For now.
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Kim
Kim sits courtside, watching as Bella runs forward, putting her slight body between the opposing goal attack and the net. The taller girl shoots, and despite Bella’s jump—too shallow, too late—she scores. Fifteen to two. Bella’s team is getting slaughtered.
Again.
For a moment, she wishes for the wintry days beside a soccer pitch, warming her icy fingers on a cup of coffee. But netball is Bella’s sport now, even though she is, quite honestly, crap at it. Fluency with a ball at her feet does not translate to fluency with her hands. Bella is fumble-fingered and seems unable to read the flow of the game.
Still, she’s playing a sport. She complains about netball a lot, but when Kim tentatively suggests she might want to return to soccer, rejoin the team Jorie still plays on, Bella emphatically shakes her head.
It’s been five months since Bella last played soccer.
Jorie returns with stories of tackles and goals, of running along the wing, the ball at her feet. Of penalties taken and scored or saved.
Bella listens, and there’s a wistfulness in her eyes she can’t quite hide, but when Jorie, too, urges her to return, Bella always shakes her head. “No.”
And that’s the end of it.
Danika kept her word, and there’s been no contact from her. Kim misses it, which is strange, because what they had never came close to what she’d call friendship. It was always that wary, prickly, holding-things-back thing. Never fully sharing.
But there had always been something. Some strings, some tie between them that went beyond having been married—or essentially so—to the same man. Beyond having daughters who were sisters.
Danika pulls on Kim’s mind, even now, and she doesn’t know why.
Mercifully, the final whistle blows. Bella turns, and with slumped shoulders and dragging feet, walks with her teammates over to the coach. This is the seventh match in a row they’ve lost.
What can the coach possibly say to them this time around that will be different? They’re still kids. Still only eight or nine years old. This isn’t serious.
Kim stands and waits for Bella to find her.
She slouches over, her kit bag dragging on the concrete.
Kim suppresses a sigh. The material will scuff and probably rip. “Good game, Hella-Bella.” She swoops in to hug her.
Bella shrugs her away. “It was horrible. And the goal attack trod on my foot, and it hurts.”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it. I’ll look at it when we get home. Do you want to go for ice cream?” She injects sunshine into her voice. Maybe caramel-fudge ice cream will improve Bella’s mood.
“Yeah.” Bella manages a small smile.
“Come on, then.”
Once in the car and driving to Bella’s favourite ice cream shop, Bella’s mood improves, and she chatters about the game, about how she nearly stopped the other team’s goals, about whether she can have a chocolate flake in her ice cream.
Kim watches her in the rearview mirror. Bella’s quiet most of the time now. She has been since the night she learned the truth about her father, the truth about Cami.
That night, a spark went out in her daughter, and it hasn’t returned.
The grief counsellor—a different one to before—said to give her time. Kim will give her until the end of time if it means Bella will be happy again.
“Do you want to find out whether Jorie wants to come around when we get home?” she asks Bella’s reflection in the mirror.
“Yeah.” A bigger smile this time. “It’s her soccer final. I want to know if they won.”
