The Scent of Rain Read online

  “So, what’s your story?”

  “But I haven’t heard all of yours yet.”

  “Time enough for that later. I want to hear the rest of yours.”

  “You want to hear it now?”

  “Now is as good a time as any.”

  Jaena’s Story

  Chapter Eleven

  “I can only remember seeing my father once. I must have been about three or four. He came to the house and said he wanted to talk with my mother. But first he said we had to play a game. I knew I wasn’t to talk to strangers but he knew my name and he knew my mother and it seemed all right. He told me we were going to hide and that Mum would have to come find me. It sounded like fun. But he lied. He took me and put me in his car. I tried to fight him and he called me a foul name. I didn’t know what it meant of course.” She smiled wryly. “I still don’t know but I can guess. Anyway, he took me away. I cried and he got angry and he hit me. I never told Mum about that.”

  She stopped and pushed back through the years that had dimmed the memories. “I was scared the whole time I was with him and just wanted to go back home to Mum. He took me to the ferry – we were going to go on a long trip he said – but the police came and arrested him and took me home. I was scared until I got home and saw Mum. Grandma and Grandpa were there and everyone looked upset and happy at the same time. But I was home and I felt safe again. It was about that time that Uncle Marcus started visiting us. It’s strange, but I was never afraid of him. I was afraid of other men for a long time – even my uncles – my mother’s brothers – whom I only saw at Christmas – but I was never afraid of Uncle Marcus.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  “Do you know, I don’t actually know and I don’t really care. Mum eventually signed the divorce papers – that’s why he’d kidnapped me in the first place – to make her agree to the divorce – and I never saw or heard from him again.”

  “Did it bother you that your mother agreed to the divorce?’

  “Well, I didn’t understand at the time, of course, and by the time I did understand, I realised that she’d done it to protect me as much as anything. See, Mum only agreed to the divorce when she learnt that my father had given up all rights to see me.”

  “How did that make you feel – your father not wanting to see you?” Mitchell’s gaze was intent.

  “Is this some psychology course or something? How did that make you feel?” Jaena laughed. “Actually, it never bothered me. Perhaps it should have, but it didn’t. I was too young in the beginning to understand and besides, I was afraid of him. My own father never showed any interest in me at all – he hadn’t even wanted me to be born so that shows what kind of a man he was – but I had Uncle Marcus and I had three sets of grandparents – my mother’s parents, my father’s parents, and Uncle Marcus’s parents. I knew I was loved. As far as I was concerned, Uncle Marcus was my real father. The other one had just been an accident of biology.”

  Mitchell furrowed his brow. “But didn’t it make you feel abandoned by your own father?”

  “No, it didn’t. As I said, I had so many others that loved me and I knew from what my mother had told me, and from that one time, that he was a violent man. Perhaps he couldn’t help it – I don’t know – but I was better off without him.” She looked at him and saw that he was still puzzled. “Would it make you feel better if I said that I used to cry myself to sleep at night wondering about my father and why he didn’t love me?”

  “Well, it would seem more natural,” he admitted.

  “Perhaps natural in an ordinary family but mine wasn’t an ordinary family. I didn’t know him. I knew Uncle Marcus and he was everything I understood a father to be. By the time I was old enough to understand that he wasn’t my real father, I knew enough about my father to know that he was selfish and thought only of himself and that I couldn’t be blamed for his behaviour. Perhaps, if I hadn’t had Uncle Marcus I might have felt rejected, but I never did. If that’s hard to understand, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s just that you read of adoption stories and even those who have grown up in loving homes often feel abandoned by their real parents.”

  “Yes, but I had something they didn’t. I still had my father’s family. I wasn’t cut off from them. I knew them and they accepted me. And I knew that my father was ill. Perhaps not in a physical sense, but certainly in an emotional and spiritual sense. A lot of people loved him and hurt for him, but he cut himself off from them, too. It hurt them more than it hurt me, and I knew that. So I knew it wasn’t my fault that he’d acted the way he had.” She shrugged. “As I said, Uncle Marcus was my real father. I never felt deprived of a father and it’s even better now that he and Mum are married.”

  “You didn’t mind that they married?”

  “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  *********

  “You’re still up.”

  Jaena could tell by her mother’s voice that she didn’t mind that Jaena had waited up, and she relaxed. It was late, but she was anxious to know how this date with her mother and Uncle Marcus had turned out. Judging from their faces, it had been okay. She sighed in relief. For all their years, they could act strange at times. Adults!

  “Yes. So, how was it?”

  “I’ll make hot chocolates, shall I?” Uncle Marcus asked.

  Jaena looked at him curiously. “You’re nervous. Do you want me to leave so you can say goodbye or something?”

  Madi looked at Marcus before shaking her head. “It’s not that. It’s just that we’ve got something to tell you and we’re not sure how to say it.”

  “Well? What is it? The suspense is killing me.”

  In reply Madi simply held out her hand, the engagement ring sitting proudly on her finger.

