“No one,” she says, and the words squeak as if her throat has closed over. “Selling raffle tickets.”
“Pranee’s mum is selling them for something,” Cami says. “Did you buy one?”
“It wasn’t her.” Danika peels herself from the door with an effort. “Have you looked on the backseat of the car, on the floor? There’s a certain someone who always takes her boots off before she gets home.” She tweaks Cami’s nose with fingers that only shake slightly.
“No.”
“Then go look. We’re late.”
Cami disappears, and Danika slumps back against the door for a moment.
She takes a deep breath and then another. Her world tilts, spins. She wonders, in the complete illogicality of fear, if she clicks her heels three times and commands her ruby slippers totake her home, if she will return to a world where the biggest problem of the moment is Cami’s lost soccer boots. A world where there is no Kim. She looks down at her rubber sandals and huffs a laugh.
She can’t even click her heels.
Chapter Two
Kim
Kim stares at the closed door. Blue, with paint worn at the point where you’d push it open.
What was she thinking? What in holy hell made her get up this morning and think that while Bella was at soccer, she’d drive to the other side of the Melbourne metropolitan area and confront Danika with her findings?
No wonder Danika doubts her. No wonder she closed the door in her face.
Kim turns and descends the two steps from the veranda, walks down the uneven brick path, through the sprawling grevillea and out the blue gate to the road. For a moment, she looks again at the house. The door is closed and there’s no sound.
Danika had looked at her in irritation, then anger, then disbelief and finally anger again. But somewhere between the last two emotions, fear had flashed across her face. Not fear for her safety—Kim is hardly physically imposing, just another alternatively dressed, hippie-type woman with hair that’s a perpetual wiry mess, and not a scrap of makeup.
It was fear that, maybe, just maybe, Kim was right.
Her car is parked a few doors up the street. She unlocks the door and slides into the driver’s seat. For a moment, she rests her head on the steering wheel and closes her eyes.
What had she expected? Really? That Danika would welcome her with open arms and proclaim that Bella must come and meet her sister, and then she and Bella would move in to live like one big, unconventional happy family?
An image of Camille flashes into her mind. She was so like Bella. Darker hair than Bella’s dirty-blonde mop, but the same narrow face shape. The same lopsided smile. Seeing Camille was more of a blow to her heart than seeing Danika.
She raises her head and fumbles for the car keys. She needs to get out of here, to be away before Danika drives out. And she must cross the city again to pick up her own daughter. How strange that both girls love soccer. Or maybe not so strange. They share the same blood, the same genes, and Chris was a very sporty person. That had been their first date—playing tennis.
Had Danika shared that interest with Chris? Kim huffs a laugh that is part wry humour, part hysteria. Danika doesn’t seem the sporty type. Her too-thin frame seems fragile, as if Chris’s death sucked away her essence. Unlike Kim, who channelled her confusion and grief into activity. She joined a netball team, and for the months that Bella took swimming lessons, Kim churned laps up and down the pool, staring at the lane markings on the bottom until she was light-headed and breathless.
She starts the car, sets the GPS for home, and pulls away. There’s a sports field near the highway. Kim sees kids Bella’s age in their red-and-blue soccer kit running around. She hesitates and slows the car. Maybe this is where Camille plays. Maybe, if she climbs to the top of the stand and sits quietly, she’ll see Camille playing soccer. Danika wouldn’t notice her, and if she did, maybe it would make her rethink. Come over and talk.
She’s passed the field. She pulls into a bus stop. Turn around or go home. Go home or turn around. The pull to see Bella’s half-sister is strong.
No.
She should never have gone to see Danika. She’s upended the life of a grieving woman, and for what? Her own desire for answers. For closure. Going to see Camille play, well, it would be stalking. If Danika did notice her, she’d probably call the police. Kim pulls out into traffic and continues along Belgrave-Hallam Road. And if she looks in her rearview mirror, well, she’s checking traffic, not looking at the sports field and wondering.
Bella comes running to where Kim stands at the front door talking with Jorie’s mother, Suze. She flings her arms around Kim’s waist. “I scored twice!”
“And I scored once,” Jorie says.
“You’re both amazing,” Kim says. There’s still a tremor in her voice, but the girls won’t notice.
They disappear to the living area to continue whatever game they were playing.
Suze cocks her head. “You okay? You look…I don’t know…a bit spaced out.”
