The January Wish (19 page)

Jonah tapped away at the keyboard, opening up windows she didn’t know existed, until bam!—her photos reappeared in the ‘My Pictures’ folder. He sat back and circled his hands in the air. ‘
Voilà
!’

‘You fixed it?’ Grace shoved her face close to the computer screen.

‘Uh-huh. Although if you created any documents in the last couple of days, they might have been lost, but everything up to last Sunday has been recovered.’

‘Woohoo! Thank you so much!’ Grace wrapped her arms around Jonah’s neck, then pulled back, feeling slightly over-enthusiastic.

‘Do you want to re-upload the new photos from your phone?’

‘Yes, but I’m afraid to do it in case it crashes again.’

‘Lucky I’m here then.’ Jonah plugged Grace’s phone into the laptop. ‘All done,’ he said after a few moments, handing the phone back to her.

Grace slipped the phone into the pocket of her capri’s, and scanned her eyes through the folder to make sure all the photos were there.

‘Are there any you’d like to show me?’ Jonah asked.

Grace was secretly pleased she hadn’t taken any impromptu photos of Jonah while out and about. ‘Sure.’ She sat next to him, clicked on a photo to start the slideshow, and gave a running commentary on each photo.

‘Why is there a photo of you and Dr Greene?’ Jonah asked.

Oops, she’d forgotten about that one. ‘Oh, you know Sylvia?’ Grace twirled a tendril of hair around her finger.

‘Everyone knows Dr Greene.’

‘Um, we’re kind of related,’ she said.

‘Oh yeah? In what way?’ Jonah’s curious eyes searched hers.

Should she tell him? Grace knew that Sylvia seemed keen on keeping this a secret, but she didn’t want to lie to him. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Let me start at the beginning.’

Grace’s eyes became moist when she told Jonah about how her mother died last year, and how these photos were to be incorporated into a memory album to give to her father. She then explained how she’d been adopted, and came to Tarrin’s Bay after finishing school to find her birth mother.

‘Dr Greene? She’s your real mother?’ Jonah’s jaw opened wide.

Grace nodded, and placed a hand on his arm. ‘But don’t tell anyone, okay? It was a bit of a shock, me turning up like this, and I don’t think many people knew she had a baby when she was a teenager.’

Jonah slid his thumb and forefinger across his lips. ‘I won’t say a word,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Wow, Grace. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot for someone your age,’ Jonah said.

You don’t know the half of it.
‘Yeah, you could say that.’ She ran a hand through her hair and looked away.

Jonah took hold of Grace’s hand, concern on his face. ‘How did you get through your HSC after dealing with what happened to your mum?’

‘To be honest, I have no idea,’ Grace began. ‘I took a couple of weeks off school, then I just threw myself back into it. I think it helped distract me from the pain, and…’ Grace felt her chin tremble a little. ‘And… I wanted to do her proud.’ She wiped at the corner of her eyes, swallowing hard and pushing back tears. ‘So I stuck at it, and finished with a decent result.’ Grace allowed herself a brief smile. Her hand became warm and she realised Jonah was rubbing it up and down.

‘I have
no
doubt that she would be
very
proud of you,’ he said, a genuine warmth in his eyes.

She mouthed a silent ‘thank you’, and stood. ‘Anyway, enough reminiscing. What should we do now?’ Grace stretched her arms above her head, as though preparing for a race. When she lowered them, Jonah took hold of them and stood to meet her gaze.

‘I was thinking…this.’ He leaned in close like he did last Saturday. Only this time his aim was better, his lips landing right on target.

Grace softened at Jonah’s touch, and the butterflies that had become permanent residents in her stomach since meeting him collapsed in a love-induced haze. Heaven had definitely come down to Earth for a visit. Maybe this was the other half of the gift he’d promised.

Jonah eased his lips off hers for a moment, smiling. ‘I just remembered I haven’t given you the rest of your gift yet,’ he whispered.

Maybe not then.

‘What is it?’ Grace whispered, her face still within a few centimetres of his.

‘Come with me,’ he said, leading her outside.

They walked hand in hand to the beach, taking the steep concrete steps up to the top of the headland. From here, they could see forever. A man stood below, fishing rod extended far into the ocean, a couple walked barefoot along the shoreline, and in the distance, a flock of seagulls flew far away until Grace couldn’t see them anymore. Warm blobs of orange and a tender glow of yellow swam around the sky as dusk fell.

