Kim goes cold. She should have expected this. The kids look alike; it’s there in their face shape, their skinny bodies, their gestures. But there’s no reason for Bella to think it anything but a coincidence—at least, not until Kim tells her the truth. She swallows hard.
“We can’t do next week, Hella-Bella. I’ve got to make up the work I missed while I was sitting in an icy grandstand watching you run around.”
Bella giggles. “S’okay. I’ll see Cami next weekend anyway.”
She will? Kim racks her brain to figure out what she’s missed.
“The kids and parents’ match. Next Saturday. I gave you the note yesterday.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Silly Mummy.” Bella giggles again. “It was in my bag.”
“Which is still by the washing machine waiting for you to empty it.”
“Oh.” Bella deflates for half a second. “Well, I’ll give it to you when we get home. We’re gonna have a match…the kids play the first half, the parents the second. It’ll be awesome! And then we have sausages in bread, and ice cream. I said to Coach thatyou’d be great playing. ’Cause you play tennis and go running and stuff.”
“Right,” Kim says. “You get your sporting skill from me.” She grins at Bella in the rearview mirror.
“And Daddy. He can run ever so fast and shoot a basketball hoop from ever so far away.”
“And Daddy,” Kim agrees. It’s all closing in on her. Bella doesn’t mention Chris as often as she used to. The psychologist Kim took her to after Chris went missing said to allow Bella to work through it at her own pace. But after only a few sessions, she hadn’t wanted to go anymore, and Kim hadn’t pushed her.
“Sometimes I dream Daddy comes back for us,” Bella says quietly. “He’s not dead, he can’t be, as he’s so strong and fast. He wouldn’t let anything hurt him. So he must have run away.”
Kim’s heart sheds another layer. How many more to go before it cracks and shatters? These wafer-thin layers that peel away one by one must surely be running out. “I don’t think so,” she whispers. “Daddy would never have left us. It’s more likely he’s gone.”
“You mean dead?” Bella’s lips twist. “Cami’s dad is dead. He died in a car crash. She’s sad.”
“Is that part of why you like Cami? Because she’s lost her dad as well?”
“Maybe.” Bella nibbles her lower lip. “I mean, Jorie’s my best friend, but I really like Cami.”
“You can have more than one best friend,” Kim says, and the inevitability of what’s going to happen draws a little closer.
Chapter Nine
Danika
“You have to run really fast, Mummy, ’cause you’re playing for both me and Sylvie.”
“I will.” Danika flashes a smile at Mirza in the passenger seat. Mirza is over six months pregnant, and a rough and tumble soccer game is exactly what the doctor didn’t order.
Mirza pats her stomach. “I’ll be cheering all of you on. Especially Danika—I think she needs it most.”
“Hey!” Danika says in mock-affront. “I was the under-thirteen hundred metres champion at school!”
“About one hundred years ago.” Cami nudges Sylvie, and they both giggle.
Danika smiles, too. It’s good to see Cami happy. After the soccer clinic finished, she’d been a bit down. But of course Cami is still grieving her father, and grief is a process that can’t be hurried.
The car park is full when they arrive. Danika walks through the parked vehicles, not letting herself look for Kim’s car. Her stomach has been jittery ever since she found the crumpled note about the parents and kids’ match at the bottom of Cami’s muddy kitbag. But as she squeezes through the gap between two parked cars, she sees the red Subaru parked by the railing.
Part of her wishes this match wasn’t happening—she isn’t ready to see Kim again—but part of her is glad the decision has been taken out of her hands. Because the day will inevitably come when she and Kim will be pushed closer through their daughters, and she can’t bury her head in the sand forever.
“There’s Granny and Gramps!” Cami bounces and waves. Her only grandparents. Chris had immigrated to Australia from the UK when his parents died. At least, that’s what he’d said.
Is that a lie too?
