‘The times I took them to school, we got the boat so I could drive their cases over.’
‘Are you denying there’s any chance this woman is your daughter?’
‘Are you seriously implying there’s any chance she is? I always knew you were jealous of her, Rosemary, but I divorced her and married you.’
‘He can’t be her dad – Emmie is adopted,’ Pip said slowly.
All the women whipped their heads towards me.
‘But you look just like her.’ Aster’s wrinkles deepened as she leant forwards in her chair to where I hunched on the opposite side of the table.
‘Nell was my birth mother’s cousin,’ I said quietly. Hating the feeling of betrayal that accompanied stating this almost as much as I hated it being true. ‘Their mothers were identical twins.’
‘Have you got that?’ Gabe asked his wife bitterly. ‘Or do you have further evidence to substantiate this fictitious affair with a woman who wanted nothing more to do with me?’
‘She did, though,’ Rosemary blurted. ‘She still wanted you.’
‘What?’ Gabe shook his head, frustrated. ‘She wrote to me demanding a divorce so she could marry another fella. While Emmie here informs me the marriage never happened, why on earth come up with a lie like that if she still wanted any part of me?’
Every remaining trace of bluster seeped out of Rosemary like a deflating balloon. She sank into the chair next to Aster’s, eyes darting anywhere but at her husband. Or me.
‘She knew it was up to her to make the impossible choice. Otherwise, you’d never have let her go,’ she almost whispered. ‘The only way to convince you to commit to the farm, fulfil your family duty, was if you believed it was for her sake. Either that, or it would prompt you to finally go back and fight for her.’
‘Why would you say this?’ Gabe said, shaking his head in denial.
‘She said it, didn’t she?’ Aster asked, sounding every second of her ninety-one years. ‘In the last letter. The one you never got to see. Is that right, Rosemary?’
Gabe was incredulous. ‘She wrote another letter?’
Aster placed a hand on her daughter-in-law’s arm, but her eyes were on her son. ‘You two had already started courting. She was the most sensible match for you. For all of us. Nellie wasn’t a farmer. She hated it here. And then, brazen as anything, she announces that she’s not having children. So, she’s useless on the farm and useless to the family.’
Gabe gripped the edge of the table with both hands. His lips a thin white line. ‘She was not useless to me. She was my wife. And you stole a letter she sent, saying what – that she didn’t really want a divorce?’
To my surprise, Aster began to weep. ‘I never read the letter. Rosemary was with me when Postie Scott delivered it, and I didn’t stop her slipping it into her pocket. I was ashamed of how your da and I treated Nellie. Seeing how devastated you were when you came back without her made me regret how selfish we’d been. But you’d finally started to smile again. To whistle while you drove the tractor, talk sweet nonsense to the calves. What I did was wrong, but I couldn’t allow that woman to break your heart all over again. Not when you were so happy with Rosemary.’
‘That wasn’t your decision,’ Gabe said, his words like shards of ice.
‘No.’ Aster lifted her head, pointlessly blotting the trickle of tears with the back of her gnarly hand. ‘But I’m not sorry for it. Look at the life you made, here, with your island girl. Four fine children. Grandchildren. A son determined to carry on our legacy. Are you sorry for it, Gabe? Do you wish I’d made your new love give the letter back?’
‘We did it for you,’ Rosemary added, finding confidence in Aster’s words.
‘No.’ Gabe banged his hand so hard on the table, the jugs on the dresser rattled. ‘You did it for you. The pair of you and Da. For generations of people who have long since gone to the churchyard and don’t care a jot whether their farm thrives or falls into ruin!’
‘So, you do regret not knowing. She was your first choice, after all. Not me.’
‘She was my first wife!’ he roared. ‘We were still married. And now you dare to force your insane, twisted logic onto Emmie. As if she has anything to do with any of it. The pair of you should be bending over backwards to make her feel welcome, if you’ve the slightest bit of shame for what you did.’
‘I know that,’ Aster said. ‘Once I’d realised who she was, I thought it was a chance to redeem the wrongs done to her mother. She’s in the dress I wore to your father’s funeral. You couldn’t think I hold anything against her, if I did that?’
‘If only Ma could say the same,’ Lily said, with a sharp glance at Rosemary. ‘Ma? What possible reason do you have now for all this resentment towards Emmie? What Nell did or didn’t do decades ago is nothing to do with her. You can’t blame her for wanting to come and find out more about her mother’s history.’
‘You think that’s why she’s here?’ Rosemary asked, with a caustic laugh. ‘Or, how about she’s here for revenge on the family who hounded her mother off the farm? You don’t think she’s angry about spending her life in a poky kiosk dishing out the same old food to people infinitely more successful than she is, when if things had been different, she could have been here, adopted into a family with two hundred acres of land?’
‘That makes no sense,’ Violet said. ‘If Emmie was here for revenge, why would she help out Lily and cater Iris’s wedding?’
‘She scrubbed all the bird crap off the barn,’ Pip added. ‘She’s spent her holiday helping us.’
‘Maybe she did those things, while smiling and acting all meek and clueless and grateful. I don’t blame you children for being so trusting, seeing as none of you knew how sly her mother could be. But, Gabe, did you not question how all these coincidental accidents and incidents kept happening, once she’d swanned onto the scene?’
