Chapter 16
Sixteen
The afternoon had cooled off by the time they walked out of the motel and headed towards the park a little while later.
The large square of open grass was neatly maintained, with a water fountain in the centre and an old-fashioned bandstand.
Kenzie could imagine what this little town must have looked like in its heyday.
The main street had remnants of a bygone era in the few shopfronts that looked as though time had stood still around them.
She’d visited enough museums in little places like this to know that at one time it would have been a bustling town with multitudes of pubs and businesses, before the railway line detoured the town, effectively isolating it and causing the majority of the population to pack up and move where the transport was.
The evidence of a once-flourishing economy was clear in the beautifully decorated buildings, like the ornate old rotunda.
They walked along a path towards a slightly more modern playground, and Poppy thrust her beloved Mr Percival into Kenzie’s arms. ‘Can you push me on the swing, Mummy?’ Poppy called out, already running across the thick carpet of pine bark mulch.
‘I’ll go,’ Ewan said. ‘You sit and rest.’
Her automatic reaction was to protest, but he was already heading over to the swings and helping her climb onto the seat. Rest? With a four-year-old? Well, there’s a new concept.
Poppy let out excited shrieks as Ewan pushed her. ‘Higher!’ Poppy demanded.
‘Not too high,’ Kenzie called, knowing full well she’d never pushed her daughter that high before.
‘Higher,’ Poppy insisted.
She watched as Ewan sent the swing soaring, her heart lodged in her throat. Jesus Christ! Was he trying to kill her? ‘How about you have a go on the slide, Poppy?’ she called, trying not to sound as frantic as she felt.
‘Okay,’ she called back, beaming. That smile gave Kenzie a burst of joy, putting her jumbled emotions at odds with each other.
After a while of ‘Watch me, Ewan!’, he wandered over and took a seat next to her on the bench.
‘You know she was safe, right?’ he asked casually. ‘On the swing.’
‘She doesn’t usually go that high,’ Kenzie said, trying to keep her voice level.
‘Don’t you remember how much fun it was to go high on the swing when you were a kid?’
‘Not when I was four,’ she said somewhat stiffly.
They sat in silence, listening to Poppy as she continued calling out to them to watch, before Ewan said, ‘I wouldn’t let her get hurt.’
Kenzie tried to push away that narky little feeling.
Even she knew she’d overreacted, despite trying to stay calm.
She couldn’t seem to help it. He was still basically a stranger.
He is also her biological father, a voice pointed out.
And wasn’t that the whole point of doing this?
So that he wouldn’t be a stranger? ‘It’s just been the two of us for so long,’ she said without taking her eyes off Poppy as she slid down the bumpy yellow slippery slide.
‘I know. I’m figuring out how to fit into her life too.’
The uncertain tone caught her heart unexpectedly, and she formed a small smile. ‘You’re doing fine.’
They watched on quietly for a while longer until Poppy got tired of the slide and ran off to try the other pieces of playground equipment scattered about the park.
‘How about we find some dinner?’ Ewan suggested as they finished riding on the spring-loaded rocking horse and playing shopkeepers with the cute little shopfront under the climbing frame. ‘What do you feel like?’
‘Fish fingers,’ she said without hesitation. ‘It’s mine and Mr Percival’s favouritest.’
Kenzie glanced at his face expecting to see doubt, which was the usual reaction that statement was met with, but she saw a strange kind of shocked expression.
‘She’s always loved fish fingers,’ Kenzie explained, watching as he seemed to shake off the unexpected reaction.
‘That was my brother’s favourite meal too,’ he said, sending them a brief smile. ‘I’m not sure we can get our hands on fish fingers, but maybe some fish and chips?’
She whispered something in her teddy bear’s ear before giving an exasperated sigh. ‘Okay,’ Poppy said. ‘No one ever has fish fingers.’
They ambled out of the park and along the quiet main street to a takeaway shop they’d spotted on the way in.
Kenzie caught a brief glance of their reflection in a shop window as they walked past. They looked just like a normal family; a mum and dad with their child, out for dinner.
That’s what everyone would probably think, just by looking at them, and she wondered at the little glow of warmth the idea gave her.
They collected their fish and chips and headed back to the park, unwrapping the paper and spreading it out on the table between them.
‘This is my second favouritest dinner,’ Poppy informed them as she shoved another piece of the meaty fish into her mouth.
Kenzie had to agree. For a town nowhere near the coast, the fish was pretty damn fresh and delicious.
This then sparked a discussion of other favourite foods Poppy loved before she cross-examined Ewan about his. The whole time, Kenzie was content to sit and listen to the two of them chatting nonsense.
