Toby had been married and working in the family practice and his wife, Alice, had wanted to start a family.
Whereas Zack, as his parents had constantly pointed out, was a drifter.
He was a highly skilled paediatric cardiac surgeon, Zack had riposted, but that was just boasting, he was told. And what good were his skills when they were so badly needed in Kurranda, the remote outback town where he and Toby had been raised.
He could picture the phone ringing in the hall. Reception was haphazard there and the landline to the family doctor really was a lifeline for the community.
His mother answered on the third ring.
‘Hey, Mum,’ Zack said. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘I’m sure it is where you are.’
Zack closed his eyes, it was just more of the same.
‘How’s Nepal?’
‘I’m in LA,’ Zack answered.
‘I thought you had to be in Nepal.’
‘I did have to be there for Christmas,’ Zack answered. ‘There was an operation I wanted to do before I left but we had to wait for some equipment to arrive. I would have been home if I could.’
‘Well, why aren’t you now?’
‘Because I’ve got an interview tomorrow.’
‘In LA?’
‘It’s a top medical centre. They’ve got some of the most amazing equipment and facilities and I don’t want to let that side of things slide...’ Zack stopped even attempting to explain. He did not want to argue with his mother. Judy Carlton simply could not, would not, get it, and Zack was over trying to explain. ‘Is Dad there?’
‘You just missed him. He got called out for Tara. Do you remember her?’
Of course he damn well remembered, they’d been friends. What his mother didn’t know was that they had been each other’s first. Zack had fought to stop that getting out as Tara’s father was very religious.
Zack stayed silent.
‘She married Jed.’
‘Yep.’
‘Well, the baby’s not due till the end of January but it looks as if she might deliver early and it’s breech. I can’t talk for long, they might need the air ambulance...’
‘I get it.’ Zack said. ‘Will you wish Dad a happy New Year for me and could you—?’
‘Zack,’ his mum broke in, ‘you should be here to say it to him for yourself. Even if you’d just come home on a stopover it would have been something.’
‘I would have but this interview is being slotted in, they need me to start straight away. There’s a very sick child—’
‘Oh, I don’t have time for your fancy position,’ Judy said. ‘I’ll pass on to Tara and her husband how well you’re doing, shall I?’
Zack knew that translated to, You should be back here, scrubbing in with your father, rather than Tara having to be airlifted. ‘That was a low blow.’
‘I know.’ His mother didn’t quite apologise. ‘I’m tired, Zack, and your dad is too. He didn’t get any break over Christmas and the place just seems to be getting busier. So much for retiring.’
Zack closed his eyes. Sometimes he wished he could just give up on his own dreams and give them the solution they wanted.
‘By now you and Toby...’ Judy swallowed and Zack then heard his mother, a very strong woman, give way to tears. New Year always did that to her and this coming year marked another difficult milestone. ‘It will be ten years soon.’
‘I know it will.’
At the beginning of February it would be ten years since Toby had died.
He and Zack had been on a weekend away. Both had been good horsemen but a snake had spooked Toby’s horse and thrown him off.
Zack looked out of the hotel window again and out towards the dark shadows of the hills and thought of the red earth of home. Even if he didn’t want to be there for ever he missed it at times and now was one of those times. As he stood there he remembered too the agony of hours spent with his brother, waiting for help to arrive while knowing there was none to be had.
At the age of thirty-one Toby had died in his younger brother’s arms.
Zack knew his mother needed to talk and so he forgot about the sniping and let her.
‘Things would be so different if he was still alive. He loved the clinic. Toby and your father had such plans for it. Alice is pregnant again by her new husband.’
He was hardly her new husband, Zack thought. Alice had been remarried for seven years.
‘Mum, she’s allowed to be happy.’
‘She and Toby were so happy, though,’ Judy said. ‘I wanted grandchildren.’
‘I know.’
‘And that’s not going to happen, is it?’
‘No.’
‘Are you seeing someone?’
She asked him the same question every time they spoke and it was always the same answer he gave. ‘No one serious.’
‘Zack...?’
‘What?’ Zack said, and when there was silence he told her the truth. ‘Mum, I won’t be giving you grandchildren.’
Zack was direct, yes. There was no point giving her false hope. The life his parents had planned for him wasn’t the one he wanted. He never wanted to be tied down, not to one person and not to one place.
Zack wasn’t cruel, though.
What he didn’t tell his mother was that Toby had been far from happy with his life.
That was the reason Toby had called him up and asked if he’d join him on a weekend away. There, in the outback, lying by a fire, looking up at the stars, Toby had told him the truth—that he felt stifled, and wanted away, not just from Kurranda and the medical practice but also from his marriage.
Zack had been stunned. He’d thought that Alice and Toby, childhood sweethearts, had been so happy but Toby had told him that, no, things hadn’t been good for a very long while.
It had been a long night spent talking, sometimes seriously, but also they’d shared laughter, not knowing what was to come the very next day.
Toby hadn’t quite taken that secret to his grave, it had been left with Zack. He’d never shared it with anyone and it weighed heavily inside.
‘I really do have to go,’ Judy said. ‘I’d