Grace’s pulse quickened as she felt Jonah’s hand on her hip. He lifted the phone from her pocket. ‘Hey! What’s with the pickpocketing?’ she teased.

He ignored Grace’s question, simply turned her back to the horizon, stood next to her and held the phone out in front. ‘Smile!’ he said.

Click!

Jonah and Grace looked at the photo, a happy shot of them, their skin glossy and glowing against a backdrop of sunset. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ Jonah said. ‘This is the other half of your present—to put in the photo frame.’

A smile grew on Grace’s lips, and she leaned in towards him, rising up on her tippy-toes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, kissing him gently on the lips. ‘Only I didn’t get
you
a gift.’

‘Oh yes you did,’ he replied, grasping the sides of her face with his hands and pulling her lips to his.

After moving through the resistance of the water in her swimming pool, Sylvia moved through the crowd of tourists walking the opposite direction to her. The footpath alongside the terrace shops was always packed on a Saturday. Resistance gave way as she came to Miracle Park and relished the open space. She took off her sandals to feel the lush grass beneath her feet as she walked diagonally across the park, before putting them back on to cross the road. While waiting for a break in the traffic going down Park Street, she glanced towards Café Lagoon to see if Larissa was there yet. They’d planned to meet for lunch at twelve-thirty, and it was now twelve-twenty-five. Nope. As usual, Sylvia was the first to arrive.

She saw Jonah standing outside the café, his back to her. A pair of young arms were draped around his neck, and he leaned forward, then back again.
Oh, he’s found himself a girlfriend, how sweet!
Sylvia tilted her head to one side and smiled. Jonah was a great kid. No, a great
man
. He’d be about twenty years old by now, Sylvia thought. Very popular with the girls, but he never seemed to let it go to his head. As the young arms reluctantly dropped away from his neck, he turned back to the café, while a girl with red curls turned the other direction and bounced happily along. Grace. His girlfriend was Grace!

As Sylvia crossed the road she didn’t know what to think. Of course Grace could have a boyfriend; she’d probably had a few by now, but this perpetual image of Grace as a child, a baby, kept surfacing in her mind. Part of her wanted to sit her down and talk, make sure she wasn’t jumping into anything serious too soon. Maybe that was the maternal instinct that people talked about. She wasn’t sure. The other part of her dismissed this and told her to stay out of it. Grace was old enough to make her own decisions, and her own…mistakes. Hell, Sylvia had been two years younger than Grace when she’d
had
her. Anyway, if she was going to hook up with anyone she was glad it was Jonah. Sylvia knew his parents and was comforted by the fact he came from a good family.

Jonah stiffened slightly when he saw her. ‘Oh, hi Dr Greene. Table for one?’

‘Hi Jonah, two actually.’ Sylvia sat as Jonah pulled out a chair at one of the outdoor tables. ‘And, I think you know me well enough to call me Sylvia from now on, okay?’ She smiled.

‘Well okay then,
Sylvia,
’ he emphasised. ‘Although, it sounds a bit strange!’ He blushed slightly and placed a ‘reserved’ sign on the table. She’d never seen Jonah blush before. His relaxed self-confidence was always palpable. ‘I’ll see you at the counter to take your order when your friend arrives.’

Sylvia nodded, and poured herself a glass of water from the carafe. Café Lagoon was one of the best café’s in town. They had an efficient computerised ordering system that saved people waiting for a waiter to come and take their order. Their food was delicious, cooked on-site, and always quick to be served.

‘Sylvia!’ Larissa dumped an array of shopping bags on the ground next to the table and flung her arms around her. ‘It’s so good to see you!’

‘You too! How’s married life treating you?’

‘Extremely well, if you must know.’ She winked. ‘I’m so glad we were able to extend our honeymoon, didn’t want to leave!’ Larissa sat in the chair opposite Sylvia and poured herself a glass of water. ‘Back to work on Monday, but this afternoon I’m doing a bit of decorating. Luke’s place will never know what hit it!’

‘Don’t you mean
your
place?’ Sylvia asked.

‘Oh yeah, I keep forgetting it belongs to both of us now. Anyway, look what I got.’ Larissa showcased her shopping spree piece by piece, and eventually they both got up to place their order at the counter.

Back at the table, Larissa suddenly leaned forward. ‘Sorry hun, I’m still on the honeymoon high. You said in your text something about Mark?’

