Their affair was stormy and fraught with on again, off again, fights and bouts of passion as they each fought the idea that they were somehow related in their own way. In their second year of university Cecilia's father had died suddenly in a machinery accident on the plantation and they had returned home to Rainbird and Miriam. The crisis had brought them even closer but they hid their relationship from the close knit community of their home town and remaining family.
Cecilia had chosen not to return to university with Joel when he went back to sit his exams. She reasoned she had already been struggling when her father had met his untimely death and that deferring the current semester would be the better option. He had been furious with her at the time and returned on his own severing the connection between them. He didn't return home at the end of semester break and she did not return to university the following semester. The distance between them grew.
It wasn't until Joel came home at the end of September for Halloween that they spoke again. She was dating a local man and Joel bristled with jealousy. For his mother's benefit he remained calm and avoided the tempestuous fights that plagued his relationship with Cecilia. Each year on Halloween, his mother, held this party and demanded his return. He had to admit he enjoyed it and the quirky twists she had added to make it as much an Australian holiday as an American celebration.
She had found that the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land held a ceremony to wish the spirits of those who had died that year well on their journey to the island where the spirits dwelt. It didn't matter to her that they lived over three thousand miles from Arnhem Land as she fell in love with the story and decided to incorporate it as a way to conclude her now famous Halloween parties.
The dreamtime legend said that each evening the morning star, Bunimbirr, would be brought to the main camp of the spirit people in a special dilly bag. They would then begin to dance and sing, singing all of the songs of where the star would travel and what it would see. As they danced they would kick up the dust bringing dusk and then darkness. All through the night they would continue their celebration until just before dawn when the moon had gone but before the sun had risen. Then the spirit guide, who held the dilly bag, would release Bunimbirr.
Freed Bunimbirr first rested in the top of a tall tree, on the island near the spirit dancing ground, and then it would fly westward as if it was let out on a feathered string. When it came to a place of spirit it rested in the top of special trees. Just before the sun rose the spirit guide pulled back on the string to bring the star back to the island of the dead, where it would be safely put away in the dilly bag for another such day. Dead people's spirits in the form of butterflies, flying foxes, grasshoppers and praying mantis were said to follow the star and its feathered string back to the island of the dead.
In embracing the culture of her new home, each year a huge glittering star would be hoisted to the top of a tall eucalypt close to the house and in the brief moment between night and the next day the family and friends gathered would watch the insects come to life as if by magic and fly away with the spirits of dead. The Halloween after Warren's death felt different to them though; it was close to home and personal this time and the preparations for it had been painstaking.
That twilight dawn as they sat in the brief moment of darkness between night and day, Joel saw Cecilia's wet face search the landscape for butterflies, her father had promised her butterflies. Then he saw it, the small flutter of wings as a lone butterfly with bright blue glinting off its wings swept around the tree and headed for Cecilia. She reached out her hand sucking her bottom teeth over her top lip and the small creature landed momentarily before taking off once again to fly around Miriam, Joel's mother, and on into the sunrise.
Both appalled and amazed, Joel stood beside his mother and put an arm around her shoulders. Cecilia came to stand on her other side and the three stood motionless as the first pale light of dawn touched the horizon. In the days following Halloween and the ceremony Joel had tried to convince Cecilia to return to the city with him but she had been resolute in her decision not to go. Their fights had been loud and brutal and he had left angry and bitter.
Cecilia never returned to university; instead taking up a role on the planation that had been her father's life work and Joel began to make excuses why he couldn't return home. After university he had moved closer though, buying a small apartment in the coastal town of Cairns where he could work and still see his mother more often.
It was here in this apartment that they had renewed their affair. Falling in love and lust again and building an even closer bond than before. Joel worked for the Marine Parks and Wildlife Department, monitoring the reef and the impact of tourists and deep sea fishing charters and could be gone to sea for long stretches of time. Each time he returned though she would be there waiting on the dock for him, running and jumping into his arms as if he had been gone for years rather than weeks.
His mother had become sick the following year. He had been devastated to find that the mastectomy and chemotherapy were not combatting the breast cancer and took a leave of absence from work to spend what time she had left at Rainbird. It was at that time, when Joel needed Cecilia most that she had withdrawn from him. She had left to go to the city without a word of warning. No reasons, no mention of how long she would be gone, she had just packed her things and after a long tearful talk with his mother had gotten in her car and driven away.
She came back pale and wan looking for the funeral two months later. He had thought it was her grief and guilt that made her look so unwell. He had been angry and refused to acknowledge her in anyway. Ignoring anything she said to him, he had brutally and physically turned his back on her. He had left for two weeks at sea the next day. The two weeks had turned into six months as he found any reason not to return to the mainland.
*****
Joel roused himself from his memories. Rod had sat close by not saying anything, giving him his few minutes to digest the news and waiting for the explosion from the short-tempered man. It wasn't that he was always short tempered. It seemed to be that Cecilia brought it out in him more often than most.
"She should have fucking told me!" Joel finally exploded.
"And when should she have done that? When she found out she had a lump? Your mother was dying of the same thing, for fuck's sake. She couldn't have told you at funeral or before it. Then you left, and it seems decided to throw your phone away at the same time," Rod said calmly, stating the facts.
"You always took her side, how is it you know so fucking much?" Joel stood and walked to the window facing the rainforest covered hills surrounding his town.
"I asked her how she was, at the funeral, when she was so pale," Rod explained. "Joel come on, you can't be mad at her for this. You're the one that shut her out, shut all of us out when Miriam died. I only took her side of things when you weren't making sense, mate," Rod cracked a smile, "True, that's most of the time I suppose, but it's beside the point." His chuckle was loud as Joel turned and glared at him. "C'mon Joel, it's time to put things right again, I didn't fly for fuckin' hours to be listenin' to your hard-done-by bullshit. Have a cup of cement and harden up already."
"Well aren't you a friggin' font of wisdom tonight," Joel let out a snort of derision but came to back to sit and pour himself another shot of tequila.
"Too fuckin' right. Get a few more tequila's into me and I will have formulated the plan for peace in the Middle-East," he chuckled loudly again, "Best I can do at this point is build a bridge type stuff and I think they already tried that." He looked thoughtful for a moment and Joel burst out laughing.
They became more raucous with the more alcohol they drank and it was with bleary eyes that Joel grudgingly got out of bed the next morning. He took a shower and packed a small duffle bag. He knew Rod was right about it being time to make things right but it didn't make it any easier to have to admit he was a complete bastard.
