Star Struck by Ryn Shell

Author:Ryn Shell [Shell, Ryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Dreaming Billabong Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Rose didn’t stop crying for several days, but when she did, she was unnaturally calm.

“Scary,” Carl said.

Trevor agreed. “Not right your having to become guardian for your mother’s mental health.” He phoned Doctor Marinovich.

Rose spent two weeks in a Saint John of God Hospital in Brighton, Victoria. When Trevor drove her children there, to collect her and bring her home, she was subdued but able to smile at, and engage well, with Helen and Carl.

“No more tears…” Rose said and forced her shoulders to relax, “…I shed for all the years I’d been holding them back.”

They arrived home to find the farmhouse in one heck of a mess. A home burglary is a strange way to learn what your priorities in life are. Bedtime was delayed, as Trevor reported a break-in to the police.

Next day, the family slept in. Then they finalised family plans. Rose would take the sedan and the old four-by-six trailer and with her children go on a working tour—for the rest of her active life, if need be. She planned to take off to Adelaide and then head up through central Australia and back via the west coast and finally back across the Nullarbor Plain.

Rose told Helen and Carl, “We will go to the Gemtree country of the Harts Range in Central Australia. We’ll camp in the open country, on the gem fields, with no one within miles. Linton told me he would take us there. We can ask the gem cutters if they have seen him.”

“That’s a great place to look for him.” Carl drew up his knees and hugged them. “I’ll search for zircons and rubies for the beautiful women in my life.” He tweaked at a curl on his sister’s blonde head.

When Alvin returned from visiting his friends, he was shocked when told that his family had been robbed.

“We were late getting back on Saturday night,” Trevor said. “We came home to find the house had been broken into and ransacked.”

“Don’t be upset.” Rose gave Alvin a quick peck on the cheek. “Nothing of lasting value was taken.”

Helen laughed. “I discovered my priority in life was a five-dollar hen.” Her cheerfulness relaxed everyone in the room. “I cried for my Henny Penny.”

“Henny Penny was fine.” Trevor crossed the room to put the kettle on the hot plate to boil. “I’ve got a soft spot for that chook too. She was the first thing I looked for—hence discovering that a hen that cost five dollars was, at that moment of stress, the most important possession we had, aside from all of you.” He held his arms wide. “My family.”

“That was when I knew that nothing material I owned mattered.” Helen sat on a stool happily swinging her legs. “I’m ready to say goodbye to it all and go and see my dad.”

“Got to find him first,” Carl whispered. “It took us ten minutes of panic before we found Henny Penny,” Carl added. “She was nesting inside the piano.”

“The lid was up.” Rose grinned as Alvin rushed to inspect the piano.

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