The High Price of Secrets

“Well, if I ever get decent road access to the property, it will be a respite center for families with a loved one suffering from mental illness.”

“Why a respite center?”

“Personal reasons.” He swung away from the model and went back to his desk.

“More secrets or is this actually something you can tell me?” Tamsyn pressed. They had time to kill before going to collect her car—he may as well fill it for her since he’d put her in this position.

“I’ve seen from personal experience, the strain it puts on a family to care for another family member undergoing mental health treatment—it’s especially tough on kids. I think it’s important for them to have a safe place to go, to chill out, where the people around them really do understand what it’s like. I’m hoping to build family chalets, as you can see. Each one would be private from the others but still near enough for a sense of community for people. Also, I’d like to see children’s camps run there too—in those buildings on the other side of the complex. Have camp counselors, trained in dealing with the issues that arise for kids with parents or siblings under care, that sort of thing.”

Tamsyn came and sat down opposite Finn’s desk. “It’s an ambitious project. What was that you said about needing road access?”

He pointed to a gray ribbon of road that came down from the hill. “I can create it by rebuilding my driveway as a two-lane road and then going down here from the top of the hill, where the house is. As you can see, to make a decent and safe road, it would have to cut into the contour of the land considerably and would have quite a few twists and turns to it. If I can get access here—” he gestured to a level tract of land that butted up to the lake and then stretched back to the main road “—I can put in a straighter road that will make it easier for everyone—suppliers, contractors, visitors and staff.”

“So what’s holding you back?”

“This piece of land is owned by a trust and, while I’ve tracked the trustee company to a firm of lawyers in Auckland, I haven’t been able to get a response out of them with respect to a partial sale of the land. It would just be an easement, right on the boundary of our two pieces of land and I’m prepared to build the road so they’d have access from every point along here if they so desired. But so far, I’ve heard nothing.”

“Frustrating,” Tamsyn commented. “What will you do if you don’t get the easement?”

“I’ll still go ahead, but it will mean a bigger investment into the road construction and less into the complex itself. We’d have to do the complex in stages. Perhaps start with the children’s camp and move on in a few years to building the chalets, or vice versa. I’m still hoping we won’t have to make that decision.”

“You mentioned personal experience…your family?” she probed carefully.

“My mother. She was—” He broke off and his lips firmed into a straight line, his eyes becoming unfocused for a moment. “Fragile, I guess you could say. She probably should never have been a farmer’s wife, but she loved my father with a passion that knew no bounds. She lived for the very moment when he’d walk through the door each evening and she died a little every time he went back out again in the morning. Dad was shifting stock one day, his last herd. It wasn’t long after he and Lorenzo had formed a partnership, converting part of Dad’s farmland into a vineyard and amalgamating it with the Fabrini land where Lorenzo had already begun growing. Dad’s quad bike rolled, and he was crushed beneath it. Lorenzo and I found him late that night, guided by one of his farm dogs barking. The dog had stayed with him the whole time. But by the time we found him, there was nothing anyone could do.”

His succinct telling of the story didn’t diminish the flash of pain in his eyes. A rush of sympathy filled her. Hard enough to lose a parent, but to be one of the people who discovered him? Grim didn’t even begin to describe it.

“Finn, I’m sorry. That must have been awful. How old were you?”

“Twelve. Mum was devastated. At first she coped, barely, but I ended up having to take on more and more of the duties around the house—on top of school, on top of doing Dad’s chores around the farm. Eventually it got to be too much and it showed. I got into some trouble at school when some kids started teasing me about falling asleep in class. My teacher came over to talk to Mum one day—they’d known each other when they were younger. When she saw how bad the situation had gotten, she called the authorities.”