‘The night of the rehearsal dinner, were you going to tell me about his wife?’

‘That’s right, we got interrupted. And then it completely slipped my mind. God! I’ve been so self absorbed lately! Anyway, I was going to tell you his wife died a while ago, so if you were keen on him to take it easy at first. Her death really shook him up. Luke had to go stay with him for a while after it happened.’ Larissa took a sip of water. ‘So he told you about her, is that how you found out?’

Sylvia shifted in her chair. ‘Sort of. Well, no actually, he didn’t tell me. Not until I confronted him about it after overhearing a patient’s conversation. But I only heard he had a wife, I didn’t know she’d died. And by then we’d already kissed, so I furiously told him off. I thought I was “the other woman”, and needless to say it was extremely awkward when he told me the truth, and—‘

‘You kissed?’ Larissa’s eyes grew wide. ‘And you told him off because you thought he still had a wife?’

Sylvia nodded.

‘Oh no. What a mess!’ Larissa brought her hands to her face.

‘I know, I know. I should have gathered the evidence before coming to a conclusion. But when I heard he had a wife, and he was acting like he wanted to avoid me, it didn’t even cross my mind that there could be an alternative to him being a lying, cheating, you-know-what.’

‘So you let him have it, in your “I’m Dr Greene and no one messes with me” kind of way?’

‘You could say that,’ Sylvia said, hiding behind her glass of water.

Larissa’s mouth tried to withhold a giggle. ‘I shouldn’t laugh, but I can just see you doing that,’ she said. ‘I can only imagine the shock on your face when he told you the truth.’

Sylvia ran a hand through her hair. ‘I felt like such an idiot! I can’t believe he’s still speaking to me.’

‘So things are…okay, between you?’

‘Well, he pretty much said he’s not ready to get involved, so I guess there isn’t
anything
between us.’ Sylvia straightened in her chair.

‘But you’d like there to be?’

‘He’s not ready, that’s obvious, and it’s a bad idea to get involved with someone who’s still grieving.’

‘But, Sylvia, you’d
like
to be involved? If he was ready?’ Larissa probed.

Sylvia thought back to the sadness on Mark’s face when he told her of his wife’s death, and how he’d removed his hand from hers. But then she thought back to the night of the wedding, when he’d launched himself at her with a passion she’d never felt before, and tingles ran up her spine. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I would.’

Later that day, Sylvia sat staring at the blinking cursor on the computer screen. It shouldn’t be this hard, should it? Sending an email to your parents to tell them the granddaughter they’ve never met is here, and wants them to come and watch her perform on stage?

Larissa had been brought to tears when Sylvia showed the photo of her and Grace at the beach. Grace had sent it to Sylvia’s phone after their day out together. ‘She looks just like you did at that age, minus the boofy teased fringe you had!’ Larissa had said, before dabbing the corners of her eyes and saying how amazing it was that Sylvia’s daughter had come all this way to find her. Sylvia told Larissa about Grace’s musical talent, and the variety concert she’d be performing in, and Larissa had made her promise she’d contact her parents to tell them. ‘They have a right to know,’ she’d said.

Problem was, Sylvia didn’t know if they
wanted
to know.

It would be so much easier to leave things as they were, without dredging up the past. The relief on her parents’ faces when she’d agreed to the adoption was obvious, and they’d encouraged her to simply move on and forget about the baby. Besides, they were always travelling around Australia in their Winnebago, and who knew if they’d be able to stop by in June.

But, Larissa was right. They
did
have a right to know. And, she’d promised Grace she’d ask them.

Hi Mum & Dad,

No. Too Casual.

Dear Mum and Dad,

Just letting you know that…

No. That sounded like she was letting them know she’d left her scarf at their place and could they bring it round next time they visited. Oh man, how was she supposed to tell them?
Dear Mum and Dad, Guess what? Remember that baby I gave up when I was sixteen, well—she’s back! Surprise!

Maybe she should tell them over the phone.

No, email would be better. Then she could say what she wanted to say without getting into an awkward conversation. Sylvia drew a slow breath and typed.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I have some news I need to share with you. The baby I had eighteen years ago has found me. Her name’s Grace, she’s staying here in Tarrin’s Bay for a while. She’s even got a job at Mrs May’s. Anyway, she’s a great girl, and a very gifted pianist. She’s performing at the variety concert on the first Saturday in June, and I was wondering if you would like to come and meet her then?