The Chocolatier's Secret (Magnolia Creek, Book 2) (8 page)

‘I never thought I’d have to resort to taking a kidney from my own son,’ said Louis when they’d finished talking about the supply of Easter eggs Andrew needed to provide for Magnolia House.

‘Dad, we’ve talked about this. It’s the only way.’ Andrew could be firm with his father when he wanted to be.

‘It’s too much to ask.’

‘You’re not asking, I’m telling.’

‘I’m scared, son. Scared for us all.’

Gemma put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We’re all in this together and we’ll be fine.’ She was reassuring herself as much as the two of them. ‘In this family we stick together and this is no different to anything else that’s come our way.’

‘This is short-term pain for both of us, Dad,’ said Andrew. ‘And it could buy you a lot longer with us. We need you around.’

Andrew put his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers together the way he often did when he was concentrating on a big order for the chocolate business and contemplating the logistics of it all. ‘It’s only a few more weeks to wait, Dad. We’ve got time to get more plans in place. Then, when it’s done, we can all move forward.’

Gemma tipped her cup back to get the remains of her tea. ‘How are your feet?’ She nodded towards the new navy slippers she’d bought him. Lately his feet had been swollen more than usual, one of the first signs he was deteriorating.

‘They feel better today, since I’ve rested.’

‘Do you think you’d still be able to manage short walks down by the lake?’

Louis nodded. ‘There’s life in me yet. I’ll take it slow, but I don’t want to miss the beauty of autumn.’

Gemma touched Andrew’s knee beneath the table, and he found her hand. He was close to his father. His siblings had both left home and Melbourne years ago. Daryl lived in London, and Kirsten lived in Italy. Both had young families, and although they visited they weren’t a huge part of Louis’ life any more. Gemma guessed it happened with distance. But Andrew had always been by his side. It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t like he felt it was his duty, it had happened naturally.

Louis gulped back the rest of his tea. ‘I’ll leave you kids to it.’ Gemma put her arm out to steady him as he got to his feet. ‘Thank you.’ He didn’t decline the help this time but motioned Andrew away when he tried to walk him out to the annexe.

‘Breakfast in the morning?’ Gemma called after Louis. She usually laid out a proper breakfast at the weekend, with the tablecloth, the best cutlery, a selection of foods adapted especially for Louis: fruit, oatmeal, waffles.

‘I’ll be here.’ Louis smiled over at her before he shuffled out the back door and down the path bordered with lemon trees.

‘You know, I can’t ever remember Dad being unwell when I was growing up,’ Andrew began when Gemma sat down again. ‘He must’ve had common colds like everyone else, but I honestly can’t remember a day when he was ever too sick to work, ever too sick to look after us all.’

Gemma’s hand stretched across the table to Andrew’s. ‘It’s easier said than done, but both of you need to stay strong and try not to worry.’

‘I’m strong, Dad’s strong, but I’m scared. I’d never admit it or Dad would back away from the operation, I know he would.’

‘This is the best shot at him living a good life for plenty of years to come. You heard the doctor,’ said Gemma. ‘Live transplants are statistically better than donor kidneys.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Andrew moved to the sink and poured the dregs of his tea down the plughole. ‘Thanks for making the caramel mixture for the shop.’

‘No worries,’ said Gemma.

They left their mugs in the sink. Gemma turned off the kitchen lights and then followed Andrew upstairs, holding the bottom of his T-shirt. Usually, when he finished work, she’d chat with him as he took a shower, hand him a glass of wine that he’d drink as he tried to keep it out of the line of the jets, but tonight he went into the bathroom without the cheeky look back he usually gave her, without the sexy wink which sometimes led to her jumping in the shower with him. Gemma put a hand to her belly, wondering what it would be like to carry his baby, carry it to term and feel the first flutters and kicks inside her. She longed to raise a child and have this almighty, indestructible bond with them, like the bond between Andrew and Louis.

When Gemma climbed into bed that night, moving closer to Andrew, her hand on his upper arm and her breath on his back, she hoped Andrew would do as he’d promised and keep talking to her, keep their lines of communication open.

And she hoped they were strong enough to fight any more battles to come their way.

