“I got pregnant.” Kim meets Danika’s eyes. “It wasn’t intentional. I was on the pill, but I had food poisoning.” She lifts a shoulder. “It obviously reduced the pill’s effectiveness.”
Danika draws a quick breath. Somehow, that hurts more than it should. At that time, she was taking her temperature, tracking her fertile days, calling Chris and telling him to hurry home and get naked because now was the best time. And Kim accidentally fell pregnant. “Did you give him an ultimatum?”
Kim’s mouth twists. “The opposite. I was idealistic. I said I wanted to keep the baby, but there was no need for him to be involved. He said…he said that he’d always wanted to be a father, and he loved me. He’d finished his master’s, he’d have more time, and he suggested he move in.”
The words turn on a roundabout in Danika’s mind.He suggested he move in…he suggested he move in.Why, for fuck’ssake? He could have ended it, walked away, but instead he’d dug himself deeper. Why? She takes a deep breath. Kim said why: Chris loved her. And he loved children and had always wanted them.
For a moment, she imagines what would have happened if Chris had come to her then and told her about Kim. Told her she was pregnant and that he wanted to be a part of the baby’s life. What would have happened? She bites her lip. She would have dumped him. Instantly and finally—no second chances. She would have ignored his pleas and tears, turned her back, folded her arms and kicked him out of the house.
Danika bows her head. But he hadn’t told her—and that implied he knew how she’d react. And he hadn’t broken it off with Kim, either.
He must have wanted both of them. Well, obviously. She has to clear her throat twice before she can speak. “When did he move in?”
“I wasn’t sure I wanted him to,” Kim says. “I was young, and we only had a casual relationship—I didn’t want more. Chris was persistent and wanted to try. He moved in when I was four months pregnant, in July. He’d just started a new work schedule—two weeks in Melbourne, two weeks in South Australia. That never changed the whole time we were together. Except for brief holidays—which usually fell during his two weeks in Melbourne. And he told me public holidays—Christmas even—were the same schedule, so sometimes he’d be there, other times he’d be gone.”
“He told me the same,” Danika whispers. “When we first got together, he was rarely in South Australia—his job was office-based in Melbourne, but it changed. And it would have been around the time he moved in with you. I could seldom contact him when he was away. But when his schedule changed, he gave me a new work number, which went to an answering service, which would relay any urgent messages.”
Kim stares. “That’s what he gave me too. But when…he disappeared, I called it and at first the receptionist said she’d pass on a message, as usual, but then a few days later, the number was disconnected. That’s when I really started to worry. I called the Melbourne office of the company he said he worked for—DPA Mining—and they’d never heard of him.”
“He worked for DDP Mining, not DPA,” Danika says through stiff lips.
Kim sighs. “So I found out when I got the private investigator’s report. The number he gave me was a virtual message service. I think you were given a number that went to the same service, which would answer differently depending on which number was called.”
“Yes. I know that now.” She licks her lips. “This is all so fantastical, so fucking unbelievable, like a prime-time TV serial, filmed with close-ups and heartbeats.”
And right now, she doesn’t know how she feels. “When he died, I went into the office to collect his things. I never knew his colleagues—he told me they weren’t close as he worked away so often, and staff turnover was high. His boss gave me a box of his things. So little. Pens, a coffee mug, a book of word puzzles. Nothing personal at all. No photos, none of Cami’s drawings that he’d said he was taking to pin on his cubicle wall. Nothing. I asked his boss if there was anything to come from South Australia, and he looked at me strangely and said he didn’t think so. According to the report you gave me, Chris only went to South Australia a handful of times in the past nine years.” She falls silent, lost in the tangle of lies and misdirection.
“What are you going to do now?” Kim asks.
“I don’t know.” Danika presses her feet to the floor, preparing to rise. She’s learned the truth, as much as it hurts, and right now, there isn’t a way forward from that. Instead, she has to backtrack to a place of solidity, rebuild their lives, hersand Cami’s. And think about what to tell her daughter. And her parents. Friends. “What about you?”
“I have to tell Bella.”
“So we walk away now?” Danika stares at Kim. Her eyes are sympathetic; she seems more put together than Danika is—but then, she’s had months to process all this.
“I don’t know.” Kim sets her empty coffee cup down on the bench next to her. “I’d like to hear your story if you’re willing to share it. I’m still trying to understand…everything, really, so that I can move on. Rebuild my and Bella’s lives. Date, even. Will you meet me again?”
Danika bites her lower lip. “You have my number. It’s in the investigator’s report. Can I have yours? I don’t know if I’ll call it—now or in the future—but I’d like the option. And Cami, too. Bella. I don’t know what will happen there.”
“I understand.” Kim fiddles with her phone, and Danika’s phone pings with a text. She realises Kim already had her number programmed into her mobile, although she never called.
Down on the pitch, the kids are going into the clubhouse, the parents gathering up bags and belongings. The sky is dark with heavy-bellied clouds, and fat raindrops are falling.
“I should get going,” Danika says. “I planned on working this week while Cami was here.” She almost manages a smile over the confusion in her heart. “Strangely, that hasn’t happened yet, but maybe now I can.”
“Will I see you here tomorrow?” Kim asks.
“I don’t know.” Danika stands, slings the bag over her shoulder. “I need time.” With a nod, she walks down the grandstand to the pitch.
When she looks back, Kim hasn’t moved, but she lifts her hand in a brief wave.
“Are you still at work?” Danika asks her mum. It’s only four, but Shirley often slides out of the office then, leaving her assistant to field calls. She always says it’s one perk of running your own business.
“Just packing up now,” her mum says. “Is there something you want, Dani? You sound strange.”
“Strange doesn’t begin to cover it,” Danika says. “Are you rushing home, or could you come around here on the way? There’s something I need to tell you. Cami’s at Mirza’s and won’t be back until later.”
“Of course,” her mum says without hesitation. Danika imagines her at her desk, no doubt dashing off a quick text to Paul saying she’ll be home late and asking him to start dinner. “Are you okay? Is Cami?”
