“Time together is the important thing for Gumball. That’s all she wants.”
That’s not what you used to say...She turned toward Nev and narrowed her eyes. “What happened to ‘it isn’t the quantity, it’s the quality of the time you spend with her’?”
“Yeah, well.” Nev kept her eyes on the road. “That was back when you didn’t have a chance.” She frowned.
“What?” Ronnie asked. “You made a face. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. Tell me.”
Nev glanced over at her, then back at the road. “Have you heard from the lawyer yet? When you’re feeling better, give her a call, check in. Have you talked to your ex about any of this yet?”
Ronnie shook her head. Since the frozen corn incident she had been avoiding Maude. Now Reg picked Rainbow up in Gordonvale and dropped her off. No contact. Easy Peasy, as Nev would say. “Not yet. I’m letting her get used to the idea first. I’ll call the lawyer sometime. No news is good news.” The lawyer hadn’t met with Maude yet. If the woman in Mareeba had news, she would call.
Nev raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know how to help with that, but if you need me to, I’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks, but I’ll handle it. I think it’s headed in the right direction. I mean, the lawyer said Maude was on board…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one worrying about it. Jesus…”
Ronnie watched her boss shift the truck into park on the gravel in front of the plant nursery at Upsend Downs. Ric-Rac or Barney had given the sign a fresh coat of paint. The plant nursery was one of the beautiful parts of the farm, with wide views of rolling hills, hazy on an autumn afternoon, lavender fields, orderly and quiet, rows of silver gum trees, mahogany, bay laurels, and three hundred other species of native and exotic plants. Sometimes she and the other farmhands helped out here with landscaping, maintenance, or building repair when the seasonal staff were gone. Green hoses snaked and coiled between the rows.
Whenever she mowed the lawn here, she felt that something big was about to happen. The combination of orderliness and emptiness reminded her of a wedding venue before the guests arrive. That was a thought. They could become a wedding destination. Farms did that now.
Water evaporating brought a pleasant earthy smell up from the loam. Somewhere to their right a mister had been left on. Maybe it was on a timer. Nev opened the passenger door and offered her an upturned palm.
She took it, frowning. “Why do I have to get out of the ute?” Her friend didn’t answer, merely snapped open the rented wheelchair. She gingerly lowered herself into it with a hiss. Nev pushed her towards the potted rows, slowly. She could feel how much harder it was for Nev to push the chair across crushed gravel than it had been for Mattie to push it across carpet and cement.
“Thought you might like to pick a tree to plant.”
“Me? Now?” Ronnie asked, incredulous.Oh, Nev… Nev, Nev, Nev, Nev, Nev…
Her boss was often clueless in an adorably oblivious way, but didn’t usually miss the mark by this much. Ronnie liked plant shopping under normal circumstances, with the thirty percentemployee discount, but not on the way home from hospital. Maybe it was a surprise party. She hoped not. She wanted to lie down in a dark room, preferably with Nev and the dogs curled up against her, and sleep for a hundred years.
“Babe…plant shopping is not good right now.”
“Any kind. Up to you. My treat. Remind me to pave these walking paths. They lied to me when they told me this design was wheelchair accessible.”
“Are you listening to me, babe? Stop. You’re going to have to go all the way back to the car park, and I’m not getting any lighter, so if I were you, I would turn this chair around right now.” Something was definitely up. “What is this? Please tell me it’s not a surprise party.”
Nev was a disembodied voice behind the chair. “Don’t be angry.”
“What did you do?” Her midsection burned, back competing with the incision scar for attention. “Come over here where I can see you. I feel like I’m talking to myself.”
Nev came around in front of the chair. She looked guilty. “Nothing. I thought planting a tree might be a nice gesture…”
“Of what? A nice gesture of what?”
Nev’s cheekbones and ears were pink. “It was just an idea.”
The nursery was pleasant in the shade, here on the hill with the breeze—honeyeaters in grevilleas, two or three unwelcome rabbits peeking out from underneath the boxwood, azaleas in pots, pots in ordered rows—but Ronnie needed to take pills and sleep.
She gazed wistfully at the ute parked by the checkout kiosk. “Baby... I’m mostly dead. I know you’re trying to do something nice for me, but I feel like I’m in a hostage situation and I have zero interest in whatever this is.”
Why a tree? Why did Nev think she wanted to plant a…
