Free Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman Page B

wondered if my mother was jealous of my relationship with Grandma; they’d been so prickly with each other. I was intrigued but not excited by the idea of an inheritance. The only thing I wanted was to dance again. And maybe to have Josh back, but the Josh who didn’t cheat on me. Material things had never been particularly important to me.
    It was late afternoon. In the distance, a lawn mower growled, and the scent of freshly cut grass was heavy in the air. As the sun moved down in the sky, the blue velvet foretaste of evening set in, and my knee began to pulse with dull pain. I waited for Mum and Uncle Mike, whom I suspected were arguing as Mum filled the teapot and arranged the cups on the tray. That would explain why the tea was taking so long. I leaned back in my chair and stretched out my injured leg. A flock of birds, distant black shapes, shot past overhead. For some reason, the late part of the day alwaysbrought on a miserable, hopeless feeling. I missed London, I missed Josh, I missed the rehearsal studio. The painkillers and sleeping pills had been an easy addiction to break, but those other things—those things that had underpinned my happiness for so many years—were impossible to withdraw from. The sadness built up inside me, and I had no way to express it. I had always expressed myself through moving my body. My entire adult life, if not before, I had chaneled my most intense feelings into my muscles and sinews, then danced them out. All I had now were tears, and I was nauseatingly bored with them.
    I glanced up to see Mum and Uncle Mike approaching. Did I imagine the avaricious gleam in their eyes? They were mad. No amount of money could buy me back my happiness; my insurance payout had already proved that to me.
    With a practiced politeness that was stretched tight over their tension, they settled at the wrought-iron table, one on either side of me. Mum poured tea for her and me; Uncle Mike stuck with beer. There was small talk. I watched it all as if from a distance. Then I finally said, “How much?”
    Mum and Uncle Mike exchanged glances.
    “What I don’t understand is why you couldn’t tell me until now,” I said.
    “We don’t know how much,” Mum blurted. “That’s the thing. Mr. Hibbins has said—”
    “We couldn’t tell you because your Nana Beattie put a stupid condition on the will.”
    “She was adamant, love, that you be back in Australia before you received anything. Or even heard about theinheritance.” Mum stirred her tea vigorously. “It was intended as a gift on your . . . retirement.”
    Memories drifted back to me. Sitting with Grandma in the music room of her big house at Point Piper. I must have been about eleven. She had promised me a present for “after.”
Ballerinas can’t dance forever.
All the nerves in my body lit up with indignation.
    “I’m not retiring,” I said forcefully. “I don’t want anything from Grandma. It’ll be something small, anyway. She gave her money to charity, and you two just have to get over it. I’m not going to be an heiress. I’m going to get better, and I’m going back to London to keep dancing.”
    A vacuum of silence followed my tirade. Uncle Mike stopped with his beer can halfway to his lips. If I’d been physically capable of it, I would have stormed off. I had to settle for carefully drawing myself out of my chair and hobbling away.
    “Come back, Em,” Mum said.
    “Let her cool off, Louise,” Uncle Mike said.
    “We really should talk about this,” Mum called.
    But I didn’t turn around, I didn’t look back. If I had, they would have seen my tears.
    I locked myself in my room. As though I were fourteen again. I didn’t come down when I heard Dad’s car in the driveway, nor when I could smell frying garlic, nor when Mum knocked and called through, “Are you going to eat?”
    My silence sent her away.
    Evening deepened toward night, and I sat on my bed withthe window ajar, listening to the crickets chirping,