The Secrets We Keep by Shirley Patton

Author:Shirley Patton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Winter nights in the Great Sandy Desert are metal cold. The chill creeps through the town that curls around its edges, settling a ground mist the length of the Golden Mile. Stars glint crisp in the waning moonlight as the night shift workers surface. They shuffle forward as one, their backs aching, eyes squinting, and suck in the cold air, grateful to be above ground. The lights on the poppet heads burn brighter in the thin air, like a string of lighthouses sending out warnings. Unheeding, the next shift prepares to descend. The winders clang, as they have since the turn of the century, sending them under. Kerry sleeps in their shadow but the cold steals into her dreams.

She dreams of being in a truck afraid to drive it, overwhelmed by its size, unsure of how to start it, unable to find the ignition. It’s cold in the cab and she shivers. She grips the door handle but a man’s voice calls out from behind, then another, yelling encouragement. The truck moves forward and she grips the steering wheel to stay on track. She sticks her head out the window but, seeing no one, turns back to the track ahead and concentrates on steering.

She begins to awaken, and realises whose voices they are—her father and Paul. She sobs herself awake—gulping, soft sobs that choke her.

‘Mum, Mum, why are you crying?’

Peering through swollen eyes, she looks at Amber standing beside the bed. Shoving herself up on one elbow, she brings herself into focus to reassure her daughter.

‘Is it Dad?’

She sinks back for a moment then pulls herself up again.

‘Yes, sweetheart, but it’s okay, remember? It’s all right to cry, Dad won’t mind. Come on, hop in here.’ She reaches out and grabs her, dragging her in.

Amber snuggles under her mother’s chin and wraps herself around her.

For the first two months after Paul died, she’d woken up each morning to find Amber curled up behind her. She had needed Amber to sleep in her own bed, so that her own anguish could be smothered in the pillows that still smelt of him. Later, during the autumn months, she’d allowed Amber to sleep all night in the bed. But this past month Amber had returned to her own bed and Kerry had finally stopped crying herself to sleep. But the dream had brought her to tears. She could still hear her father’s voice. And Paul’s.

She caressed Amber’s soft hair. Aimee was right. She was going through stages. The first few months she was so angry—at the world, at Paul for leaving her, at other women with husbands, at herself—that she couldn’t think straight. Except when she talked to Aimee, then it seemed to make more sense.

At first she hadn’t wanted any visitors including Aimee, but like her, everyone kept coming around. Friends from her school days with offers of help, mates of Paul’s from work or bike riding who insisted on cleaning up around the place, the mothers of Amber’s school friends who she hardly knew but kept bringing food and offering to take Amber places.

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