Wind in the Wires by Joy Dettman Page B

came home from the war and found out his wife had a ten-month-old baby had never been believable. And as if a man would fall in love with a baby his wife had cheated on him to get – unless he was a complete fool, which Robert wasn’t.
    If it was true, it changed everything. Even Amberley. That house had always belonged to her because it belonged to Myrtle, and before Myrtle, to Myrtle’s father. She had no claim on it now. She was a bag of rubbish left behind in a vacated room, rubbish Myrtle had picked up and found a use for.
    Cara turned away, walked away from braised chicken and mashed potatoes.
    Robert rose to follow her.
    ‘Leave her,’ Myrtle said, and moments later, Cara came back carrying the heavy family Bible.
    ‘Swear on it. Both of you.’
    Myrtle took the book. ‘You were born to a twenty-year-old lodger. Her name was Jennifer Hooper. She had a small son, Jimmy, and two daughters living with their grandmother.’
    ‘I said swear.’
    ‘I swear by Almighty God that what I’ve told you is the truth, pet,’ Myrtle said and handed the Bible across the table to Robert, Cara’s eyes following it. She knew what that Bible meant to her parents.
    ‘Me too, poppet. I still have the telegram Mummy sent to me about her lodger. I swear,’ he added then placed the book on the table, and Cara sat.
    ‘If she already had three kids, why give me away?’
    ‘Her situation was complicated,’ Myrtle said.
    ‘How?’
    How could she explain Jenny Hooper’s situation? Tell an already confused child she’d been born of rape. That was a truth which must never be told.
    ‘Jenny had a brief association with an American sailor. I know little else about him, pet.’
    ‘What was his other name?’
    Myrtle shook her head. ‘She mentioned only his Christian name, Billy-Bob.’
    ‘She must have been a moll,’ Cara said and Myrtle’s serving spoon flinched at the word, spilling gravy.
    ‘Rules alter in wartime.’
    ‘What did she look like?’
    Look in the mirror, Myrtle thought. Cara was Jenny around the eyes, the brow. She had her colouring, her hair. Taller than Jenny. At twelve she’d outgrown Myrtle, at fourteen she stood eye to eye with Robert, measured by the army doctors at five foot eight.
    ‘You’re very much like her,’ she said. And perhaps in more than appearance. ‘Eat your meal, pet, before it gets cold.’
    Cara picked up her fork and used it, with her fingers, to break the meat away from the bone. Myrtle caught Robert’s eye, willing him not to demand acceptable table manners tonight.
    Is a child’s destiny set in stone at birth? she thought. John and Beth had daughters. They’d given their parents not one moment of trouble, had met boys who fitted so well into the family. Until puberty, until high school, Cara had been perfection.
    Perhaps they should blame themselves for Cara’s rebellion. They’d disrupted her life when they’d moved to Traralgon, taken her away from a home she’d loved, from her friends.
    ‘Stop staring at me,’ Cara said.
    ‘I was thinking of the night Jenny placed you into my arms. I didn’t doubt that God had sent her to my door to bring me a priceless gift.’
    ‘Now you wish she’d had me in a public toilet and flushed it.’
    Robert placed his fork down to butter a slice of bread. ‘Remember when you used to nag us daily for a black and white puppy? Imagine for a moment what it might have been like had you given up all hope of ever owning your own puppy, then along came a stranger and placed Bowser into your arms.’
    ‘You would have made me give it to a lost dogs’ home,’ Cara said, mouth full.
    She had Myrtle’s voice, but Jenny’s tongue. She had Jenny’s hands – and perhaps her table manners.
    ‘Imagine we’d allowed you to raise that puppy,’ Robert said. ‘That you’d loved it, fed it, cared for it for fifteen years, then one day, instead of greeting you with a wagging tail, it snarled and bit your hand. Would you stop loving it, or