Chapter 61

Jodi and Tess were cleaning up after their impromptu get together. Matt had taken Meggie and Katie to bed. Terry and Meg were inside doing the washing up. Claire was already in her bedroom. Kate and Russell were settled in the Manfredi Wing of the shearer's quarters.

"What great news! I'm so happy Kate is coming back. I hope Kinsella's works out for her but, even if not, just to have her back in Gungellan will be amazing," Jodi said.

"Yeah, it is great. Her head must be spinning to have all of those life changes happen in just one week. Finish two major degrees, get a new job, plan a big move, find out you're pregnant and then, that it's twins. Kate handled it better than I would have," said Tess.

"Kate is incredible. She is one of the strongest people I've ever met. You and Stevie are the others."

"Jodi, you are incredibly strong too. Don't underestimate yourself."

"Thanks, but I think about the issues you all have overcome and I feel like mine pale in comparison," said Jodi.

"We don't need to get in a whose shit has been rougher match. We have all been through rough times. We deal with things as they come, and help each other through. You're a very strong woman, Jodi, and I have incredible respect for you."

"Thanks Tess. Did you ever hear from Finn? He was supposed to call you today wasn't he?" asked Jodi.

"He did call. He called earlier as people were arriving for dinner so I stepped out to the stable for a few minutes to talk to him. We scheduled another date. I'm going to meet him for dinner at the Chinese restaurant the day after tomorrow," said Tess.

"Oooh, Chinese. Going fancy this time I see," Jodi teased.

"Well, we've done the pub twice, and there aren't a lot of options in Gungellan, and I'm not ready to have him come here yet. Plus, our last date was so impromptu. I was wearing my work clothes and my hair was a mess and I didn't have a lick of makeup on. I'd like to treat this one as a proper date. Get a little dressed up. You know, put some effort in," explained Tess.

"He kissed you when you were wearing work clothes and no makeup. You're going to knock his socks off if you even frock up a little bit," said Jodi.

"I'm not trying to have him lose any part of his attire yet. I just want to get to know him a little more. You know, spend a nice evening with a handsome man," said Tess.

"I'll give you handsome. He looks like Dr. McSteamy from that show, Grey's Anatomy," said Jodi.

"I definitely find him attractive, but I'm not even sure if I want to do anything about that," said Tess.

"Can I ask you a personal question? You don't have to answer it if you don't want to, but, when was the last time you slept with a man? I haven't noticed you having any male visitors, but everyone has their secrets," said Jodi.

"I haven't kept any lovers hidden. It's been a very long time. I haven't slept with anyone since Nick," admitted Tess.

"Wow, so you haven't been with anyone for over nine and a half years?"

"Well, actually, remember when I went back to Argentina briefly, after the legal separation, I had to go back in person to finalize the divorce in an Argentinian court. We slept together then. That was just under nine years ago," said Tess.

"You slept with Nick while you were in the middle of divorcing him, after you knew he had cheated on you?" asked Jodi, confused.

"Love is confusing and messy. I still loved him and I guess I felt like I wanted to see how much love was left for him before everything was finalized. See if there was anything worth salvaging, if there was anything left to rebuild on. There wasn't enough. I appeared in court the next day and signed the papers. It actually sort of gave me some closure," explained Tess.

"Oh. Tess, I'm sorry. That sounds like such a difficult thing to go through in Argentina all alone, without me or anyone there with you," said Jodi.

"It was awfully painful at the time, but, as I think about it now, I'm glad I did. I know, without a doubt, that there was not enough left in that relationship to stay. I don't regret leaving Nick and taking Claire back here. Even If I had loved Argentina as much as he did, and if he hadn't slept with someone else, I don't think it would have ever worked. Nick completely closed himself off from me. I think I just represented a life he decided he no longer wanted, a life here in Australia. Claire and I were the remaining pieces of a life he decided he wanted to forget. He moved on. He's fluent in Spanish and has a new Argentinian wife and bought his own Estancia out there. He was just completely done here. I guess I needed to sleep with him one last time to know that for sure."

"It makes sense as you explain it, but let's talk about going without sex for almost nine years. How are you managing that?" asked Jodi. "I can't imagine that."

"Sex without feelings is such a fleeting, physical act. I don't want to just do the physical act anymore. It's the connection that made it special. I haven't had that connection with anyone, so I just haven't wanted to be intimate with anyone either. Getting to the point where you do have that connection with someone means vulnerability and I don't want that anymore. I haven't wanted to get to know someone to get to the point where I sleep with them. I mean, obviously you have that connection with Matt. If you lost that for whatever reason, would you want to just sleep with someone else? Someone you didn't have that connection with?" said Tess. "And sometimes, having sex leads to a more intimate connection, and thats not something I've wanted anyway. It's just been easier to avoid it."

"I guess I've been lucky then. I have only slept with people I had a real connection with. There haven't been all that many. Only Alberto and Luke before I met Matt. I was young, but I loved Alberto at the time."

"Oh, I remember Alberto. He was a good guy, but he wanted you to settle in and start having babies. You were what? eighteen? nineteen years old? You would have full grown children by now. We'd be celebrating their eighteenth birthdays along with Charlotte's!" said Tess.

