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It was James Ryan Turner’s office these days. Ryan still kept a line-by-line diary with weather observations and any incidents on the farm, just like his great-grandfathers before him.
The diary was open:One lamb caught in old barbed wire in the south lower paddock. Antibiotics administered. Should recover. Tomorrow, clean up of paddock for any remaining wire.
No temperatures or rainfall had been added yet.
I was about to place the mail on the ledger when a letter from our bank with two words in bold caught my eye.Foreclosure notice.
Ryan walked in as I picked up the letter. His face paled.
“You lied to me last week.” The letter crumpled in my grip. “You said we were okay.”
“We will be,” he whispered hoarsely. “Everything comes down to the wool clip in two months.”
“We have to tell Tom.”
I moved to walk past him, but Ryan stopped me. “He knows. And Amanda, she’s helping me to liaise with the bank.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“Soon, when you got home. I promise.”
Suddenly the fuss Ryan had made tonight for Amanda’s phone call made sense. “Mum doesn’t know.”
Ryan sucked his bottom lip and then eventually shook his head. “No.”
I let the foreclosure notice fall to the desk, feeling numb. “I got the mail. It’s there.”
I pushed past my brother.
“Wait, Stace—”
“You should have told me.” I was about to turn on my heel and head to my room when I stopped and turned back. “Mum deserves to know.”
“Not yet. Let her have hope, Stace.”
“Let her build hope based on truth.” I scoffed but then sighed. “She needs to know but I won’t say anything, yet. This family needs to talk. Soon.”
9
STACEY
Ballydoon Community Group:
Benji posted 7.03 a.m.:
Reminder: Wombats train on Wednesday before ladies soccer. Playing the Stannie Miners on Saturday at 11am. Come along to cheer us on.
I yawned, cracking my jaw.
I’d lain awake for hours thinking about weddings, Doc Larcombe being absent from work, of chickening out telling everyone I’d finished an interior design course and wanted to start my own business. And of losing the farm. Quitting the medical practice to establish my business with no regular paycheck was now impossible, now I knew the truth about the farm.
But I’d also held onto how glorious it felt to win the drag race, and how I’d felt with Harrison in his car. I was not letting these memories be tainted with the foreclosure notice.
At sunrise, I got up and baked cupcakes with butter cream frosting, keeping the tradition to bring in morning tea on the first day back at work after leave.
I’d avoided my brothers before they both headed to the paddocks, but Mum found me after my shower.
“Need someone to massage vitamin E cream on your back?”
