Wildflower Hill (41 page)

At length, the door opened, and Mina’s father stood there. He was a tall man with a ruddy complexion and thin black hair. He didn’t smile. “Good afternoon,” he said, offering his hand to shake. “I’m Reynold Carter.”

“Emma Blaxland-Hunter,” I said, shaking his hand. “And this is Patrick Taylor.”

“You’re the ballerina,” he said expressionlessly. “Come in.”

Patrick and I exchanged glances as we followed him into
the house, down a polished parquet hallway and into a large, heated sitting room. Mina sat demurely on the sofa, a little suitcase at her feet.

“Patrick! Emma!” she said in an excited voice. She remained still under her father’s gaze, though her feet twitched happily.

“This is a lovely home,” Patrick said, his eyes going to the window to take in the view down to the Derwent River.

I noticed a laptop set up at a desk by the door. I would have thought a man like Reynold Carter would have a fancy office, not a corner.

“Now, Mina can look after herself well enough,” Reynold said. “Don’t do too much for her. Her independence is important to me. And to her, of course.”

“I’m just looking forward to spending some time with her,” I said, touching the girl’s hair. She smiled up at me affectionately.

“Yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “She hasn’t stayed away from home overnight, so call me if you have any problems.” He was already turning away, his eyes going to the computer screen. “Excuse me a moment.”

Patrick picked up Mina’s bag while her father clicked a few keys. He returned, not meeting our eyes. “I’m sorry. I trade shares online. The U.S. markets are still open. Saturday mornings are a busy time for me.”

“That’s your job?” I asked, aware that I shouldn’t pry but curious nonetheless.

“I was a stockbroker before Mina’s mother died,” he said,
matter-of-fact. “I had a nanny for her for a while but then decided she was better off with me at home.”

“Daddy works all day and all night,” Mina said.

“But I’m here, aren’t I?” he said defensively.

She put her arms around his waist and cuddled him. “I love you, Daddy.”

“You be good,” he said, kissing her on the top of her head, then extricating himself. “Call me if you need me.”

We helped Mina into the back of the car. She was excited and chatty now. Her father didn’t come to the door to wave her off, and I found myself growing angry at him. Sure, he had provided her with a big house, but Mina clearly needed love. She was such an affectionate, sunny girl.

Then I remembered Patrick’s advice to me.
We don’t really know what goes on in families. Best not to judge.

I noticed that Mina’s excitement bordered on anxiety as we drove through the big front gates at the driveway up to Wildflower Hill. I decided to ask Patrick to stay for the afternoon, because Mina knew him better, and I wanted her to settle in. He waited downstairs, playing the out-of-tune piano, while I took Mina up to her room. It was the one next to mine, and Monica had turned it over the day before. Fresh sheets, and wildflowers in water on the dresser. Mina put her suitcase on the bed and sat next to it thoughtfully.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“This house is dark and old,” she said.

“It is. Over a hundred and fifty years old. Are you scared?”

“No,” she said. “Which is your bedroom?”

I knocked on the wall. “Right next door,” I said.

She smiled. “Okay.”

Downstairs, Patrick was picking out the melody to “The Waltz of the Flowers.”

“That’s your song, Mina,” I said. “Let’s go and dance.”

Mina was happier, less worried, downstairs in the sitting room. She marveled over all my dancing awards, which I’d lined up on top of the piano. I pushed the couch back up against the wall and the coffee table under the window to clear a space, and we danced.

She had forgotten a few of the movements from last time, but she held herself beautifully, with a straight back and strongly pointed feet. We went through the whole piece three times, with Patrick picking out the tune, then we found the CD player, and Patrick and I sat back on the couch while Mina performed for us.

She took my breath away. When I’d first met Mina and the others, all I’d seen were their similarities. But now I was seeing through to the young woman underneath: the liquid eyes, the clear skin, the fine dark hair, her dimpled elbows and soft white hands. When Mina danced, she was beautiful.

Patrick leaned over to speak quietly in my ear. “You have done a brilliant job with her. And with the dance. The movements are perfect for her.”

