“Mum wanted to stay in the house,” I said. “You lot were still in school and someone needed to step up if Dad wouldn’t.”
“Troy…” Charlie said, her gaze softening, but I couldn’t bear that for long, not if I was going to get this out.
“So I did. I know…” Mackenzie’s words came back to me then. Probably because they’d replayed inside my head all day. “I know I’m a pain in the arse to be around.”
“Pain in the arse is probably too mild a term for it…” Billy muttered. “What?” Everyone was staring at him. “C’mon, you know it’s true. Troy tries to make out he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and?—”
“Up until now, he has been.” Bronson nodded. “So you did a deal with Dad?”
“Been sending him money every quarter.” Charlie pushed a print out into the centre of the table and that’s when I felt awhite hot rush of shame. All of my modelling, it was there, for everyone to see. Every attempt to come up with a solution that kept the farm running, my family in their home, and Dad off my back was there in black and white. “A lot of money.”
Someone had tallied it all up. Every single payment made since Dad left the farm was listed on the page and I shook my head at the sight of it. I was the one to make the bank transfers, but somehow even that grand total shocked me. Probably because I couldn’t add it all up, not and keep going.
But someone else had.
Mackenzie.
She’d asked me about the spreadsheet, offered to help, and apparently in my absence, she had. My teeth ground together, an instinctive response, and while I expected to be pissed, I wasn’t. Jaw muscle releasing, I found myself smiling, even if it was a grim one.
It was all going to come out and the sweetest feeling of relief took me by surprise as it washed over me. Pulling my phone out, I unlocked it, then opened the messages my father and I had exchanged.
“I didn’t want Mum to die on her own in some fucking hospital, away from everyone she loved,” I said. “You guys were losing your mother?—”
“You too,” Charlie said, her eyes starting to shine suspiciously.
“We were losing our mother,” I corrected. “And I couldn’t let you lose your home as well. I…” This was the moment when I lost them all. I knew it back then when Dad slid the contract across the table for me to sign and I knew it now. “I signed a contract. The farm would come to me… us, but in exchange for putting the deed in our name?—”
“The prick milked the place for hundreds of thousands of dollars.” In some ways, Bronson was the brother I was closestto. That flare of white-hot anger in his eyes, it was a twin flame to my own. “The fucking arsehole.”
“Why not tell him to fuck off?” Billy said, then grabbed my phone. “I’ll do it.”
“And then he’ll force a sale of the farm,” I replied.
“Good.” Bronson stared into my eyes, not looking away for a second. “You know I love this place. We all do, but… you have to see that this situation can’t go on. The amount of money he’s pulling out? We’ll be broke in a few years and forced to sell.”
“Better to sell now.” The words were dragged out of Charlie. “While we can control the process. If we wait until spring, we’ll get the best price for the stock and the farm.”
“Dad’s not seeing a fucking cent of the sale money,” Billy snapped.
“That’s not—” I started to say.
“No, he’s not.” Charlie pushed another piece of paper my way and I recognised it immediately. The contract of sale that I’d shoved deep into the back of the filing cabinet. Apparently my sister had been very busy today. “If anything, he owes us money. The contract outlines that he’s supposed to get 15% of all profits. Profits.” That word was said with extra emphasis. “Instead, he’s been getting 20, 30, 40% of all the revenue raised before expenses and taxes are paid out.”
“That fucking—” Billy snapped, and that’s when my mother’s worst nightmare came true.
He was fit to be tied, and why not? I hated my own father with the heat of a thousand suns, but the fact I never wanted that for my siblings stopped me from feeling any kind of satisfaction. With a grim set of his jaw, his fingers flew across my phone screen as he tapped out a reply to Dad’s increasingly threatening messages.
“Billy…”
Before I could stop him, he hit send, then threw the phone down.
“Fuck you and the skank you shacked up with.” Charlie nodded. “Not sure if Melinda is a skank.”
“It’s Lisa now,” I replied.
“You’d know.” Bronson looked tired, defeated. “Not as if he talks to any of us outside birthdays and Christmas, and usually only when he’s drunk. So, we’re doing this? Drysdales have lived on this farm for generations.”
“I don’t want to lose the farm,” Charlie said. “The rescue… the animals…” Any relief I had felt seconds before evaporated in the face of a fresh wave of shame. “But if I’m given some time, I can find other rescues to take the animals on.” Her tiny smile gave me a little hope. “But I’m not Dad. If I have to choose between the farm or my family, I choose my family every time.” I watched her eyes narrow slightly. “And Troy, I need you to start doing the same.”
