Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Danika
Danika goes through the motions. Takes Cami to soccer, agrees to get her new boots as her old ones are getting tight, says she’s sure Cami will score, because she’s so fast and has a hell of a right foot to put the boot in.
Yes, Gran will be there today, so Cami can play her best for Gran.
But even as she’s saying all the right things, the deeper part of her mind is screaming.
If only they’d left earlier for soccer this morning.
If only Cami had found her bloody boots sooner, then when Kim knocked there’d have been no answer.
If only Danika had said sorry, they had to leave and closed the door.
If only she’d slammed the door before Kim had said what she’d driven across the city to say. The address on her licence was St Kilda—a trendy bayside suburb about forty-five minutes away.
If only.
If only.
She sits on one side of the stand pretending to be engrossed in her phone, her bag taking up space next to her.
Usually, she sits with the other mums, and they chat together with one eye on the game.
But this time, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.
It’s as if she’s in a cone of static, alien radio waves scrambling her thoughts and frying her mind.
Danika stares out at the pitch where small kids run in seemingly random patterns, occasionally kicking the ball. She spots Cami jigging up and down, then sprinting for the ball. She gets it, shoots, and scores.
Lucky she was paying attention during that part. Danika jumps up, waves her arms, and cheers so Cami will see her when she looks to see if she’s watching. Then she sits again and dives back into her thoughts.
Fact: Kim believes what she told Danika.
Fact: Kim is wrong.
So that makes Kim a liar, or delusional, or a scammer. Or all three. Danika is no psychologist, but, to her, Kim obviously believes what she said. Either that, or she’s a damn fine actor. And what scammer shows a driver licence? Unless it’s fake.
She racks her brain trying to remember the last name on the licence, but all she can remember is that it began with V. Victor? Vickers? Vasquez? Already those details are grey and hazy.
But what she can’t forget is Kim’s claim that Chris was…not her boyfriend, not someone she had an affair with, but her de facto partner. They were together for nine years. And they have a daughter together, who is five months older than Cami.
That knowledge thunders in her mind. If it’s true, then much of the time she and Chris were trying to conceive a child, he had already impregnated someone else.
She closes her eyes as the hurt burns and the ache starts anew in her chest. And what were the circumstances?
How long had Chris been with Kim when that happened?
The answer drops into her mind: Almost six months, give or take. At least, that’s what Kim said.
That’s simply not possible. She was married to Chris for twelve years and dated him for eleven months before that. No one could carry on an affair—a relationship—for nine years. It beggars belief. There would have been clues. She’d have known.
Danika’s mind circles back to Kim. She’d been almost apologetic as she told Danika what would surely break her. Sorry, as if she wished she didn’t have to do this.
Danika presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. This is incomprehensible, something she just can’t get her head around—like quantum theory, but that she can shrug, close the book, and walk away. She’s not sure this will ever leave her.
“Dani, what are you doing by yourself?” Her mother sidles along the gap between the benches, picks up Danika’s bag and plops into the space next to her. “I was going to leave when I couldn’t find you, but then I saw Cami on the pitch. She just scored.”
“Sorry, Mum.” Danika leans across to kiss Shirley’s smooth cheek. “I just wanted some quiet time.”
Her mum looks at her watch. “I’m not here for long, but I’ve got an hour between inspections. If these games were on any other day but Saturday, it would be easier. Saturdays are—”
“A real estate agent’s busiest day,” Danika finishes. “I know, Mum.” She squeezes her mum’s arm in apology for her snippy tone.
Her mum looks at her, a frown between her perfectly sculpted brows. “Are you okay? You look on edge. Is Cami all right?”
Danika hesitates. The warmth and caring in her mum’s voice bring a thickness to her throat, as if she might cry.
For a second, she thinks of telling her about Kim’s visit.
Her mum would be outraged, dismiss Kim as a crackpot or a fraudster, and tell Danika there is no way Kim is right.
She’d sympathise, empathise, hold Danika—again—while she cried—again—and tell her to put Kim out of her mind.
Danika opens her mouth to tell her, but closes it again.
What can she say that makes sense? There’s nothing.
And she already heard her mum’s likely response in her mind, so what’s the point?
“I’m fine,” she says instead. “Didn’t sleep too well.”
Her mother’s face softens, and she wraps an arm around Danika’s shoulders and pulls her close. “I wish you’d see your GP about this. Or at least a naturopath. There are sleeping pills, herbal teas, supplements that might help.”
“I know. I will. Soon.”
Her mum opens her mouth again, no doubt to suggest relaxation massage—as if Danika has time for that—but there’s shouting from the pitch and apparently the other team has scored.
When her mum picks up the conversation again, it’s a funny story about one of her clients who refuses to leave her house when it’s open for inspection and follows people around pointing out the water feature, the Italian marble tiles in the bathroom, and the children’s treehouse.
