And Kim, too. What did she want to say?
Danika tilts her face up to the streaming water, letting it run over her hair. No shared shower this time.
As she towels dry, she glances at the rumpled bed. So that was that. Her first time with a woman. Her last, too, maybe. The fog she’d pushed from her head envelops her again. Her stomach churns, and Kim’s hearty breakfast is now making her slightly nauseous.
There’s no point in delaying. Carpe diem, and all that. The Roman poet had probably never imagined their phrase being used like this.
Dressed in yesterday’s clothes, she goes out to the kitchen. Kim is once again at the coffee machine. She holds up a mug. “Another?”
“Yes, please.” Danika sits. Takes a deep breath. “I don’t know how to start. It’s taken me long enough to get to this point where I know what I must do.”
Kim’s face goes still, and she sets the mug down, the coffee unmade. “That sounds…serious.”
“It is.” Danika manages a smile. In the next few minutes, she’s going to break apart her security, Cami’s too, to do what’s morally right. She hopes those morals will pay her power bill if necessary. “You know how they say never to talk about religion, politics, and money? Well, that’s what I want to bring up.”
Surprise flickers on Kim’s face for a second before it smooths again. “I’m agnostic, and there’s no religious education at Bella’s school. I vote for the Greens, although they’re not perfect. Money?”
“Money,” Danika agrees. “Something I decided on some weeks ago. But it took me a while to work through what I should do. And then at your Chris’s funeral, I was angry.” She swallows hard and lifts her chin. “Not at you or Bella. At Chris. At his deception. Your family song… ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ is ours, too. ”Kookie” was his pet name for me as well. So many things like that. And I was angry all over again at his deception, the extent of it. How he treated us as interchangeable, the girls, too, simply to make it easier for him, so he wouldn’t slip up and inadvertently expose his lies. It was the ultimate fucking power play, superiority, entitlement…you name it. We were his possessions to toy with. That’s how it feels now. My life came crashing down when you appeared on my doorstep thosemonths ago, but I thought I’d got past that and built something with you and Bella.”
She looks down at her hands. “I was wrong. It was a house of cards, smoke and mirrors. My life was built on lies. Chris and I had good times, though. And I have Cami.” She smiles, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“And it doesn’t change what I have to do. The right thing to do.” She takes a deep breath and lines the words up in her head. They’ll march out when she opens her mouth, setting in motion something that can’t be retracted. And it will probably be the death knell for anything more with Kim.
“Chris didn’t have a will. He told me he did, sent me to his lawyer to make mine, but after his death, there was no will to be found. Not at the solicitor’s, not at the back of his sock drawer. There’s a procedure in Victoria when someone dies intestate, and I followed the steps. I got a solicitor, advertised for anyone with an interest in Christopher Henshall’s estate to contact them, filed for the grant of Letters of Administration in the courts. They don’t drag their heels on that, and I had it within weeks.” She takes a breath.
Kim watches her, saying nothing. Her face is blank. No surprise, no shock.
“The court applied the legal formula to Chris’s assets. The house was a joint title, so it automatically came to me. The rest: superannuation, bank accounts, life insurance… that all came to me as Chris’s spouse. With the money, I put fifty thousand into trust for Cami, I paid off the mortgage, bought a new car that will hopefully last me ten years or so, put some in my superannuation, and the rest in the bank as a buffer.”
Kim’s gaze is steady on Danika’s face. There’s no condemnation. Not yet.
“My job pays enough that we can live comfortably now that I’ve no mortgage, no major car repair bills. But my mum broughthome to me what I already knew deep down: the distribution was unfair. I wasn’t Chris’s only wife. And Cami is not his only child. I’m not sure what the precedent is for this. It’s a mishmash of fraudulent identity, lies, and more, but ethically I accept that you and Bella have as much right to that money as Cami and me. My parents raised me right. I couldn’t not tell you.”
“When did you realise this?” Kim asks.
Danika closes her eyes. “Weeks ago. Months even. I had to work out how I was going to pay you—I don’t have enough money sitting in a bank account somewhere. I’ll have to re-mortgage or sell the house. And then I was so angry after the funeral that I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you about it. Because it was just one more way Chris had screwed me over—and you even more. I’m so sorry.”
Kim stares down at the counter. “How much money?”
Of course, that would be an important question. “Just over eight hundred thousand in total. If we split it equally, that’s approximately four hundred thousand each. It’s then up to you if you want to do something for Bella. But even if it were a tenth of that, I’d still have told you.”
Kim is silent. Then she turns away, starts making coffee.
Danika waits. She understands it’s not about coffee; it’s about time to process this, to think about an answer.
The minutes stretch. Kim makes the coffee, goes to the pantry and takes a long time to return with a packet of Tim Tams.
“Bella loves these,” she says. “I don’t eat much chocolate, but if ever there was a time for whisky or chocolate, it’s now. And nine in the morning is too early for whisky.”
Danika nods and takes a Tim Tam, even though she has no intention of eating it.
“Thank you for telling me,” Kim says at last. “Thank you for being willing to do the right thing. I don’t know the law, but youmay have it on your side. A person who doesn’t exist has a small footprint in the world when it comes to things like this.”
Danika crosses her hands in her lap and waits. While Kim is calm now, she’s expecting it to hit her hard. Expecting to hear she’s getting a lawyer, taking legal advice.
“This isn’t a surprise,” Kim says eventually. “Not exactly. My mum told me there would be something, that I could challenge any will or distribution. And that’s what I wanted to talk with you about. Not for me, but for Bella.”
“After Amanda talked with me.” Danika remembers the conversation vividly. Amanda’s sharp eyes picking up on Danika’s momentary hesitation when asked about the will.
