‘That must have been frightening for Aaron.’
‘No, I made certain that little boy never had a chance to hear his father like that. When I moved them in here after it happened, I put Aaron into the room the furthest from his dad’s. Flynn protested at first, but I said the little boy needed to be in a quiet room away from the living areas of the house so we wouldn’t wake him up after he was put to bed. Luckily I did that though because it saved Aaron from ever being woken by his father’s screams.’ She swallowed hard and took in a deep breath.
‘You don’t have to tell me anymore.’
‘I do. Talking is good. It’s what Flynn hasn’t done enough of.’
Prita nodded. ‘What was he screaming?’
‘It wasn’t always easy to make out, but I believe Anna was alive when he got to her, that she died in his arms.’
‘Why do you think that?’ she asked, swallowing the desire to make an emotional comment on how awful it all was. Her job here wasn’t to be emotional. It was to allow Barb to share her emotions. She remembered that at least from her psych rotation.
‘I ran into his room the first night I heard him shout out—it was about a week after it happened. He’d had night terrors as a little boy, which were frightening in their intensity, so I ran in there expecting something similar.’
Prita nodded. She knew all about night terrors because of Carter. But this wasn’t about her. ‘This was different though.’
Barb nodded tightly. ‘He only shouted once, like he was reliving the moment the branch fell and he couldn’t get to her in time. He was thrashing like he was trying to lift something heavy. I wanted to move in to wake him to stop him, but I remembered from when he was little that wasn’t the best way of dealing with it, that touching him was likely to make it worse, not better, so I stayed back and called his name. I don’t know if he heard me, but he suddenly subsided, his hands held out like this.’ She lifted her arms, cradling her hands. ‘He was sobbing, begging her not to leave him. Then he paused, as if listening to something. His voice was so choked with tears and grief it was hard to hear what he said, but he promised her he would never forget her. That he would never replace her.’
Prita’s throat was thick, her eyes full of prickling heat, her chest feeling both too big and too small for the breaths she was trying to breathe. ‘What happened next?’
‘He woke up and I gathered him into my arms and let him cry. The next morning, he got up and acted like nothing had happened the previous night. From that day, he threw himself into his work and into bringing up Aaron.’
‘You didn’t think that was strange? That he’d not even acknowledge being that upset?’
Barb shook her head. ‘He has such pride. I thought he was embarrassed to have someone bear witness to him losing control like that. Even his mother. And, knowing what that kind of pride was like, I didn’t want to push him. It was enough that he’d shared it with me in that moment.’ She sighed. ‘But as time went by, I began to believe he truly didn’t remember it happening. If I brought up that moment of grief or asked him about the nightmares, his eyes would go blank and he’d say he didn’t know what I was talking about. He’d slept like a baby. He was throwing himself into work and into raising Aaron and CoalCliff began to prosper like it never had before and everyone in the community began to catch on to his drive and enthusiasm and were lifted by it so that the entire shire prospered. I questioned myself that there was any problem—I mean, how could there be when he was doing so much and being such an inspiration to the community? Even the nightmares seemed to go away after a few months. At least, I didn’t hear him cry out anymore, although, I know he often still gets up in the night to go check on Aaron.’
‘What made you realise he wasn’t getting better? That he was in denial?’
‘He never spoke about Anna, not even to Aaron, except to mention occasionally the reason for a decision was because it was what she wanted. So that was one sign, but not big enough for me to be too worried. The following year was a wet one and the fire danger in the region was low—I don’t think we had a single issue. Then two years down the track, we had the first fire in the January—a small one in the valley near where our creek ride goes through. It was handled quickly and didn’t spread. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze that day, the smoke spiralling straight up. But the look on his face when he saw the smoke, the way he froze, it suddenly made me realise he’d stopped coming to our bonfire nights in the winter camps, that he never cooked on the BBQ anymore when it was the thing he used to enjoy doing the most, that he used to even hardly come into the guest lounge area when we had the fire going during the colder months.’ Prita nodded. They were all the things she’d noticed. ‘He used to love to mingle and chat with the guests and the kids well into the night, throwing logs on the fire. I hadn’t seen him do that since Anna’s death. All those things—little, insignificant things that hadn’t stood out by themselves until I saw his face at that first sign of bushfire and realised he had a serious problem he was