“The tiles aren’t Italian or even marble—they’re from Bunnings. ” Her mum snorts.
Danika listens with half an ear as her mother talks. Then, with an exclamation, she stands. “I have to go. Next inspection is in ten minutes.”
Danika stands too, and for a moment she relaxes into her mum’s embrace. It’s warm and full of love, and she sighs and rests her head on her mum’s shoulder.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Dani? You seem distracted.”
She steps back from the hug and forces a smile. “I’m fine. Will you and Dad be around for dinner on Thursday? Cami’s dying to show off her cartwheel.”
“We’ll be there.” She rests her hands on Danika’s shoulders and studies her again. “You’re a bit grey and crispy around the edges.”
“I’m fine. Honestly.”
Her mum nods. “Okay then. We’ll see you Thursday.” With a wave of her fingers, she hurries away, her high-heeled shoes tapping on the concrete.
Danika sits again. She’ll try to put Kim and her disturbing allegations out of her mind. Because they can’t be true, there is no way they can, and the sooner she forgets about them the better.
Cami bounces alongside Danika as they head for the car. “Yes, I saw your goal,” Danika says for the third time. “You were wonderful. Nearly as good as Kyra Cooney-Cross.”
Cami sighs, momentarily distracted by the mention of her hero. “I wish. But one day I’ll play soccer for Australia like she does.”
“I’m sure you will,” Danika says automatically.
“Sylvie says you can get Kyra Cooney-Cross soccer boots now. They’re just like hers, and she’s signed them an’ everything. Can I get them, please? Please, pretty please?”
The last thing Danika wants right now is to go home. What if Kim is still there? Lurking, stalking, hiding behind the grey trunks of the gum trees. Kim doesn’t look like the sort of person to do that…but you never know. And Cami’s just given her a great reason to avoid going home just yet.
“Sure, we can do that,” she says. “How about now? We can have lunch out to celebrate your fantastic goal. Kyra Cooney-Cross had better watch out.”
“Yay!” Cami does a hop, skip, and a double bounce. “Can we go for noodles?”
“Sure.” Danika doesn’t care where they go as long as it’s not home. But Happy Face Thai is one of her favourites too. She must have the only just-about-to-turn eight-year-old in Melbourne who eats incendiary levels of spice and loves it. She pushes aside her worry about Kim and unlocks the car.
The Kyra Cooney-Cross soccer boots are almost twice the price of the ordinary ones, but Cami looks so thrilled, Danika hasn’t the heart to refuse her.
And, she reasons, Chris’s life insurance policy gave a payout.
It’s no consolation, but it’s given her some financial security.
No mortgage on the house, money for holidays, and small treats like expensive soccer boots and lunch at Happy Face Thai.
It’s not buying her daughter’s happiness—nothing can do that, especially not after the hell of losing her father so young—but if it’s in her power to make things a little easier for Cami, she will buy every pair of Kyra Cooney-Cross soccer boots on the planet.
Cami looks up from stuffing noodles into her mouth and gives a wide grin full of pad Thai.
“Yuck,” Danika says. “No ice cream for kids who can’t keep their mouths closed when eating.”
Cami swallows and grins again, this time thankfully food-free. “Can I have black-cherry ice cream?”
Danika’s heart swells. How lucky she is to have Cami. Even after the horror and hell of the last eight months, Danika thinks she’s a lucky person.
Danika wakes in the night with something tickling her mind.
Something not quite right, something out of place, something she should think about.
She looks at her phone. Two in the morning, a time she’s all too familiar with.
For a moment, she lies there, breathing slow and even, listening to the occasional vehicle on Belgrave-Hallam Road.
Her single-storey house is on a side street, set back from the road, with a line of long-limbed eucalyptus trees between the house and the street.
In the dark hours she’s been awake, she’s learned every night sound: the wind in the gum trees, the yappy dog two doors up, the shrieks and grunts of a brushtail possum.
But her unease isn’t because of her surroundings.
The house is quiet; there’s no sound from Cami’s room, and even the yappy dog is silent.
She gets out of bed and walks over to the window.
Even here, on the outer edge of Melbourne, there’s too much light to see many stars, but a few shine in pinpoints of light in the inky-dark weave of the sky.
She stands for a moment watching a possum walk along the power line, its brushy tail held high.
She turns from the window and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. As she drinks, the tickle in her mind drifts into focus. She gasps, and her hand trembles, so she sets the glass down on the counter with a thump.
Something about her conversation with Kim comes back into her mind, not in a hazy drift of memory, but sharp, snapped into her head, a sound bite from the morning.
“I live in St Kilda,” Kim had said.
St Kilda…St Kilda. The name of the bayside suburb thumps in her head, and she sits abruptly on a stool at the counter.
That was where Chris was killed.
She knows she won’t sleep much tonight.