Chapters (50)
- Cover
- About the Book
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sandie Docker
- Book Club Questions
- Welcome to the Kookaburra Creek Café
- Prologue
- One
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Please say you still love me and that I will remain forever yours.
Ivy
Nicole let the tears flow as she clutched her stomach. Poor Ivy. Suffering such loss with Tom on the other side of the world. She couldn’t stop reading there and swallowed hard as she broke her ritual.
She pulled out the next letter – a yellow envelope bordered in thick garish red with URGENT TELEGRAM emblazoned on the front. Carefully she opened it. It was dated the day after Ivy’s letter. The yellow paper, slightly torn at the edges and wrinkled as if screwed up into a ball and flattened again, bore typed words, screaming in capital letters.
‘REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND SGT T WILSON IS REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION AS A RESULT OF AIR ACTION LETTER TO FOLLOW MINISTER FOR THE ARMY 2 13 PM’
Nicole dropped the telegram into her lap. Oh, Ivy. How cruel and unfair.
Doubling over, she rested her hands on her knees and tried to stop the crying. To lose a child and have Tom go missing in one go. To lose everything.
Six
Just as dawn broke over the water, Nicole hauled herself out of bed. It was amazing how tired she was, and yet sleep had evaded her most of the night; how she couldn’t turn off the thousand thoughts that ran through her mind. She put the kettle on.
Trevor and Danny would be by this morning to help put shelves up in the living room. Given the celebrations yesterday, she figured they wouldn’t be here early. In fact, they might not turn up at all.
Nicole sat in the wicker chair on the verandah sipping her coffee slowly as the sun pushed its way through the sky. Ivy’s box sat on the small table, though she dared not open it.
She couldn’t face the next letter. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Nothing good could come of looking into the depths of someone’s personal life. There, only pain lived. Her earlier instinct of trepidation had been right. She walked back inside picking up the box, and took it into the kitchen, where she placed it back in the cupboard.
Her heart ached and dark, sad thoughts threatened to intrude. She had to keep busy. Yes, that’s what she had to do.
She pottered around the cottage, sweeping and wiping away dirt. No matter how often she cleaned, everything seemed permanently covered in a thin veil of dust.
An hour later a knock on the door signalled the unlikely arrival of Trevor and Danny.
Trevor looked as if he’d rather have been in bed and she suggested as much.
‘Not worth the grief,’ he grumbled as he slumped his way past her.