“She’s the one doing all the work. She has natural grace.” Monica’s words came back to me, that Patrick
liked
me. I felt the heat of his arm against mine, and I let myself enjoy it.

“Stop talking and watch me!” Mina demanded, midway through a
relevé.

We laughed and returned our attention to her. Her eyes shone with happiness, and it was such a lesson to me. Mina would never be able to dance ballet properly, but she danced anyway. And she loved it.

Patrick and I applauded loudly when she was done, and she theatrically bowed and blew us kisses.

“Now I’m tired,” she said.

“Good,” I replied. “That means you worked hard. Real ballerinas work very hard.”

She fetched Snakes and Ladders out of her suitcase, and we sat on the floor in the sitting room and played together. My knee ached, but I didn’t mind so much. Around dusk, Patrick said he had to go home.

Mina looked uncertain again, like she had when she’d first arrived.

“It’s okay, Mina, I’ll be here with you,” I said.

“Is this house very safe?” she asked. “Are there locks on all the doors?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

I saw Patrick off at the door. He was reluctant to go, I could tell. Perhaps I was a little reluctant to let him go. I felt a pang of regret as he drove away. The evening cool crept across the fields and hushed through the blue gums. I went inside to make dinner.

Mina helped me, sitting at the table, shelling peas, while I cut up chicken to go in the pasta bake.

“What is my daddy doing now?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What does he usually do on Saturday afternoons?”

“He works on the computer,” she said.

“Well, that’s probably what he’s doing now.” I sat down with her. “Are you missing him?”

She smiled at me. “A bit.”

“You’ll see him tomorrow. We’ve got more rehearsing to do before then.” I reached across and squeezed her hand. “Would you rather go home? I can call Patrick to come and get you.”

“No. I’ll be fine,” she said. “Ballet dancers have to work really hard.”

“They do.”

“Then I’ll stay and keep working.”

Around midnight, the wind picked up, and I could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. It was enough to make me get up and close the window in my bedroom. I got back into bed, then realized I could hear a knocking sound.

I sat up. It was coming from the wall adjoining Mina’s room.

I climbed out of bed again and went next door. “Mina?” I said, opening the door.

She looked up at me in the dark. She was by the wall knocking, just as I’d shown her yesterday. I switched on the light and saw there were tears on her face.

“Sweetie, what’s wrong?” I said, hurrying over to her.

She said something, but all her words were jumbled up behind her tongue. I took her hand in mine. It was cold and clammy. She was terrified. “Do you want me to call your dad to come and get you?”

She nodded, sobbing.

I led her to my bedroom and put her in my bed. “You wait here, where it’s warm and cozy. I’ll call Daddy.”

She nodded again.

I went downstairs and switched on all the lights. I found the phone number that Patrick had written down for me and dialed it. It rang and rang. Six times. Seven. Eight. Nine . . .

Finally, he answered. “Hello?”

“Mr. Carter, it’s Emma Blaxland-Hunter here.”

“What is it?” Not friendly. Not at all.

“Mina’s got herself all wound up about the storm, and she wants to come home.”

Silence. I waited.

“Mr. Carter?”

“I’m not coming out in the middle of a storm.”

At first I was too shocked to speak. Then I said, “But she’s crying with fear.”

“We all have to do things that we don’t like. She’ll have to stay there. Call me in the morning if she hasn’t settled down.”

“But—”

“She’ll be fine,” he said. Then hung up.

I stared at the phone for a few moments before replacing it. I couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, and I burned with fury.
Burned.

Somehow I had to go upstairs and tell this beautiful, fragile girl that her daddy wouldn’t come and get her. I thought about calling Patrick but couldn’t bear the thought of making him come out in the rain. I took the stairs carefully, as always, breathing deep to get my anger under control. She was sitting up in my bed by lamplight, staring at the window.

“Mina?”

She looked around.

“He can’t come, sweetie. It’s too stormy.”

She nodded.

“Hey, I know what might cheer you up.”

She watched me as I went to my dresser and opened the top drawer. Inside, I found my
Swan Lake
tiara. I carefully pulled it out and brought it over to her.

