Deep Water Tears: Book 1 The Dreaming Series by Jan Reid

Author:Jan Reid [Reid, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jan Reid
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

“He’s ‘round the back verandah Don,” Betty yells as she stretches her neck in an attempt to see Don’s face on the other side of the rambling white rose hedge. She had glimpsed the light blue colour of his utility through the hedge as he had driven up, so she knew she wouldn’t need to go out the front to greet him.

“Ta Betty,’’ he replies unseen, and ambles along the fence and around the corner to the back house gate.

Betty sighs deeply and a worried frown returns to her face as her thoughts once more return to Bill. The doctor said he was very lucky. There was no concussion and the x-rays didn’t show anything had been broken, but there was quite a lot of ligament damage which may never fully heal, he had said. “Blasted ‘widow makers’,” she curses out loud. The chances of walking under a tree just as a bough broke were rare, but for many people it had also been fatal. Thank heavens it hadn’t been worse, she consoles herself, although she’s still feeling a little guilty for having had those thoughts a few months back about moving into town if he should ever pass away prematurely. She wonders if she somehow caused it with her thoughts. Don’t be ridiculous, Betty, she scolds herself.

Her train of thought is suddenly lost as she moves her position to a different section of the hedge with her pruning shears and disturbs some grasshoppers. They make her flinch as they flick away in all directions, once more causing Betty to voice her frustration. “Rotten grasshoppers,” she laments. Although harmless enough on their own, when the locust swarms came, they had the potential to strip crops overnight. The Barwon community had not been spared in the winter of 1975. Bill’s winter crops had been destroyed. It was part of a farmer’s lot, being at the mercy of nature. Yet, despite it all, most farmers still carried on, even when drought, flood or plague hit. It was all taken in their stride.

She thinks again on the timing of it all. She can’t help but feel that although the accident had been, ‘the final straw that broke the camel’s back’, as her mother used to say, somehow it had also been a bit like divine providence too. She didn’t like it that Bill was injured of course, but she doubts he would have finally made the decision otherwise, despite the lost crops and the talks they had had since Rachel was sent away. She can’t help but be a little mad at him, even though things were now largely working out to her advantage. Why hadn’t he mentioned what had been on his mind earlier? He had said he had been thinking about it for years. She hadn’t appreciated being left out, especially when she had suffered in silence with sorting out the problem with Rachel and Darel. It was obvious Don Rutherford had known for quite a while too, though Bill had said he hadn’t mentioned it to him.

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