A Home Like Ours Fiona Lowe (good novels to read .txt) 📖

and noticed the cake. It looked like it had been hit by a chocolate avalanche—the fondant icing hung jagged and loose and a gaping hole existed where cake had once sat. The number one candle lay broken, snapped at its base.

She closed her eyes. Corey wouldn’t have grabbed a hunk of cake like a caveman. Not when he knew how much she wanted a photo of the three of them with Milo blowing out his candle. But when she opened her eyes, nothing had changed.

‘I can fix this.’

Blinking furiously, her fingers pushed the fallen cake upwards and tugged the edges of the icing together. But it wouldn’t knit. It was as torn and damaged as her heart.

CHAPTER

19

‘Helen?’ Bob’s voice drifted through the screen door. ‘You there?’

She had her head in the fridge organising the leftover party food and before she’d given it any real thought, she was calling out, ‘Door’s open.’

A second later, Bob was standing in her kitchen for the first time and holding a small bunch of sweet william.

She hauled herself to her feet and shot the flowers a suspicious look. ‘Who are those for?’

‘You. A thank you for clearing up after the party.’

‘Give them to Lachlan. He did the lion’s share.’

‘He probably wanted to keep busy. Were the women okay? Something like that’s pretty rattling.’

Helen sighed, understanding perfectly. ‘And to think I was worried about Judith making a scene. She’s got nothing on Corey.’

‘I don’t like him.’

‘Take a number.’

‘I’ll take a cuppa if you’re offering.’ He dropped his hat on the table. ‘I didn’t think he was even on the scene. I’ve never heard Jade talk about him, have you?’

‘She’s twenty, Bob, and we’re older than dinosaurs.’ She pulled mugs out of the cupboard.

‘Nah, that’s ninety-eight.’ He winked. ‘Me, I’m still in my prime.’

‘Have you always been this infuriatingly optimistic?’

He laughed. ‘Yep. Only way to survive being a farmer.’

‘And your wife?’ God, what was she doing? ‘Sorry, don’t answer that. It’s none of my business.’

‘What happened to Pen’s not a state secret. In fact, one of the first signs things weren’t right was her sudden pessimism and suspicion of people.’ He stirred milk into his tea. ‘Alzheimer’s. She died last year.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise your loss was so recent.’

‘It’s only recent in terms of her physical death. The disease swallowed my darling Pen three years ago.’

His words summoned thoughts of Nicki. Her own unrelenting grief.

‘Was her illness why you sold the farm?’

‘No. We’d already sold the farm and moved into town anticipating retirement. We set off with the caravan, intending to take a year to go around Australia. Wilpena Pound was the first place Pen got lost on her way back from the toilet block. We laughed, saying all the trees looked the same. But it kept happening. She’d go to the supermarket and come back with strange combinations of food, but it only occurred to me there was something seriously wrong when she navigated us into a river.

‘That’s when I realised she could no longer read the map. Things went down fast after that. Pen loved bushwalking but she started taking off on her own and getting lost. When she forgot to turn off the stove, I realised she was no longer safe. We couldn’t get a nursing home bed in Boolanga when we needed it, but there was one in Wang, so I moved in with Debbie. Lachie’s mum.’

‘Did a new town worsen your wife’s confusion?’

‘I don’t think so. I put the standard lamp she’d always knitted under and her favourite chair in the room and initially she thought she was at the farmhouse. After that, there were months when she was convinced she was at teachers’ college and then, at the end, her childhood home.’ He rubbed his jaw. ‘She didn’t recognise me for the last year.’

Too many times Helen had thought the same about Nicki.

‘It pulls your heart out of your chest,’ she said.

‘Yep. Over and over. But believing she enjoyed my company in the moment, even if she didn’t remember me, helped.’ His eyes filmed as memories flooded his face.

Helen’s hand rose, heading towards his, before she realised what she was doing. Unwise. Stop. Shocked, she pulled back fast, fisting her hand in her lap. Empathy was one thing. Physically touching him was another thing entirely.

Bob cleared his throat. ‘Do you reckon we should call Jade?’

‘If she wants help, she’s got our numbers, but I doubt she’ll call. For all that Corey’s obnoxious and racist, I’ve never seen any signs on Jade that he’s physically hurting her. And she gets around in those short-shorts and tank tops so we’d have seen the bruises.’

Bob gave her a long look. ‘That’s not a very high bar.’

‘It’s the important one.’

‘Emotional abuse causes as many scars. I might pop in on my way home.’

‘And what if you popping in pisses off Corey and makes things worse? Don’t go using your happy marriage as the measuring stick for everyone else’s relationships. Most won’t come close.’

‘Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’

Her empathy for him shut down fast and she stood, wishing she’d never invited him in.

‘I’ve got an appointment. When you’ve finished your tea, lock the door on your way out.’

Helen’s ‘appointment’ was at the library. She checked her email, bracing herself for negative ones, but for the first time in a few weeks it was thankfully vitriol-free. She was excited to see the Facebook page now had over fifteen hundred likes. Some of the comments made her cringe, but none of them called her a whore, bitch or worse so they were an improvement on the emails.

Jade had explained how the more likes the page received, the higher its visibility. Most people wrote messages of support for the tiny houses village, and there were three messages from successful co-housing projects offering advice and assistance. The Landcare group had messaged, wanting to talk to Helen. They were worried if a resort was built, the nature corridor along the river would be lost to