“What’s that?” she said, brightening, finding her voice again.

“It’s so special, Mina, you have to be careful with it.”

She took it from me reverently and gazed at it.

“It’s a special tiara. I wore it when I was dancing Odette.”

“Swan Lake,”
she breathed.

I took the tiara from her and put it on her head, encouraging her to go and look at herself in the mirror over the dresser. Her fears were forgotten as she twirled in front of the mirror, the tiara sparkling in the reflection.

“Come back to bed,” I said. “There’s room for both of us in this one. We’re not worried about the storm.”

“We’re not,” she said, marching back to the bed and snuggling up next to me, the tiara still on her head.

I switched out the light, and her soft hand found mine in the dark. “Good night, Emma,” she said.

“Good night,” I replied.

I lay awake until I was sure she was sleeping. Her hand uncurled from mine. The storm passed overhead, and she didn’t stir.

I
found myself awake early, cramped and hot in my bed. Mina slept on peacefully. The tiara had fallen off her head and lay on the pillow beside her. I picked it up carefully and placed it on the bedside table. Soft morning light glowed beyond the curtains. I thought about my garden and decided to get up and do some more work down there. I pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and went downstairs.

The sky was clear, washed clean by the storm. The grass and rocks were still damp. I picked up my bucket of tools on the way and set them down near the old rose bed. I was slowly making my way through, cutting, pulling, digging. I’d no idea if the roses would grow again after being pruned back so savagely, and I realized with a touch of sadness that I would never see them bloom, either. Somebody else would own the house then.

I put down my trowel for a moment as I thought of this. Somebody else parking their car in the driveway, somebody else moving their things into the bedroom, somebody else cooking in the big echoing kitchen.

Told myself I was being sentimental and kept digging.

The sun rose fully, and I went inside to check on Mina. She was awake and dressed and in the sitting room looking at my awards. I made her breakfast, then asked if she wanted to do some more dancing practice.

“No,” she said, “I want to help you in the garden.”

So I gave her a sturdy pair of gardening gloves, and we went back outside into the fresh morning light. I didn’t want her in the rose bed; I was too worried about the thorns. So I told her to collect the fallen twigs from around the sick cabbage gum and put them in a pile near my weeds.

Mina was much more relaxed than the previous night, and she chatted happily about gardening, about how she and her dad had planted a little vegetable patch and grown their own tomatoes. I was still angry at her father for not coming to get her the night before, and for not taking an interest in her dancing, so I wasn’t persuaded by one gardening story.

“What do you do with your time, Mina?” I asked. “If your dad is working on his computer.”

“I work three afternoons a week at a supermarket. Packing shelves,” she said.

I was taken aback. “Really?”

“I make some money that way, to give to Dad to help. And I have a friend who comes three mornings a week to help me learn things. Her name’s Mrs. Pappas.”

“Like schoolwork?”

She shook her head. “No, I finished school last year. Mrs. Pappas teaches me how to go on the bus and stay safe and things like that.”

“You can go on the bus by yourself?”

“I did once. That was fun. But I nearly forgot my stop.” She giggled, throwing a handful of twigs on the pile. “Then I remembered the chocolate shop, and the stop was right outside it.”

“Ah, hard to forget about chocolate.”

She didn’t answer, and I looked around to see her peering between two spiky bushes under the cabbage gum.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

I rose slowly and came to join her. I expected to see an animal, maybe a dead one. But it wasn’t an animal. It was a shape. I frowned. “It’s a cross.”

“Like at a church.”

“Yes. Something must be buried here.” Or someone, though I didn’t want to say that and freak Mina out. “Let’s see if we can make our way through to it.”

Mina and I hauled branches and deadfall out of the way, and I savagely hacked back the sedge. Finally, we got there. I crouched carefully. The cross was about thirty centimeters high. I used my trowel to scrape off the decades of accumulated dirt. Letters. I didn’t want to pull the cross out, so I got in close to uncover the other letters.

From top to bottom, written vertically:
C H A R L I E
.

“Does it say something?” Mina asked.