Chapters (48)
- Cover
- Praise
- About the Author
- Also by Tricia Stringer
- Title Page
- 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
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgements
- Excerpt
- One
“I wanted to work but I couldn’t stop the self-reproach I felt at leaving them, palming them off to their grandmother to look after while their mother did other things.”
“I know that feeling.”
“It’s with me now, even though they’re grown up. And now I feel as if I’ve let them down all over again.”
“Why?”
“When I left, Kate, my eldest, was bothered about something. She doesn’t open up easily but I could see she wanted to and I didn’t let her. Bree, who’s in the middle and wants to take over the farm, feels restricted by Milt’s way of doing things. They’re so alike but they rub each other up the wrong way and now she’s saying she wants to leave. And then my youngest, Laura, I don’t know what’s up with her. She’s thrown in the hairdressing job she’s had for six years to come home and…well, I’m not sure what.”
“I’m the same with my sons. They’re all settled now but they’ve had their moments. I think it’s a mother’s lot to worry about our kids, feel we should have been there more, done things differently. I’ve reconciled with the fact that we can’t go back. We just have to learn to carry the guilt as best we can.” Rosie cradled her mug in her hands, staring into it. When she spoke again her voice was distant. “When my husband and daughter died in that crash I blamed myself for the death of my little girl.”
“You weren’t there, were you?”
“No, but I’m the reason they were on the road. I’d been offered some temporary work at one of the resorts in Broome. It was daytime work for a couple of months. The boys were all at school but my husband was working too and we had no-one to look after our little angel. He was driving her up here to stay with my mum when they had the accident.”
“Oh, Rosie.” Natalie reached out and laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
Rosie kept staring into her mug. “I was a mess for a long time. Eventually my mum came and got me and the boys, and brought us up here. Driving past the place where my man and my angel died nearly killed me as well. Once I got here I didn’t want to leave. I couldn’t face travelling along that road again. This place became both my escape and my prison.”
“So you’ve never gone south?” Natalie couldn’t imagine this self-contained woman never leaving the peninsula.