Chapter Ten

Andrew

Andrew woke early to the sounds of a kookaburra announcing the beautiful morning in Magnolia Creek. The bird had taken up position on the back fence hidden by the creamy white sprays of a Fiddlewood tree.

Unable to get back to sleep, Andrew saw the opportunity to do some admin work for the chocolaterie. He uploaded the latest photos for the upcoming Easter celebrations to their Facebook page. He’d devised a thick milk chocolate egg with the words Happy Easter piped in looping letters on one half of the shell, and around the edges he’d piped lilac flowers and miniature green leaves. An idea of Louis’ had been to make half an Easter egg in really thick milk chocolate and then they’d concocted different designs for eggs to be arranged in the centre of it. They had a gold-lustre egg, a speckled egg, eggs in white and dark chocolate. Their corporate brochure had already been sent out to customers showing these designs, but having Facebook got the ideas out there to families, tourists and corporate clients.

After he’d posted the photos, he responded to a few comments from customers. They were in the early days of building up their customer base out here in Magnolia Creek, but Magnolia House used their products and had turned out to be a bit of a local launch pad for the chocolaterie. They’d already had some big orders from the surrounding suburbs following the success of the chocolate fountain supplied for the wedding, and Andrew hoped there would be more.

He posted an advert for the Easter Egg Hunt he’d been roped into. On Good Friday, the event would be held in the beautiful grounds of Magnolia House and money raised from ticket sales would go to the Magnolia Creek Fire Station, which was a one-hundred per cent volunteer run station. Funds would support training, maintenance on vehicles and allow the station to update their radios and keep everything running smoothly for the entire town’s benefit. Andrew was to supply ten thousand eggs plus a raffle prize, which would be a giant milk chocolate Easter egg filled with individually wrapped chocolate bunnies – Louis’ idea – and Stephanie had come up with the packaging solution to present it in the best way.

With the admin tasks done for now, Andrew sat back and picked up one of the IVF leaflets he hadn’t yet read. The impersonal nature of all the information was hard to get his head around, let alone reach the stage where he wanted to sign up for any of it. But he wanted and needed to do this for Gemma. He wished he could wrap her up and protect her from a world of hurt rather than be the cause of it.

He pinched the top of his nose tightly. Gemma dreamed of a family, he dreamed of a family. How was he going to tell his wife he already had a grown-up child?

Andrew had every intention of going back to join his wife in bed now the kookaburra had moved on to annoy someone else, to cuddle Gemma and whisper in her ear that everything would be fine, but somehow, instead, he opened up Julia’s message, and before long he found his fingers gliding over the keys as memories of more than three decades eclipsed everything else.

He didn’t hold back. He’d been patient long enough. He asked her straight out what the hell had happened back then. He asked her why she hadn’t told him about the baby, why she hadn’t let him help. He told her he understood how painful this must be, but he was in pain too. He wanted to know whether his daughter was okay. Was she happy? Did she hate them for what had happened? He wondered what she looked like: did she look like Julia? Did she look more like him? Was she a made-up version of the both of them? ‘Please, find it in your heart to tell me what happened all those years ago,’ he wrote. ‘I at least deserve that.’

He didn’t sign his name. He didn’t put a smiley face or a kiss, as seemed so popular these days. There was no emoticon to convey how he felt: washed out, drained, no idea which way to turn.

When Gemma called out to say breakfast was ready, he realised how long he’d been staring at the screen, trying to find the appropriate words … words which wouldn’t scare Julia away but words that felt fair on the both of them.

He closed down Facebook after his message went off into cyberspace and joined his wife and dad downstairs.

*

Andrew kept his mind on his work the second he left the house, and by mid-afternoon he’d piped chocolate discs of all types – white, milk, dark – and decorated some with crumbled freeze-dried raspberries, some with gold lustre dust, others with sea salt. He piped the caramel mixture Gemma had made into the intricate chocolate cups to make truffles, he approved a special Easter packaging Stephanie came up with and placed an order for some new moulds.

Despite being busy, Andrew had been clock-watching all day, and finally, at six o’clock before he left the shop, he went out to the office at the back to use the computer. It was morning in the UK by now – he’d checked the time difference on his iPhone – and he was desperate to know whether Julia had responded. But when he logged onto Facebook and saw the message symbol with a ‘one’ beside it, he wasn’t sure he wanted to click and find out the answers to all the questions that had poured out of him earlier.

