  Gen clocked the love and belief in Nelly’s eyes. ‘Brodie’s tied up right now.’

  Nelly narrowed her eyes. ‘You saw him?’

  Gen nodded. ‘At the pub. With Anne-Marie. He’s in a bad way.’

  ‘Maybe I pushed him too hard about taking on Shady Acres.’ Nelly chewed her lip, and Gen realised it was the first time she had ever seen the older woman uncertain. ‘But …’ She paused, as if she wasn’t sure if she should go on. ‘He needs a centre, a reason for everything he’s doing.’ She scowled. ‘And the reason certainly isn’t that wheatgrass-sucking Dementor from the city.’

  Gen laughed in spite of the pain that wrapped barbed-wire-like around her heart.

  ‘You know,’ Nelly went on, ‘he was pissed with me about wanting him to take on the farm. But that isn’t what tipped him over.’

  Oh great. Gen sat back and waited to hear how it was her fault. It had to be; everything else was.

  ‘It was getting the news about certification,’ Nelly continued. ‘Brodie takes his responsibilities seriously, you know.’

  Gen knew. She had watched him since he had been a kid. She’d always known.

  Nelly sighed. ‘He undertook to help the town stitch this deal up, and it fell through. He knows how much the town needs it.’ Nelly leaned forward. ‘He knows how much you need it. He felt like he’d let everyone down. I saw it in his face before he took off.’ Nelly was silent for a moment, then her face cleared. ‘But he’ll be back. He’ll have an idea; I know it. He just needs to take a moment. I can see the way he is bonding with this town again.’ She sipped her tea. ‘And with you.’

  Gen searched her brain for a way to tell Nelly about the US. Brodie’s aunt had such hopes about Brodie re-finding his roots; how could Gen tell her he had other plans? How could she tell her that without breaking her heart?

  Gen sipped and pondered the answer. But then she was saved from working it out as two small bodies crashed through the screen door, and Gen realised she and Nelly must have been too absorbed to hear Mac’s truck pulling up and letting the kids off at the bottom gate. They were both wearing Crop King T-shirts and huge smiles.

  ‘Mum,’ Bea yelled. ‘Wait until you hear the awesome song we’re doing for the Spring Fair!’

  They stopped in their tracks when they saw Nelly. ‘Oh, hi Mrs Brown,’ Will said.

  ‘Hi kids.’ Nelly smiled. ‘Nice T-shirts.’

  ***

  Brodie woke up feeling like a dump truck had deposited a value gallon of manure in his mouth. It had been late, and he had been drunk, and the last thing he remembered was assuring Anne-Marie in the clearest terms possible that he did not need company to help him sleep. In fact, as he recalled, he’d told
her ‘Jack Daniels is all the company I need tonight’. She was an excellent PR practitioner, but she was totally the wrong size and shape for him when it came to anything else.

  She was, he realised, as he rolled over in bed and thought about the night before, not Gen-shaped. Some time, overnight and waking up to find the problem was still here, he had realised.

  Only Gen would do.

  She was the only one he had ever wanted, and she still was. He needed to make things right, for the town but most of all for Gen, his Gen Jen.

  Whether or not she wanted him, he wanted her to be happy.

  But by God, if she did want him, he would do whatever he could to make it happen.

  He had thought, really thought that you could outrun the things that plagued you. That if you got rich enough, successful enough, you could separate yourself from the time and the town that had broken you down. You could make yourself whole again.

  ***

  He was throwing rocks in the river when Nelly found him. And thinking, as he seemed to be so often these days, about how he was going to get Genevieve Jenkins to kiss him. Properly. They were thirteen now, and he for one was sure it was time. It had been a long time since he had caught Gen in Catch ’n’ Kiss at school, but he could still remember how hard she had been to chase down and how nice it had felt to press a kiss on her soft cheek, both of them surprisingly shy after the thrill of the chase

  ‘Bro.’ Nelly’s voice behind him was serious and something hard and prickly lodged in his chest.

  He turned slowly, a rock still in his hand.

  His aunt was standing under a nearby fig tree, and he could see she had been crying. She held out her arms to him but he couldn’t move. Everything seemed to slow down, queer and brittle. ‘What is it?’

  She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him. ‘It’s your parents, Brodie. They’ve been in an accident.’

  Brodie knew about death. He had seen enough of it on the farm, and he had also been to a few funerals. Country people tended not to hide things from their children, and were prosaic about the fundamentals of life. And death. In fact, Brodie could remember clearly standing in Mrs Gadwell’s funeral service last year, and wondering how people knew how to cry when someone died. He worried that he might not manage it, if the time ever came for him.