“She’ll have a few starters,” Natalie said. “It was a smart idea to give away some beauty vouchers.”

“A lot of the stalls look like they sold out.”

“There wasn’t a crumb left from our stall and Vee only had a few plants left.”

“Would they be the two boxfuls in the back of the four-wheel drive?”

Natalie grinned. “It’s for a good cause and Vee did such a good job organising her green thumb friends, and I think she even got a couple of nurseries near Adelaide to donate plants as well.”

“How’s Vee getting on, do you think?”

“Okay. Not looking forward to going back for treatment. She misses home and her garden. It really is beautiful, Milt.”

“I know.”

She looked down at her soup. Of course he did. She wondered again how often he’d been over there then pushed the thought away. What did it matter?

“What are you planning to do with the last week of school holidays?”

“Help you, put the house back together, make a start on the garden.”

“Mum’s taken with the idea. I never thought she would be.”

“Vee’s garden was inspiring,” she said. “I see you’ve done more work on the tennis court.”

“It’s nearly all levelled out and we’ve started fixing the fence.”

“Milt—”

“I know you don’t want us to ever have a court again but it was my way of building a bridge with Bree. Something we could do together that wasn’t work.”

Natalie was surprised he’d thought that through and come up with the idea but glad he had.

“That was a worthy reason to do it, Milt, but I was going to say I have another. I’d like to incorporate it into my garden plan, use it as a boundary, build a gazebo.”

“Hell’s teeth!”

“We could have tennis parties again.”

“You’ve certainly changed your tune.”

“I used to love having people over and the tennis court was the focus.”

He raised his eyebrows at that.

“You know why we stopped the competition tennis. It would have meant seeing the Halbots. I wasn’t much of a player but I loved the social aspect. It used to be fun when we went to other people’s places or they came to us for social tennis days.”

Milt’s spoon clattered to the bowl. “Hell, Nat, I’m so sorry.”

It was a big statement covering so much.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“What for?”

“For running away, leaving you with everything.”

“I should have been paying more attention to what you were saying. I was so wrapped up in work…Oh hell.” He lurched forward again and looked her directly in the eye. “I appreciate everything you do for me, for Mum, everything. You do know that, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“I don’t want you to go off like that again, not without me.”