“Nah, just Mum. Though if I knew she’d say no, I’d ask Adam or Bill. If they said no, I’d just keep asking, hoping to get a better answer.”
“That sounds…so confusing.”
“Not really. If Bill was my only dad, I wouldn’t have had much of a male role model growing up. I love him, don’t get me wrong. He makes tremendous sacrifices to keep the family going, but having multiple dads meant there was always someone to care for us kids. Duke made sure we got our homework done and brushed our teeth, John patched up scraped knees and told us stories every night before bed, Adam got us drunk the first time. Said he wanted us to do it under supervision, but Mum freaked out.”
“Us? You have siblings?”
“Yeah, a twin sister, Brady. I know, Brandon and Brady is naff as hell, but Mum liked it. You’ll meet her tonight, she’ll bring her husbands and the kids, especially now you’re coming.”
“I’m starting to feel a bit intimidated.”
“Don’t be. People want to have a gawk at anyone new, it’s too small a community not to, but they won’t get too crazy. Just say hello. Here we are, Queen Phyllis’s.”
He pulled the truck up outside a very large house with a perfectly manicured lawn and fence around the perimeter. An older woman came barrelling out as soon as we arrived, striding over in a cloud of orange chiffon. “Where have you been, Brandon Meares! I was told you would be here by ten o’clock at the very latest. You know you are supposed to come to my house first. I have a formal dinner tonight and it’s now 11:30. I don’t know how I’ll get it ready in time.”
“Delivery times are estimates only,” Brandon said, getting out of the cab.
“That is not what head office said. They definitely said 10 o’clock. I even got the officious little snip, Karen, to send me an email in writing confirming this.”
“Better take that up with Karen,” he said, rolling the back door up and jumping in to start sorting out the goods.
“And what’s this?” she snapped, turning those scary green eyes on me. “I don’t know you. Are you…? You’re that single girl who wants to break up happy marriages! How dare you bring someone like that here? And with some flea bitten mutt in tow. There are mothers and children!”
“What the fuck?” I said. “You crazy... Oh! Hi, Al.”
A stream of men came out the front door and made their way down to the truck. Al, the married guy I’d met at the mess, was one of them. “Hey, Julie. You giving Brandon a hand today?”
“Yep, I think this is yours,” I said, passing him a box of produce.
Her eyes went from Al to me, and then narrowed. “You know this woman? This is what I keep telling Kelly. We need to create separate settlements! There’s no reason for settled packs and the single to mix at all…”
“Which means you wouldn’t see the kids at all,” one of the men said to her. “Love, go inside and have a drink and calm down. The girl is delivering groceries, not hawking her wares on a street corner.”
“I might have to cancel tonight,” Phyllis said, her voice starting to waver. “I’m feeling one of my spells coming on.”
“Buck, walk her back to her room. Don’t let her take anything,” Al said to one of the other guys. “Dom, Earl, get the patio ready. Make sure you’re careful at the corners. You know how she freaks if there’s any dirt there. Jock, Henry, put the groceries away and we’ll start on the dinner. Thanks Brandon, appreciate you making us second on the list.”
“No problems, Al. See you next weekend.”
The goods disappeared into the hands of the many men, as fast as Brandon could hand them out. Earl took Phyllis by the arm and marched her back up into the house, and she whimpered the whole way.
“Something to keep in mind if you go with a big pack,” Brandon said once we got inside the truck, “everyone’s sure the constant histrionics are Phyllis’s attempts to maintain control of her blokes. There’s three more out at the mine, so she’s got eight in total. Eight sounds awesome at the beginning, when it’s all red hot passion, but once kids start coming… Her chances of getting to all of them and meeting their needs is not good. Instead she runs around being a ball busting bitch to keep everyone beholden to her, rather than there for love.”
“There must be more to it than that,” I said, looking out the window. “Al seemed like a reasonable bloke, he’s not going to be emotionally blackmailed into staying.”
“Maybe she gives head like a vacuum cleaner,” Brandon said, laughing when I started to make gagging noises. “Yeah, just like that.”
“Ew! Ew! Ew!”
15
The rest of the deliveries went without a drama. There was one young family with a new baby that was super cute. Mum was breastfeeding bubs as we came inside, the three dads rushing around, trying to take the boxes from us, fussing over the mother, and managing to trip over each other in the process. When the child started crying, a dad dropped the box he was carrying, thankfully not the one with the eggs in it. Mum just reassured him calmly, getting the baby back on the nipple and redirected him to the job at hand. She thanked us for the delivery and asked idly how I was going. I mumbled something appropriate, transfixed by her placid beauty, completely absorbed in feeding her child.
“OK, we’ve got to head back and pick up the next load from the warehouse, then we’re heading out to the farm.”
“So there’s a whole farm connected to the Sanctuary? I had no idea this was a whole self-sustaining community when I came for the job. I figured everything got shipped in.”
“Some of it,” Brandon said. “You’re about to see where the supplies are kept.”