Right As Rain by Tricia Stringer Page B

out. After he’d left the Birches’ property he hadn’t had a moment to himself, which was probably just as well. He wanted to keep his head clear of the past and work was good for that.
    Now he was home and in no rush to go inside, where his mother would fuss and his father would offer up only the barest of greetings. He thought over his visit to Woolly Swamp and meeting Mackenna after so long. It had been a while since he’d had a panic attack but when she’d thrown her arms around him, his chest had tightened and his heart had begun to race. It had been all he could do to stop himself pulling away from her and jumping back in his vehicle to drive off. He’d made it look like he was rummaging for something in the cab and taken some slow steadying breaths. The attack had faded but the suddenness of it had left him shaken. He hadn’t expected the sight of Mackenna to have such an impact on him.
    It had only been her rock-like friendship that had kept him going those few weeks after Carol’s death. Hugh leaned his head against the steering wheel. He’d been over and over the past with the doctor so many times. The guilt over the night Carol had her accident had driven him to cut the ties with his home. He’d taken up ag consultant work, first on Eyre Peninsula then Victoria and New South Wales. Distance made it easy for him to avoid coming home.
    The outside light flicked on. Hugh turned to look but the back door remained closed. He sat back and cast his eyes along the verandah to the end, where its roof was propped up with a couple of posts. They protruded at angles like tent ropes. It had been like that for several years. His father was always going to fix it but never got around to it. His mother commented once that it could fall down around her and no-one would care. The properties always came first. With four sons they’d bought up land in several places. Hugh’s three brothers lived on the other properties, all within close distance of the home place. If Hugh wanted to stay, this dilapidated house would eventually become his. He shook his head. That was definitely not going to happen.
    A series of taps made him jump. He looked to the passenger-side window, where his father was peering in through the glass.
    â€œYou coming inside?” Allan McDonald moved his big frame around the front of the four-wheel drive towards the house without waiting for an answer.
    Once again Hugh took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He only had to sit through the meal. After dinner his father would be on the phone to Hugh’s brothers or watching the television. Hugh would help his mother clean up and then he would make an excuse for an early night. This would be the pattern of his existence while he did the fill-in ag consultant work.
    Slowly, he made his way to the back door. He left his boots on the verandah and his hat on a hook just inside the door. Molly, their old black and white cat, was immediately weaving between his legs, butting her head against his shins. He reached down and picked her up, carrying her with him into the kitchen.
    â€œHello, love.” His mother greeted him with a smile and took the cat from his hands. “Go and wash up. Tea’s ready.”
    When he returned from the bathroom his father was already seated at the head of the large table and Molly was tucking in to some tasty morsel his mother had put on a plate on the floor for her. Hugh sat at the place set for him beside his father. Since he’d been home, at least one of his brothers and or some of their family had been here at dinnertime, but tonight it was just the three of them.
    â€œSomething simple tonight,” Mary said as she put steaming plates of savoury mince in front of them. “I’ve been in the garden all day. Lost track of time.”
    His father made a low snorting sound that annoyed Hugh, but his mother wasn’t fazed.
    â€œWait till you see what I’ve