Danika’s jaw relaxes, and she drops her eyes to the pot, then raises them again.
Jorge is staring straight at her, and the stormy emotions in his gaze mirror her own. For a moment, they lock eyes, then Jorge gives her a brief nod and switches his gaze back to his grandchild.
“Would anyone else like to say anything?” Kim asks. She looks at Danika as she says it, and Danika knows Kim expects her to speak.
But she can’t. While she won’t spoil the day for Bella, she just can’t bring herself to say good things about Chris right now. Not while the anger churns fierce and hot, not while, for the first time, she’s seeing his behaviour clearly.
Amanda steps forward. “Chris was many things to many people, and while it is hard to condone his choices, he is a part of my grandchild Bella. An important part of Kim’s life for many years. And that will always be. Bella, you had a good daddy who loved you. Kim had a loving partner. Danika and Camille, you too, have shared these things. Whatever the future brings, let us remember Chris for the good things he brought us.” She stares at Jorge, as if to soothe his anger down to socially acceptable platitudes.
Amanda steps back.
Danika suppresses a gasp as Cami steps forward.
“My daddy was also Bella’s daddy, and I’m happy to have a sister now. I wish we could have always been together, but we are now.”
Kim looks around again. “If no one else has anything to say, if you wish, please join Bella and me in sprinkling the sand into the water.”
Everyone moves forward and takes turns to take a handful of sand and throw it into the sea.
The sand is cool, slightly damp. It’s coarse and gritty and sticks to Danika’s fingers after she’s thrown it. She brushes it off. It’s not Chris, but it symbolises him, and right now she doesn’t even want that on her hands.
Kim and Bella empty the pot between them.
“Please come back to the apartment for lunch,” Kim says.
Danika and Cami walk to their car together.
“That was nice,” Cami says. “It was different to Daddy’s funeral. Bella is happy, though.”
“That’s the important thing,” Danika says. She can’t say more. Not now. But later… Can she talk about this with Kim? This consuming anger? She doesn’t know. Has Kim already put this together? She doesn’t know that either. But today is not the day for that conversation.
The group gathers in Kim’s living room. There are photos of Chris on every surface. They weren’t there previously—Kim must have put them out for today. Some Danika has seen before; others are new to her. There’s Chris coming out of the ocean at Johanna Beach, hauling up his board shorts with both hands. Another of him and Bella kicking a ball around on the sand at St Kilda Beach. One of him waving from the window of the car—the same car he was driving the day of the accident.
Bella, Cami, and Jorie are looking at the photos together, and Bella’s voice rises and falls as she explains them.
Lies. Farce. A life of deception.
Danika finds a chair away from the rest of the group and sits. She needs a moment to compose herself before she can make nice. She’s aware of Jorge’s glare, of Amanda’s assessing glance, of Suze’s sympathetic smile. And of course Kim’s gaze, too frequent to be casual, a wrinkle between her eyes as she looks at Danika. Kim must know Danika is struggling, but right now, she is the hostess.
“Danika.” Amanda stands in front of her, a glass of white wine in her hand. “May I sit?” She indicates the chair next to Danika.
Danika nods and composes her face into welcoming lines. Amanda seems, while not exactly friendly, there’s no animosity in her face either.
Amanda sits and angles her body toward Danika. “I could ask you how you feel about this”—she indicates the small gathering in the room with a nod—“but your face is expressive. Is this hard for you?”
Danika considers. “It is, yes, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. I guess a lot of things about Chris—the man that I thought I knew—have come into sharp focus. Right now, I’m very, very angry and struggling not to show it for Kim and the girls’ sake. I guess I’m not doing a very good job.”
“You’re doing pretty well,” Amanda says. “Did Kim tell you I was a psychologist before I retired?”
Danika shakes her head. “She hasn’t mentioned you much, to be completely honest.”
Amanda’s mouth thins. “She only told Jorge and me the full story, about you, about Camille, last week, so I’m not surprised she hasn’t talked about us.” She tilts her head. “Jorge is as angry as you. He’s holding it in. I have to make sure we leave before he gets to the point where he says something he will doubtless regret. He is angry at Chris—not at you, not at Kim, certainly not at the kids.”
“That makes two of us.” Saliva floods Danika’s mouth, and for a moment she thinks she might throw up.
“Would it help to talk through that anger?” Amanda asks.
“If I didn’t know you were a psychologist before, I do now,” Danika says. “And thank you for the offer, but I’m okay.”
