4. Gisele
“Miracle Evangaline, this is your last warning. One more and you will be on Santa’s shit list,” I shouted from the kitchen, in my mind I could see my child rolling her brown eyes, not believing my threat for a second. “Seriously Miracle, we have to leave early today, your dad is taking you to school this morning.” I nearly choked over that. Liam was the dictionary description of a fortnight father. It was enough of a struggle to get him to have her overnight once every fourteen days but when occasions such as this one when I had to ask him for a ‘favour’ to take his own daughter to school turmoil twisted my gut.
Never once had I regretted Miracle, my only wish it wasn’t Liam that fathered her.
Liam and I met when his family moved to Blessings at the beginning of our first year in high school. He was the typical city kid, cool and with it. I found myself star struck the minute I laid eyes on him.
His dad had been transferred in his job with some big construction company after huge floods had wiped out most of the roads in the surrounding towns. Blessings had been left relatively un-touched due to my dad’s great, great grandfather building the town on higher ground and building the town’s bridge in order of never leaving Blessings stranded in case of floods. My daughter’s reluctant grandparents only stayed after his job was complete years later because their son knocked me up and they didn’t want to lose their good standing in the community. Not that they had much to begin with. Steven and Jennifer never tried to fit in with the locals the entire time they lived here. They shopped in the town over from Blessings, brought their groceries from the big supermarkets, dined at the fancier restaurants because no way would they be seen eating at The Gold Mine pub, which is why after Miracle was finally released from hospital, they high tailed it out of town leaving the house for Liam to live in. Thankfully, they didn’t feel the need to be involved in their grandchild’s life, leaving her and I pretty much alone. I secretly referred to them as the ‘unmentionables’ yet never in front of my daughter. Their idea of being good grandparents was to send Miracle exactly three expensive presents a year. Christmas, Easter and her birthday. My dearest wish was for Liam to do the same thing and move away. Miracle would never feel his absence or be affected by it, I would personally make sure of that.
Hearing her sneakers coming down the hall. I quickly finished packing her lunch box and drink water bottle in her bag, eager to get the day started.
“Hello precious child of mine,” I greeted her not startled one iota of seeing her dressed in red and purple stripped leggings, a denim skirt edged with hot pink tulle the ensemble finished off with a white tee-shirt completely covered in red sequins.
My daughter the fashionista, thank you mummy dearest.
“Looks like you plan on making an impact on your dad,” I said looking at her with a knowing grin. “Did Gigi help you come up with that outfit?” Watching her hands, my grin turned into a full-blown smile.
“Don’t know what I’m talking about my fat butt little girl.” Hands flew again and my heart melted.
“Yeah sweetie, the women in our family all have perfect butts.” Helping situate her unicorn backpack, then reached for her hand. “Come on chickee, time for mumma to go earn her keep, hopefully retaining my sanity all the while.”
Miracle didn’t need to sign her reply to my comment about my sanity. She knew to whom I was referring to, but her little shoulders shook in silent laughter. Miracle would never be swayed from believing her Gigi was anything but perfect. Not that I would ever try, she was pretty damn perfect in my eyes too. But I kept that truth close to my chest. No sense in making her head bigger than it already was.
* * *
“Gisele honey, do you have any pippies?” Mr. Hanson called out to me from somewhere in the back of the store. The old man had one volume. Yelling.
“You don’t need pippies Mr. H,” I shouted back, “you’re fishing in fresh water not the ocean. There are tubs of worms in the fridge back there” Giggling at the old man. Albert Hanson was one of the towns oldest residents. He had been best mates with my Poppy, working the mines with him and later with my dad. I adored the old bugger, but I wished he would get hearing aids for all out sakes.
“In the back ditch?” a confused shout came back at me.
Before I could reply to him my mother did it for me.
“The fridge you deaf yahoo.” Coming around the counter to stand next to me, mum gave me a wink. “Time for your lunch break Gisele Heidi, I’ll look after things for a bit.”
Looking down at my watch to see it was three hours past lunch.
“Shit, I have to go pick up Miracle,” I shouted jumping up from the stool I used sometimes when my feet needed a rest.
“Don’t panic chickee,” mum stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Your daddy has gone to get her. He just finished putting a new starter motor in the Ute and wanted to give it a test run.” She reassured me, or thought she was. My dad’s Ford GT Ute was his pride and joy. He worked on it endlessly whenever mum gave him a break from painting the shop sides or any other job, she picked out for him. The only problem was the bloody thing wasn’t registered or even roadworthy. He liked to take it to the closets racetrack and burn the back tyres off when he was allowed. The motor was smick, tuned to perfection. A real beast of a machine, which meant it wasn’t stock or legal to have on the road. Blessings didn’t have its own police station, rather we had a visiting cop that came to town once a month for a few days using an office at the town hall when he was here, so there wasn’t too much danger of him being pulled over. Nor was I worried about my kid being in a hotted-up car, my only worry was Liam finding out and giving me shit about it. There were times, not many, but occasionally he picked times to be a dad and they involved him getting in a huff about my parents and their better relationship with Miracle compared to his own.
“Okay, I’ll go next door and grab a cupcake and a raspberry spider, but if Liam sees her in the Ford, then you deal with his tantrum. Okay Georgina?” Giving her a stern glare.
“It will be my pleasure chickee, but really a cupcake and spider?” she raised her perfectly sculpted brow.
“Yes mother, a minute on the lips and a lifetime on the hips,” I sassed back at her. “I’m not worried, after all we girls got all our perfection from you and our brains from daddy.” Leaving her with that brilliance, I took my leave from behind the counter. Giving myself a mental high five. However, Georgina being who she was couldn’t let me leave having the last word,
“Perfection and a smart mouth, chickee.” She reminded me, not that she had too.
* * *
Halfway through my third cupcake. Cheesecake and pineapple. Yummy. My mobile phone rang. Half tempted to let it go to voicemail I changed my mind quickly just in case it was Liam calling to complain my dad was doing burn outs with Miracle in the car, I swiped the screen open when I saw it was Elle.
“Hey chickee what’s up?”
“You better get your butt to the town hall, pronto.” Elle’s no-nonsense tone alarming me immediately.
“Why? What’s happened?” I asked worriedly, already getting up from the bench seat, my cupcake already forgotten about. Elle was the most serious out of all of us, so when she used that tone, I knew trouble was brewing.
“There is a man in town claiming to be a detective with the missing persons unit from Gracefield.”
“So? Why does that require your serious voice?” Yet still I was making my way out of the Lolly/Café shop.
“He arrested daddy for driving an unregistered and illegally modified car. Miracle was with him at the time. Liam is demanding Miracle go home with him.”
My heart sank at the same time my temper boiled instantly. No freaking way.
“Be there in sixty seconds.”