After decades working with teenagers, not much surprised Spencer, and he was usually quick to argue that people underestimated teens’ perceptiveness, but this was the first time he’d had a student give him a pep talk.
‘All good, mate, but thanks.’
Archie paused, hand on the car door. ‘My piano teacher Connor gets that look when he’s missing his family back in England. I know you live here and everything, but it reminded me of him, you know?’
Spencer thought about Archie’s comment on the drive home. Was that what it was? Could everyone but him see that he was still missing Belle? Or was he self-sabotaging things with Emily to avoid honouring a promise he didn’t feel ready to make good on yet?
That’s ridiculous,he told himself.Enough dithering, it’s time to pull out all the stops and make it work. No more awkwardness, no more holding back.
The lights were on inside when he reversed the car into the carport at South Giddi Giddi.
Spencer stared out the windscreen. Had Emily mowed the lawns while he was at school? A smart bloke would have stopped by the roadside stall to grab a bunch of native flowers, or at least gone into Winklin Wines to fetch a flash bottle of red, so they could put the weirdness of their first solo month together behind them, pour a glass, and toast to a firm future.
The backyard sensor lights flicked on as he moved around the car, illuminating the yard, the rotunda, and the dormant roses he’d pruned.
He stooped to collect a piece of rubbish from the muddy carport floor.
It was a napkin from the Sunny Cross Farm Gate Cafe. He smiled, recalling Clem’s curiosity about the outcome of the show. He wasn’t surprised—half the town had been quizzing him about it—but Emily had told him about her exchange with Clem when she’d gone to the cafe. The producers’ instructions to keep a low profile echoed in his ears.
It’ll be public knowledge once the show airs,he mused, tossing the napkin into the bin.
Dolly barrelled around the corner of the house, ears flapping in the wind as she made a beeline for the ute. Spencer groaned at the sight of the mud up her legs and along the underside of her belly.
‘You’re not coming in like that, Doll,’ he said, scratching her back as she sniffed at his jeans, tail wagging at full pace. ‘Give me a minute, then I’ll sort you out.’
He expected to find Emily curled up on the couch by the roaring fireplace, but there was a nip in the air when he stepped into the house, there was no glow coming from the wood burner, and when he put his hand to it, it was cold.
He called out a hello, unpacking his laptop bag and lunch box on the kitchen bench. One of Louisa’s blue casserole dishes sat on the stovetop, and a basket of folded washing was in the middle of the kitchen table. The handful of jonquils Emily had picked yesterday were still in a vase on the bench, but the house was conspicuously tidy and there was no sign of her handbag or keys. Her car had been in the garage, hadn’t it?
‘Hey, Em,’ he called, receiving only a woof from Dolly, still waiting outside, in reply. ‘Emily?’
He found her in the bedroom, placing an envelope on his pillow, and even before he noticed the suitcase by her side and the wet-weather clothes that suggested she was heading out, Spencer knew he’d messed things up.
‘I’d planned to leave before you got home,’ she said softly, a grimace on her face. ‘But you were right about my stuff being everywhere—it took longer than expected to find it all.’
Spencer stood in the doorway, trying to triage his reaction.
‘Is this a temporary trip home, or …?’
She shook her head. ‘We both know it’s not working. I’ve tried everything I could to show you I’m interested in farming, offered to review the bookwork and get out on the tractors, learn how things run at South Giddi Giddi. But almost everything’s done by Ian around here. Your only real role in the farm is the beekeeping, which is virtually non-existent at this time of year. You didn’t even look at those machinery magazines I got you, you tuned out when I was talking about the BOM’s disastrous website upgrade and you don’t even watchLandlineon Sundays.’
Even the most farm-fanatical person would have been hard-pressed to follow Emily’s blow-by-blow description of the Bureau of Meteorology’s failings. Spencer held up his hands. ‘I was clear from the start about being a teacher first and foremost, a beekeeper second, and a farm dogsbody third.’
‘I’m not sure you even know what you want. You’ve spent more time working on a play than you have in the paddocks this past week. You like living in the Limestone Coast, but would you have moved here of your own free will, if it wasn’t your wife’s hometown?’
Emily’s rain jacket rustled as she zipped it up. ‘Does the idea of driving along those fence lines, checking for lambs, reading agronomists’ reports and planting crops fill you with joy?’
Spencer opened his mouth to reply, then shut it.
Emily ducked her head and brushed past him, her suitcase wheels whirring behind her. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘I don’t want to argue or beg or force you to stay, Emily, but I thought we were working towards something.’
‘I thought so too,’ she said, her voice sad now. ‘There’s more in the letter. I’m not mad, I’m not going to tell the whole world things didn’t work out, but I’m not going to waste any more time on us. Thanks Spencer, it’s been one hell of a ride.’
Spencer caught up with Emily in the hallway, giving her a proper hug goodbye and carrying her suitcase to her car. It wasn’t until he’d lit the fire, reheated a serve of Louisa’s delicious casserole and showered that he sat down and read the letter she’d left him.
Dear Spencer, I know you fit the farm work in around your teaching, and I’ve not once seen you complain, but I don’t think it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning. The school, on the other hand—you’re good at it. Those students are lucky to have you. But to give up my place on the orchard, to start a family, I needed to know it was for love, as well as a firm future on a farm that I could have a hands-on role in running, with YOU by my side.
