Chapter Five
Danika
Danika knows, of course.
The moment she sees the girl Cami is paired with, Danika knows it’s Kim’s daughter. Bella. She has the same face shape, and the way she hunches her shoulders as she listens to the coach is exactly like Cami. It’s disconcerting, and more than that—it’s throwing everything Kim said front and centre in her mind.
But she still can’t confront it and what it means. She shies away from it, forces her thoughts onto what she’ll cook for dinner tonight and what she’ll get her dad for his birthday, because mentally debating plants and shirts and car-cleaning kits means she doesn’t have to think about the kid on the soccer field who looks so like Cami—and the reason for that.
But as Cami and Bella run across in front of her, it’s like seeing a mirror that shows only the truth.
The girls are obviously enjoying playing with each other, and at the end of the exercise, they exchange big grins.
Danika’s eyes burn with unshed tears. Is Kim actually correct? She touches her temples with her fingertips as if she can pull the truth out in silver skeins. She glances over her shoulder to where Kim sits. The line fromCasablancaabout all the gin joints in all the towns leaps into her head. Except this isn’t hergin joint any more than it’s Kim’s. It’s just bad luck they both have soccer-mad girls, and the best holiday soccer school is this one.
She’s been on a knife-edge ever since she turned around in the café to find Kim behind her, staring at her with a stunned look on her face. As she walked away, her hand shook so much the coffee slopped out of the mug onto her jeans.
Danika gets up. Sitting here with her thoughts skewering her brain is killing her. She glances at her phone. Only another thirty minutes to go. She pockets her phone and sets off on a walk around the outside of the field.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Danika checks on Cami in the rearview mirror. She’s quiet and staring out the window. Tired, probably.
“Yeah, it was awesome. Did you watch me?” Cami asks.
“I did. Sylvie, too. Both of you were fantastic.”
“I loved playing with different kids,” Sylvie says. “But my partner was Cal, and he trod on my toes and said girls can’t play soccer.”
“He’s wrong,” Danika says. “I saw you wiggle past him like greased lightning.”
Sylvie giggles. “Yeah!”
“Who were you playing with, Cami?” Danika asks. She grips the steering wheel tighter and forces herself to concentrate on the road, rather than watching her daughter in the rearview mirror.
“Bella. She’s cool. I like her.”
“Where does she live?” Danika waits for the answer although she’s sure she knows already.
“Dunno. By the beach somewhere. What’s for dinner?”
“Spag bol,” Danika says. The air whistles out of her nose, and her fingers loosen their grip. Of course Cami wouldn’t think to question why she looks like Bella—kids don’t think like that. And she’s sure Kim wouldn’t have said anything to Bella—why would a mother make her daughter question everything she’d ever known? She wouldn’t. She turns the radio on to drown out the questions in her head.
Danika gets to soccer school ten minutes early the next morning. The kids run off to the clubhouse. Danika looks around and spots a mum she talked with yesterday. Andi lives locally, and her stepdaughter, Noa, plays at this club. Andi seems impervious to the cold—she’s wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. A complicated black tattoo winds down to her wrist. She’s not staying today, she says, but her partner Sarah will be here late morning.
Danika knows when Kim arrives. There’s a change in the air, a subtle vibration, as if Danika is now attuned to Kim. Or maybe it’s fear; the prey sensing the predator.
Kim glances her way, then looks away quickly and goes to sit halfway up the stand, where she sat the day before.
Danika bites her lip. Last night, lying awake staring out of the window at the sparse branches of the pink ash, it had seemed insurmountable. In the shower this morning, it had become so obvious. But it’s one thing to decide what to do; it’s quite another to actually do it.
She waits until the kids have come out of the clubhouse and paired, this time for a tag-team competition of footwork drills. Cami is paired with Bella again, and she wonders if it’s coincidence or if the kids requested it.
Then, when she’s sure Cami won’t be giving her a single thought, she stands and climbs up the stand to where Kim is sitting.
Kim is alone, leaning back, staring out at the kids on the pitch. Does she know her daughter is paired with Cami? Probably. Kim seems to know many things. She holds so much knowledge—and Danika’s peace of mind—in her hands.
Danika stops a short distance away. Her heart pounds in her throat, and nausea roils in her stomach. How should she approach Kim? After their previous meeting, she can hardly plop down on the bench next to her with a breezy hello and a comment about how cold it is.
Kim glances across. Her lips tremble, then she looks away, back to the kids.
