Expecting Miracle Twins by Barbara Hannay Read Free Book Online Page A

here. I’m not very familiar with Sydney.’
    ‘Now, if you were looking for pubs,’ said Jake, ‘I’d be your man.’
    But they were in luck and they found a leafy park quite quickly.
    Pleased with themselves, they helped Roy out of the car, and the old man stood with his hands on his hips and looked about him at the smooth sweep of lawns dotted with picnic tables and chairs, at the gas-fired barbecues and big shade trees, carefully pruned to give a clear view beneath them. He looked at the ornamental lake, where young mothers and toddlers were feeding ducks. Then he tipped his head back and stared up at the clear blue sky and drew in a deep breath.
    ‘What do you reckon?’ Jake asked with a hopeful smile.
    Roy looked about him again and he nodded slowly. ‘It’s nice.’
    Mattie could see the wistful sadness in his face.
    ‘But it’s not what you hoped,’ Jake suggested carefully.
    Roy’s face pulled into a worried grimace. ‘It’s…it’s all very tidy, isn’t it?’
    Mattie laughed to ease the tension. ‘You want proper bush—straggly gum trees with fallen branches and knee-high dry grass, don’t you, Roy?’
    He smiled sheepishly. ‘S’pose I do.’
    ‘And you want to be able to smell eucalyptus leaves.’
    Roy nodded.
    ‘And to boil a billy over a campfire.’
    ‘Don’t get carried away, Mattie,’ Jake warned, signalling frowning looks over Roy’s head. ‘There’s no way we can do all that here.’
    But Mattie was already thinking ahead. This was her very favourite situation. She was never happier than whenshe detected a need in someone—an almost impossible need—and then figured out a way to meet it. The impulse had begun as a game when she was very young—anticipating a simple need her mother might have, like knowing, without being asked, whether to pick beans or peas from the garden.
    It had been easy for Mattie because she knew her mother’s habits—beans with beef and peas with lamb—but her mother would exclaim with delight when she discovered the peas in the colander, already shelled, or the beans topped and tailed.
    ‘My amazing little mind-reader,’ she would say and sometimes she would hug Mattie, making her feel loved and secure and needed.
    ‘I’m going to scout around for gum trees,’ she told Roy and Jake. ‘You guys sit over at that picnic table and I’ll be back in two ticks.’
    Halfway along the path that circled the ornamental lake, she found a clump of gum trees and she knew the familiar skinny white trunks and dull khaki-coloured tapering leaves would gladden Roy’s heart. Soon she was back with an armful of fallen twigs and gum leaves.
    Jake was smiling and shaking his head at her. He looked puzzled. Roy looked delighted.
    ‘They’ve dried out but they still smell good,’ she told Roy as she dumped them on the slatted timber table top.
    With a shaking hand, Roy reached out and picked up a twiggy branch. He crushed the brittle gum leaves between his fingers and leaned in to smell the distinct aroma of eucalyptus. ‘Perfect,’ he whispered with a blissful sigh.
    ‘It’s only a little way around the lake to see them,’ Mattie said. ‘And I think we can organise billy tea too.’
    ‘No way,’ Jake protested. ‘We can’t have an open fire in a public park.’
    Mattie laid a placating hand on Jake’s arm. Big mistake. High-voltage tension zapped through her. She retracted her hand, took a shaky breath.
    ‘I…I know we can’t have a fire here.’ Her voice was thready and soft. She took another breath and told herself that this morning was all about Roy. Her focus was Roy. Jake was a minor distraction she must ignore. ‘But we could boil a billy over a camping stove at our place,’ she said. ‘And we can even stir the tea with a gum tree twig. That would be authentic enough, wouldn’t it, Roy?’
    Roy was looking a tad dazed, trying to keep up with Mattie and with the undercurrent humming between her and Jake, but he nodded happily.
    Jake,