  “No way! No way, no way, no way!” Jaena grabbed her mother’s hand before throwing her arms around her mother. “It’s what I’ve been praying for ever since I was a little girl.” She laughed when her mother pulled back and looked at her in surprise. “Mum, sometimes you are so slow,” and she shook her head as if to ask how she could possibly be the offspring of such a dunce.

  Marcus was still standing in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. “I take it from your reaction that you’re pleased?”

  She jumped up and ran to him and hugged him tight. “Of course I’m pleased. I just can’t believe it. To think that after all these years it has finally happened. It’s even better than I imagined. Oh, this is so exciting. I want to tell all my friends.”

  “It’s a little late for that. Besides, we haven’t told anyone else yet. We should let our parents know – and Damien’s too, of course.” It was Madi that brought her down to earth.

  Jaena waved a hand in the air. “They’ll be thrilled. But have you set a date? Please say you’ve set a date and that it’s soon.”

  “We were thinking Christmas time.”

  Jaena looked from one to the other. “Why so far away?”

  “It’s less than six months.”

  “It’s still for-ev-er.”

  “Your mother was thinking of you, Jaena. You’ve got some important exams coming up and she doesn’t want you distracted. I know I’ve been around for most of your life, but a step-parent situation is still going to be new and you might find it challenging. We don’t want that to interfere with your studies.”

  Jaena gave a most un-lady-like snort. “You two are ridiculous. How is it going to change things?”

  “It might,” Madi reasoned. “We don’t know until we try it and if it is more difficult than we expect, we want you to have the time and the space to deal with it.”

  “Well, I think you’re both being unfair.”

  “Unfair?” Madi glanced at Marcus and then back at her daughter. “Unfair? How?”

  “Uncle Marcus belongs to me, too. I’m going off to Uni in February and I want some time at home with both my parents before I go. A month isn’t enough. I want to be part of this new family, too.
”

  Marcus eyed her carefully. “What do you suggest then, Jaena?”

  “A September wedding.”

  “September! That’s less than two months away.” Madi’s voice was incredulous.

  “So?”

  “It takes time to organise a wedding.”

  “You can do it, Mum. I know you can.”

  “Perhaps.” Madi sounded dubious.

  “Okay,” Marcus agreed. “A September wedding. But,” he eyed both women, his eyes overflowing with love, “after the wedding I move in here. Until Jaena finishes school. That way some of the same routines will be maintained and it will be less disruptive. At Christmas time we can think about moving into my house.”

  “It will be cramped,” Jaena stated the obvious.

  “I think we can put up with that. It will mean that you won’t have to travel to school or make other adjustments. What do you say?”

  He looked at both, but it was Jaena who spoke first. “Agreed. Mum?”

  “All right. But September? There’s so much to do. I need to get started now,” and Madi reached for a sheet of paper and started making notes.

  “At least you won’t have to change your name.”

  “What?” Madi was chewing the pencil and not really paying attention to her daughter.

  “When you marry Uncle Marcus: you won’t have to change your surname.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jaena. Of course I’ll take his surname.”

  Marcus and Jaena looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  *********

  “So they were married that September,” Jaena finished. “They had the service in their church and the reception was held in Uncle Marcus’s garden. It was lovely. The family were all there including my father’s parents who handled it all very well, considering. Mum’s landlord put the rent up just before the wedding, so we ended up moving into Uncle Marcus’s house sooner than planned – which was a relief considering how squashed ours would’ve been with the three of us living there. Mum gave up work so that she could ferry me around. I think she enjoyed being a full-time stay-at-home parent, even if I was almost all grown up. And then I decided to do my first year at university from home so that we could have more time together as a family.”

  “So that’s why I didn’t see you on campus last year.”

  “Yep.” Jaena grinned at him. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Did anything change?”

  “Not really. Uncle Marcus did seem to take Mum’s side more when she and I disagreed, but I didn’t mind. Well, most of the time I didn’t. He absolutely adored her – still does. I think sometimes she has to pinch herself to make sure it’s not all a dream. You know, after how disastrous her first marriage was, to have a second chance like this seems too good to be true.”

  “So they’re happy?”

  “Did you think they wouldn’t be?”

  He shrugged. “As you said, it seems almost too good to be true. Like the fairytales – from serving hall to royal palace – not that your mother was a servant,” he hastened to add, having learnt that Jaena could be sensitive where her family was concerned.

  “Yes, but they’d known each other a long time and had learnt a lot about each other’s character. Uncle Marcus had shown what kind of a man he really was throughout all the years of loving her, but never being able to tell her. Mum knew his true worth and the kind of husband he would make – just from the things he’d done over the years. Then, too, they’d both been single a long time and they knew that wet towels on the floor and tea leaves in the sink were a small price to pay for being with someone you loved and who loved you. And I think they were both realistic. They knew the problems they would face – me for one,” and she laughed, “but they were prepared to work at it. You see, Mum had always held marriage in a place of high honour – that’s why she never wanted a divorce and that’s why she still thought of herself as married while ever my father was alive – it was just that she had married someone who didn’t feel that way and suffered because of that. So yes, they’re happy and if I’m half as happy as they are when I marry, I’ll be satisfied.”

