Time Will Tell by Fiona McCallum

Em, I suggest you do so,’ her father said in a gentle tone. ‘Bottling things up is never a suitable long-term solution – it just ends up with an explosion sooner or later.’
    â€˜John told Mum I left because he tore down an old cottage I was interested in doing up,’ Emily said to Jake.
    â€˜It was a lovely old limestone place with brick quoins – lots of potential,’ Des said, wistfully.
    â€˜I don’t understand. He demolished a building because you showed too much interest?’
    â€˜Under the guise of needing the space for a hayshed,’ Emily added.
    â€˜When there were over two hundred other suitable acres around the house to choose from, mind you,’ Des said. ‘I really didn’t want to believe he could be that spiteful.’ He shook his head.
    â€˜Gosh, sounds like a nasty piece of work.’
    â€˜Oh yes. But that wasn’t the worst of it.’
    â€˜So, um, if you didn’t leave because of that, why did you?’
    â€˜Because he shot at Grace,’ she said.
    Two mouths dropped open and wide eyes stared back at her, and then at Grace who was curled up in her bed in the corner, oblivious.
    â€˜He shot at her? Why?’ Jake said.
    â€˜His excuse was that he was warning her, joking or something,’ Emily replied with a shrug. She was surprised to find her eyes filling with tears; had thought it no longer affected her. ‘I just wanted to protect her – I’m the only one who can,’ she said, wiping a hand across her nose, which had started to run a little.
    â€˜Oh Em, I had no idea,’ Des said, reaching across and patting her hand while shaking his head slowly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    Emily raised her eyebrows and looked at him knowingly.
    â€˜And then he had the nerve to rip you off!?’ Jake cried. ‘I would have thought he’d have wanted to pay you off so you didn’t tell anyone what a piece of shit he is. Apologies for the language, but I just can’t believe what I’m hearing!’
    â€˜No one around here would really care,’ Des said to Jake. ‘Farmers shoot work dogs all the time – if they get into the sheep, if they don’t come when they’re called, if they go left instead of right… It’s what they do.’
    â€˜Sounds barbaric.’
    â€˜I agree, but it’s apparently quite acceptable behaviour. He would have just explained it away and made out that Emily was throwing a hissy fit. Being a townie – not raised on a farm – her reaction would have been brushed aside as typical.’
    Jake’s jaw hung open in disbelief. ‘So instead, he told your mother you left because he demolished the cottage – like you had just thrown a hissy fit? Why not tell her the real story, Em? I don’t get it.’
    â€˜I guess I didn’t want to shatter her impression of him – however deluded.’
    â€˜Why ever not? After the way he treated you! I wouldn’t mind betting that a man capable of tearing down a cottage out of spite and shooting at your dog just for fun wouldn’t have been the nicest of husbands all round.’
    â€˜No. No he wasn’t, actually.’
    At that moment Emily was bombarded with the very vivid mental image of John laying his steel-capped work boot into the kelpie they’d had before Grace. It was the moment she had decided that she could not – would not – have children with a man so cruel; she would never have children at all, because marriage was for life.
    And now it struck her that she was no longer under that particular obligation either. Emily had so forcefully put the notion of children out of her mind that she didn’t know how she felt about it now, other than somewhat unsettled. She was days away from her thirty-second birthday. Would her biological clock start frantically ticking at some point? God, it was too much to contemplate. She almost put a