Andrew looked at the screen, the message symbol, and his hands stayed glued to his thighs. He stayed that way when Stephanie came and said goodbye, when Emilio called out to him and said he was heading off for the day. And when they’d both left, he finally had the courage to move the mouse and open up Julia’s message:

Julia: I do owe you an explanation, but I think you owe me one too.

What was she talking about? She’d severed all contact with him, gone off and had their baby without telling him, without letting him be a part of it. Who did that? Who, when they were young and in love, could walk away, out of someone else’s life entirely?

Andrew: I don’t want to argue with you, but I can’t see what I did wrong. You let me believe you’d gone ahead and aborted our baby. We were fifteen, I was petrified of going to jail for being underage, but how could you let me go on believing we’d killed our baby? You upped and left. I got your necklace – the locket I gave you on your fifteenth birthday – and you broke my heart the day I got your letter telling me you’d had an abortion. You told me to forget about you as though it were easy.

Andrew kept clicking the refresh icon waiting for Julia’s reply to come through. He was desperate for answers.

And then her message came …

Julia: The only letter I know about is the one you sent to me.

Andrew: I never wrote to you.

Julia: You did. You told me you were too young for a baby, too young for all of this and it was best if we both moved on.

Andrew stared at the computer monitor; his fingers hovered over the keys. He had no idea what she was talking about. He’d never written her any letter. And, it seemed … she hadn’t written him one either.

Chapter Eleven

Molly

Up until now, the only items on Molly’s magnetic board in her bedroom were a Chinese takeaway menu, a photo of the Christmas party at work last year, which was curled at the corner where it wasn’t fixed down properly by a pineapple-shaped magnet, and a flyer for the local cinema showing session times. But pinned up now was one of the biggest purchases of her entire life: an airline ticket.

She’d booked the ticket a couple of days ago after clearing leave with her manager. With some of the other midwives on holiday, she couldn’t leave right away, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It would give her time to really get her head around this, around what was going to happen. When she’d told Isaac he had tried to sound supportive, but she knew from the sound of his voice that he was worried sick. And who could blame him? This had the potential to blow right up in her face, and it was one hell of a risk to take.

Molly chatted on Facebook with a new member to the group, Ava, whose parents lived in Ireland. With her mother’s health rapidly deteriorating, this girl, needed to ‘get over it’, as she put it, and jump on a plane. Molly chatted with her and a couple of other members, but as soon as Ben put a response against Ava’s post, Molly swapped to the messenger section and clicked to write to him.

Molly: Hi.

Ben: Hi yourself.

Molly: I did it.

Ben: You dumped your boyfriend because you realised you’re totally and utterly in love with me?

Molly: Ha ha … very funny. I don’t have a boyfriend … I’m single.

Ben: Now we’re talking.

Molly: Focus, Ben.

Ben: Ah, so you bought a ticket to Australia? Am I right?

Molly: I leave March 12. I have to change in Singapore, so it’s two flights.

Ben: You’ll be fine. Getting on the first flight will be the worst part and once you’ve done it you’ll wonder why you never did it before.

Molly: I really hope you’re right.

Ben: I am. Now go and post to the group … share the good news!

Molly: I will. x

It was only after she’d pressed return and the message was sent that Molly realised she’d added a kiss to her reply. Oh, God. She clicked away from it and ignored the message symbol with the ‘one’ on it as she typed a post to the group. The responses flew in: ‘Oh my God! That’s huge!’ ‘Start small, why don’t you? Talk about the biggest flight you could do!’ ‘Good on ya!’ She chatted with other members of the group, noticing Ben hadn’t commented at all, and the whole time, in the corner of her eye, she could see the ‘one’ on the messenger symbol, beckoning her to take a look at his response.

She clicked, biting her lip and grimacing, scared of what she may see.

Ben: xx I knew you’d fallen for me. xx

Molly: As if! I momentarily lost concentration.

Ben: That’s what they all say. So how are you feeling about the flight? Did going to the airport help?

Molly: I don’t know. It was a start, but it feels like I need another year to gear myself up for this. But I can’t wait another year. My birth father is out there and the more I stew about it, the more wound up I get. I need some answers.