"It wouldn't have ended well. I'm sorry that I put him through the whole wedding. We really just didn't communicate well enough. Or, more, we just didn't really listen to what the other person wanted. I was still a kid, myself. I didn't want kids yet. I wanted to travel the world with a hot European husband," said Jodi.

"And he wanted to be a father and a farmer with his hot Australian wife," Tess joked.

"So what do you want, Tess?"

"What do you mean? I don't want to marry Alberto wherever he is," said Tess.

"No, with your life. Is this it? Have you achieved your dreams? Is there more you want out of life? Have all of your dreams come true? Isn't true love part of your dreams?" asked Jodi.

"Wow, you're getting heavy with me now. I guess my real dream was to raise a family on Drovers. To get to have a family really, and I don't mean just having kids. It was just my mother and me for so long. I had this sister, and a father I sort of knew existed, but I didn't know at all. I barely remembered them. I was so young when we left and my mother didn't really want me to know them. It was always just Mom and I, and when she died, I didn't realize how incredibly lonely I really was. Finding Claire, getting to know and love her, started to relieve that loneliness I felt. Losing her, literally feeling her being ripped from my grasp, was horrifying. It really set me back. Nick was the one who really helped pull me through it. That's where I really fell in love with him. You all helped me get through it, but Nick, he just seemed to get it, even when we were trying to figure things out and we were seeing other people, I knew he understood how I felt about Claire. He was the one who pulled me back from the darkness, from the despair, from my desire to just curl into a ball and cry forever. I think that's why it hurt so much when he wanted to forget Drovers Run and Gungellan and all of it. It was where we met, where we had fallen in love. It was where he saved me from the abyss in the days after Claire. I tried to do that for him when Harry, and then Alex, passed away, but he resisted working through the hurt. He closed himself off and seemed to want loneliness. True love was part of my original dream, but dreams change. I never dreamed Nick and I wouldn't be happy forever, but we only made it six years, and only about two and half of those were truly happy," said Tess.

"Tess, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have the relationship I have with you, and with Jaz, and Stevie, and everyone. I got my dream. I have a family! I have a big, wonderful, amazing family. I do regret leaving you so soon after learning I had another sister. We lost out on a few years we could have had. I was just so happy to have gotten Nick back that I was going to do anything I could for him to be happy," explained Tess.

"If you hadn't left Drovers, I wouldn't have been able to come to Argentina with Matt while we were in witness protection. We had to keep moving around, even when we were abroad, but those few visits in the cafe in Argentina were so important to me. At the time, I thought those few visits in that little cafe in Buenos Aires might be all I would ever have with my sister, and I was so happy to even have that. You were the only connection I had to my old life, to my identity. It was far more valuable to me than you realize. Those few short visits with you meant everything to me. They were what got me through those times. You helped me connect to all of the other people I was missing so much. The one's I couldn't talk to or help. I still feel awful about Kate and not being there when she needed me. I know she had a really rough road for a few years there," admitted Jodi. "Those few, brief visits I got to have with you in Buenos Aires are still some of the most important moments of my life, Tess," said Jodi,

"I know we can't tell anyone else you were ever there, or that we ever even saw each other, but I think, seeing you with Matt, I think it gave me some clarity. You gave up Drovers for love, just as I had, but your relationship with Matt looked so different from my relationship with Nick."

"I didn't realize that," said Jodi.

"You and Matt were clinging to each other to get through that gut wrenching experience. I was clinging to Nick and he was clinging to work and anger. It was about two months after Alex died. He wouldn't go to the funeral. He wouldn't go to meet his nephew. He just kept creating new projects on the Estancia and then using them as an excuse not to go. I think that's when I really started to realize that my marriage was ending. I kept trying and fighting for a while, but that's when I started to fully understand how bad things were between us, about a year after that was when I went out to Andropita, to surprise him and seduce him, and try to improve our marriage and found him with Luciana," explained Tess. "That point was when I bought my plane ticket home and dared Nick to come after me and try to fix our marriage. I reckon Nick just saw cheating as the easier alternative to actually talking to me about our marriage and saying that he wasn't happy with me any more. He never was a great communicator. He always sulked and was defensive, and only talked to me as a last resort. I just didn't see it as it truly was until it was too late,"

"I got damn lucky with Matt. He has experienced a great deal of hurt in his life, but he let me help get him through it. I reckon getting him through it is how we fell in love," said Jodi.

"I'm glad for you. He is a good man. He treats you right, shares your dreams, and isn't afraid to lean on you when he needs to," said Tess. "I love Matt like a brother."

"I'm glad you're seeing Finn. You deserve a shoulder to lean on, too."

"You've been that shoulder for me, Jodi. Over and over again," admitted Tess.

"And I will always be, but you deserve a man's shoulder too," said Jodi.

"I'm not there yet. We have only been on one date. I'm not ready to lean on his shoulder yet, although they are strong, masculine shoulders," said Tess.

"That's okay. You go at your speed. Even being open to going on the date was a big step for you. I'm proud of you for it," said Jodi.

"It may not go anywhere with Finn. Or he might just be a bloke I have dinner with sometimes. I don't know, but I do like him. I really liked being out with him yesterday," said Tess. "But it's late, let's get to bed. Good night, sis."