Afterwards, Poppy asked if she could go back to the playground by herself, because she was big enough. Seeing as it was just across from where they were sitting at a timber picnic table, Kenzie decided to let her.
‘She’s a riot,’ Ewan said, chuckling as she slid down the slide and then stood up and took a bow.
‘She is,’ Kenzie agreed as she gathered up the paper and napkins. ‘Earlier, you mentioned your brother. What was his name again?’
‘Arran. He was two years older than me.’
‘I get the feeling you don’t talk about him much?’
She saw him shift on the bench and wondered if he’d change the subject, but after a few moments, he spoke, and she was relieved she hadn’t overstepped the mark.
‘I guess I don’t. There’s not really anyone to talk about him to.’
‘Your family?’ she asked.
He gave a shake of his head. ‘We aren’t big on bringing up that kind of stuff. It was pretty traumatic, and I don’t think anyone’s really processed it completely, to be honest.’
‘Do you mind if I ask what happened?’
‘He cut himself pretty bad a few days before we went out on a muster and it got infected. He’d had his spleen taken out when he was a kid, so he was immunocompromised, meaning his body couldn’t fight infection like most people.
He had to be super careful being around sick people and stuff.
Anyway, the wound turned septic and he had to be medevaced out.
He went straight into ICU but died not long after. ’
‘That’s really sad.’
‘Yeah. He lived and breathed farming, just like Dad.’
‘And you didn’t?’
He lifted a shoulder idly, staring out across the park, watching Poppy twirl around on the grass, lost in her own little world of imagination. ‘I love farming, but there was only room for one heir of Laire-Mor.’
‘What about after he died?’
He snorted. ‘I was a poor replacement, could never live up to Dad’s expectations. I was never his yes-man the way Arran was. I used to question everything instead of just taking orders.’
‘And your dad didn’t like it?’
‘Nope. You don’t question Callum Campbell. Ever.’
She wasn’t feeling all that crazy about meeting his father right now.
‘The thing is,’ he continued, ‘I wasn’t being disrespectful when I was asking questions, most of the time,’ he added a little sheepishly before sobering somewhat.
‘I genuinely wanted to know the reason we were doing something. Occasionally, I’d question certain things because it seemed like the less efficient way of doing things, or the more expensive way.
He always saw it as me challenging him.’
Kenzie wasn’t sure what she could say. She didn’t know him well enough yet to offer comfort, but there was something incredibly lonely about the way he spoke about his dad that made her want to reach out and hug him.
Thankfully, she was saved from doing something embarrassing by Poppy coming back over to get a drink.
‘Come on, Poppet,’ Kenzie said, using her daughter’s pet name as she stood up from the table. ‘Time for you to have a shower and get ready for bed.’ It’d been a long day and tomorrow promised to be more of the same.
As they walked back to the motel, Ewan pondered his conversation with Kenzie.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked so openly about Arran.
Sasha hadn’t asked much about him. She didn’t like anything that brought her mood down, and discussing his dead brother and the role he’d played in it would be considered a real bummer.
‘Can Ewan read me my bedtime book tonight?’ Poppy asked almost shyly after her quick shower.
He saw Kenzie’s gaze flitter nervously to his own and wondered if his expression was as surprised as hers. ‘If Ewan wants to?’ she managed.
‘Sure,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant. He hadn’t been prepared for the reaction such a small request would spark inside him and cleared his throat. ‘If that’s okay?’
‘Absolutely. I might go and have a shower while you guys do that.’
‘Take your time. We’ll be fine out here,’ he said as Poppy began pulling books out of her backpack willy-nilly, briefly glancing at each before discarding them, until she found one she liked and climbed up on his lap, opening to the front page.
‘Once upon a time there was a princess,’ he started, feeling completely out of his depth. Playing with his nephews hadn’t involved reading. It was more playing football and cricket and riding motorbikes. ‘Each day, she would greet her horse. Good morning, Mabel.’
‘No, you have to do the voices,’ Poppy said, interrupting impatiently. ‘Do it in a princess voice.’
What the actual hell constituted a princess voice? He tried a slightly less male tone.
‘No. A princess voice.’ A small face frowned up at him.
Clearly this bedtime story thing was going to be harder than he’d imagined.
He lifted his voice a good six octaves, feeling as though his testicles were lodged in his throat, but seeing the satisfied nod of his daughter’s head before she settled back against his chest made him power on.
He just prayed, for the sake of his vocal cords, that this princess didn’t have too many narrative parts.