Ben: I have a suggestion.

Molly: Go on …

Ben: Fly with a friend, as support and a distraction.

Molly: I don’t think any of my friends could stretch to a ticket to Australia to accompany my sorry arse to the other side of the world.

Ben: How about someone who kind of knows you – or knows enough – and is planning on flying home to Australia with a stopover?

Molly knew where this was going and she waited for him to type more.

Ben: My travelling has come to an end, so I’m heading home. All stalking jokes aside, I’m trying to be a friend here when I think you could use one. I was intending to go via Singapore for a week or two to see an old uni friend. So … I could accompany you from Heathrow to Changi Airport and then we’ll part ways. I won’t even know where you’re flying to in Australia, so your destination is still top secret. And if we become better friends than we are now (which, I suspect, will happen), we can share more details. If, on the other hand, we loathe one another, we can bid farewell at Changi Airport and never have to see each other again.

Molly couldn’t think. There’d been an undeniable flirtation between her and Ben online, but it had never, and would never, go any further when they were both hiding behind a computer screen. Meeting him in the flesh would make it all real.

Then again, she’d never even seen a photograph of him. She was being ridiculous worrying about it at all.

Her computer bleeped.

Ben: Tell me what you’re thinking?

Molly: I’m thinking I’m more scared of meeting you than I am of flying right now!

Ben: Great, job done! Let me know your flight details for the first leg to Singapore and I’ll see what I can do. A single seat shouldn’t be too hard to come by.

Molly messaged over the details before she could change her mind and then shut down her iPad and headed over to her parents’ place for dinner. Isaac and Claire would be there too, so she’d be able to tell them all what was going to happen in a few weeks, although Ben was a secret for now. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this herself, and she wasn’t ready to share anything yet.

‘Molly, come in, love.’ Jeff Ramsey opened the door and kissed his daughter on the cheek. She grinned when his beard scratched her skin in that familiar way.

Her dad went straight to the fridge to offer her a beer. He wasn’t a drinker himself but kept it in the fridge, ready for the kids when they visited. ‘Isaac’s on his way,’ he said, passing her the opened bottle.

‘Something smells good. Hello, Mum.’ She gave her mum a hug and a kiss.

‘Molly, love. Good to see you.’ Margaret Ramsey smiled. ‘I’m making your favourite.’

Molly clapped her hands together. ‘I thought I could smell chicken.’

Margaret pulled the roasting tin from the oven and pushed a two-pronged fork into the skin to check the juices ran clear. Molly spied the stuffing balls browning lightly in the oven, and she lent a hand by stirring the gravy while her Mum checked the vegetables boiling in another pan.

‘I have some news,’ said Molly. She’d tell Isaac later. It was probably easier to handle her parents’ reaction first, and now she was here, she couldn’t wait.

‘You’re doing it, aren’t you?’ Her mum’s oven-gloved hands hovered mid-air, and then she calmly pulled each one off and turned to her daughter. ‘You know we’ll support you one-hundred per cent.’

This had gone so much further than simply thinking about it and being ready to start the search. Sometimes she felt guilty, especially when her parents were as lovely as hers were, but to explain what she was doing and why was difficult. Outsiders rarely understood the drive of an adoptee wanting to trace their roots, make sense of their place in the world, and as supportive as Jeff and Margaret Ramsey were, Molly knew they’d also worry.

‘Mum, sit down a minute. You too, Dad,’ she added when he took out the carving knife, ready to cut up the chicken.

When they’d both sat down, she said, ‘I already have an address for him.’ She heard a sharp intake of breath from her Mum. ‘He lives in Australia.’

‘Well, I never.’ Her dad sat back in his chair, thinking Molly had finished.

‘And I’ve booked a flight to go and see him.’

‘What?’ Jeff Ramsey’s face paled as much as his wife’s. ‘But you’re scared of flying. You’re terrified.’ He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

‘Remember the Facebook group I told you about?’

‘Vaguely.’ Her mum was still in shock. ‘Wasn’t it a group of other people who are scared of flying too?’

Molly nodded.

‘So you’re cured?’ Margaret Ramsey went over to the cooker, turned off the gas beneath the pan of vegetables, ever the multitasker.

‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but I’ve taken steps I think will enable me to get on the plane.’ Should she tell them she was meeting a total stranger? No, best not to. ‘I have to do this,’ she said instead.

‘You were so upset when your birth mother refused to see you.’ Margaret shook her head in disbelief.

‘I know I was, and it took a long time to get back to normal afterwards.’ Molly thought about the drunken night she’d danced away, even smoked three cigarettes, something she never did.

‘Something happened at work a few weeks ago,’ Molly explained, ‘and it started me thinking about tracing him. I figured I’ve been through the pain of rejection once. It may or may not happen again, but there’s only one way to find out.’

‘Molly, this seems such a drastic way to go about it.’ Jeff, former barrister, always laid things out matter-of-factly, looked at a situation objectively. ‘This man may not know anything about you. He may have another family. You could be hurting a lot of people doing this.’

She looked down at her lap and wondered whether, deep down, this could hurt him and her mum. She pulled a piece of white cotton thread from the leg of her jeans – it must have fallen from the new cotton shirt she was wearing. ‘I know.’ Her voice was small, and she felt her confidence waning. ‘I suppose I’m afraid that if I tread lightly it’ll be far too easy for him to tell me he doesn’t want to see me. I’d rather have everything out in the open. I spent months agonising over whether my birth mother would want to see me, whether she’d explain everything. This time, if it’s painful, it’ll be short and sharp and I can move on.’

Molly could see her parents close enough together to know they were holding hands beneath the table. The last thing she wanted to do was bring any pain onto them.

Jeff got up and went over to the sideboard where he took out his iPad. ‘I’ll come with you. You can’t do this alone.’

Molly went to his side and covered his hand before he had a chance to tap his password into the device. ‘You don’t need to come with me.’

‘But it’s on the other side of the world,’ his voice pleaded. Rarely did she see him looking unstuck. He was such a together man until it came to his children. When she’d broken her leg and her wrist falling from the monkey bars at school, he’d been a basket case at the hospital, and it’d been the first time she’d seen him lose composure. A barrister was always pulled together, suited up, a representation of the legal system. It was one of the first times she’d seen a softer side to her dad, and from that moment on she’d looked at him differently. He’d really become a dad that day, not just a father.

‘Dad, remember when my mates went backpacking in Europe after university?’

‘I remember how upset you were that you wouldn’t be going.’

‘It was the first time I’d realised I even had the fear. The thought of going up in the air, in this massive machine that could drop to the ground at any second, was terrifying. All the news reports and TV shows about plane crashes, terrorism, searches for black boxes, didn’t help either. It hadn’t been an issue up until then, but I know my fear has held me back over the years.

‘I guess the point I’m trying to make is that people go off to places, to countries they don’t know and they do it all the time. Remember Debbie Timmins?’

‘Your best friend from primary school?’

‘Yes. She bought a one-way ticket to New Zealand on a whim after resigning from her hairdressing job here. She’d never been there before, knew nobody and off she went. Ten years later, she’s still living there, settled and happily married. And more importantly, still in one piece. I can do this, Dad. I really can.’

‘Please don’t do a Debbie Timmins,’ said Margaret. Molly saw her pull a tissue from her sleeve and dab it beneath her eyes. ‘Please come back to us.’

‘At least we’re in the digital age, love.’ Jeff went to his wife’s side and abandoned the iPad. He knew his daughter. When she got something in her head, changing her mind was near impossible. ‘We’ll be able to email, FaceTime, phone, text.’

Margaret nodded and went back to tend to the dinner. She removed the pan of vegetables from the stove and drained them over the sink, and Molly briskly stirred the gravy – it had thickened a bit too much now, but it was salvageable. She daren’t look at her mum. She knew what she was thinking. First Isaac was leaving for America, and now, what if Molly went to Australia and never came back?

Jeff Ramsey carried the enormous oval platter holding the chicken over to the table, and the doorbell chimed to announce Isaac and Claire’s arrival. ‘Do you want a leg?’ he asked, knife and two-pronged fork helping him divide the meat.

‘Whatever’s going is fine.’ Molly poured the gravy into the awaiting gravy boat and delivered it to the table.

‘You know plane food is nowhere near as good as this.’ Her dad laughed and winked at his wife.

If Molly thought too much about what her trip would do to anyone else, she’d probably never go.