  Mitchell reached out and took her hand. “I think I’d like to meet this family of yours.”

  Surprisingly – for Jaena more than for Mitchell – she didn’t pull away. “I think that can be arranged,” she said simply.

  *********

  Mitchell would have been happy to drive her home, but Jaena wanted to prepare her parents first. Instead, she had Mitch drop her off at the house she stayed in during semester time and she kept to her original plans to catch a bus home.

  Jaena enjoyed her three-week break at home. Marcus had a week off work and they rented a chalet near the mountain and had their first family holiday. While Marcus and Jaena skied and gave snowboarding a try, Madi sat in the café drinking hot chocolate and reading a novel her mother had recommended. When they weren’t on the mountain they spent time scrounging around antique shops or visiting quilt shows where Marcus and Jaena did their best to look interested and stifle their yawns.

  Once back at university, Jaena was surprised to discover how busy her second semester was going to be. She knew from what Mitch had told her the day he’d taken her to meet his Pop that this would be his busiest half year, so she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see him around on campus a lot or when he occasionally missed Bible Study.

  She picked up more hours in the library and appreciated the extra income it brought in even though it meant that juggling her classes and assignments was at times a challenge. When Mitch wasn’t working on his project or in the lab, he was often in the library studying and she would use the time to observe him.

  Jaena quickly discovered that she wasn’t the only girl watching him. She noticed other groups of girls often glancing his way and at times acting like giggling schoolgirls. The bolder ones would approach his table and attempt to engage him in conversation. He was always polite, but he never dragged the conversation out, and after the girls had turned away – often in resignation – he would look up and catch her eye and wink and she would feel her cheeks flush.

  She wished she had someone she could talk to: Marcus or Madi or even her grandparents, but she always held back. What could she say? She had no idea how she felt about Mitchell or what these feelings were that surfaced whenever she was around him. And so she waited and watched and in those times learnt more about him than she ever realised.

  Mitchell’s Story

  Chapter Twelve

  Jaena couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so cold and miserable. The rain had started just after half time and by the time the referee blew the whistle to signal the game was over, she could barely see for the rain that was pelting down. Her hair and clothes stuck to her skin, her shoes squished with water every step that she took, her hands ached from holding tightly to a hockey stick that the rain had made slick, her leg throbbed from where she had grazed it when she had slipped on the wet turf, and she just wanted to get home and stand under the shower for the next hour or two.

  After thanking the opposing team and her coach, she made her way to the dugout. There were few spectators around, the rain having driven them back indoors, but to her surprise Mitchell was waiting in the dugout, jacket pulled up around his face to ward off the cold and rain.

  “Well played.”

  “We lost.”

  “By one goal. And if a certain player,” he looked in the direction of the girl who had antagonised Jaena at the start of the season by telling her that she wasn’t wanted on the team, “had been more intent on working as part of a team rather than trying to show off, you could have scored more. There were at least three goals where you were in excellent position to score if she’d only passed the ball. I hope the coach deals with her.”

  Jaena shrugged. “It’s only a game and it’s over now. We’re out of the finals, though.” She pulled a towel from her bag and started wiping her face.

  “Hey, do you wa
nt to get something to eat?” He glanced down at her wet clothes. “After you’ve changed, that is.”

  “Well, I …”

  “You go ahead,” Shari had come up behind them and joined the conversation. “This rain has done nothing for my sore throat and I’m dying for a hot bath and to be tucked up into a nice warm bed with the electric blanket on.”

  “Are you sure?” Jaena was reluctant to cut her friend out.

  “Absolutely. Go and have fun.”

  “Can I drop you anywhere first?” Mitchell offered.

  Shari waved a hand. “No, I’ve got my car. But thanks anyway.”

  “Well, if you’re sure …” Jaena still seemed reluctant.

  “Go!” Shari threw her hockey stick into its bag, zipped it up and slung it over her shoulder. Seeing her friend preparing to leave, Jaena also started packing up her belongings.

  “Hope you feel better soon. And look after yourself,” Jaena cautioned her friend.

  “Do you want to change here or at home?” Mitchell asked after Shari had left.

  Jaena glanced down at her wet clothes. “I’m all wet. Your car …”

  “I’ve got a picnic rug in the boot. We can put that on the seat.”

  “Okay. It would be nice to have a shower at home.”

  “Come on then.”

  Less than ten minutes later they pulled up outside the house where Jaena boarded. “Do you want to come in and wait?”

  Mitchell nodded and helped her from the car. Jaena led the way around to the back of the house where she dumped her hockey stick and wet shoes under cover near the back door. Opening the door, she invited Mitchell inside.

  Trish, her landlord, was preparing dinner in the kitchen and after introducing Mitchell, Jaena explained that they were going out to eat and apologised for not letting her know sooner. The woman simply nodded.