Suellyn parked her Porsche outside the house in Eden Street, and walked up the steps, across the verandah to the front door and fumbled with her keys before scraping them against the lock. The house had been shut up since the day Rose died and the air smelt like rotting stone fruit and sweaty socks. Suellyn stood still and listened. The house was drowning in silence, all was quiet apart from the slow ticking of the kitchen clock.
She put her handbag down on the lounge and prowled around the house, visiting each room wondering where an old woman would hide something she considered important. She walked into the kitchen and rummaged through the dresser drawers and the cupboards where Rose had kept her pots and pans. She picked up the tea caddy, unscrewed the lid and looked inside. ‘It’s got to be here somewhere,’ she said as she made her way into Rose’s bedroom. She’d looked in the bedroom before, when Rose had been preoccupied with her tea making, but this time she looked with different eyes. She tried to think where Rose would have hidden Isabelle’s letter.
The room was just as her mother-in-law had left it. Her lace-up shoes and slippers sat side-by-side on the floor next to her bed. As she sat down on the saggy mattress, Suellyn looked at the framed photo on the bedside table. She fingered it gently before picking it up. William had been such a handsome baby. She studied the black and white photo carefully before she pulled back the metal spikes that held the glass and the photo in the frame, and prodded her fingernail in between the cardboard and the photo. A sheet of writing paper fell from the frame into her lap. She smiled and her shoulders suddenly straightened, her eyes were wide like saucers. She unfolded the sheet of paper. This was what she had been looking for. It was here all the time. The dust from the faded pink chenille bedspread made her sneeze and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. The letter was dated three weeks before Isabelle Dwyer had committed suicide. It was apparent from the letter, that Tommy’s mother and Rose had a friendship spanning decades which had been clouded in secrecy, deceit and lies.
‘What have you found Suellyn?’ William stood in the doorway of Rose’s bedroom. His voice was accusing.
‘Nothing. Just a baby photo of you.’ Suellyn slipped the crumpled letter into the pocket of her coat.
William walked towards the bed and looked at the photo and the frame lying next to Suellyn. She stood up from the bed.
Suellyn, what’s going on?’ he said in a raised voice. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
‘Don’t lie to me.’ He slapped her across the face with his open hand and Suellyn dropped to the floor. William slumped down beside her. Their backs dug into the steel bed frame and Suellyn’s cheek was smarting. Shocked, she held her hand against her face, tears welling in her eyes.
William looked at his wife through rolling tears. ‘Suellyn, I’m sorry, forgive me. I didn’t mean to...’ his voice quivered. ‘I just don’t know what’s going on anymore. The woman who I thought was my mother is dead, my birth mother died without me even knowing her, you want a divorce, real estate agents are hanging around like vultures and this guy Dwyer appears from out of the blue claiming to be my brother, it’s just all too much. It’s all so unreal, it’s like I’m playing out some character in a cheap thriller. I know I should’ve forgiven my mother, I’m sorry for that now.’ William shook his head and looked down at his legs splayed out in front of him. ‘If I’d only listened to her when she tried to tell me about the business with my father all those years ago. I just got up and walked out of the café. I should have let her explain. She wanted to tell me, but like a fool, I wouldn’t listen.’
Suellyn looked at William. She didn’t know what to think or to say. She’d never seen him cry before.
‘You know I never cheated on you Suellyn, honestly, despite what you think. All the times I said I was working, I really was. How do you think I got to be a where I am at Stockland Lewis, it wasn’t by playing around that’s for sure.’
William pulled out a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose. Suellyn looked at William and realised they had both made a lot of mistakes.