Chapter 8 Kim
Chapter Eight
Kim
The blue RAV isn’t in the car park when Kim arrives on the last day of soccer, but Cami and her friend are already in a knot with other kids on the pitch.
Kim looks around, but there’s no sign of Danika.
She takes the steps up the grandstand two at a time and takes her usual seat.
If Danika is here, she’ll find Kim if she wants to.
She takes the lid off her takeaway coffee.
A second one for Danika sits on the bench beside her.
Kim watches as Bella goes across to Cami and her friend, and then the three of them take off at a run toward the coach.
Cami stops halfway, as if she’s heard something, then runs back to the rails.
A brown woman Kim doesn’t know hands Cami shin guards.
Cami slides them into her socks and rejoins her friends.
Maybe the woman is Cami’s friend’s mother. It makes sense that Danika shares the driving. Disappointment sits heavy in her stomach. She finishes her coffee and picks up Danika’s. No sense in letting it go to waste.
There’s a knife-like wind slicing through the slats of the grandstand.
Kim finishes the coffee in four big gulps, stands, and picks up her bag.
She’ll go to the café and work—answer emails, send out a couple of quotes, all the things she’s neglected this week.
Running her own business is great for the freedom and independence, but it won’t be so great if her work dries up because she’s so flaky.
Two hours later, when she returns to the pitch, the blue RAV is in the car park and Danika is sitting at “their” spot in the grandstand.
Kim climbs up and sits next to her. There’s a half-metre gap between them. Close enough to talk comfortably, far enough away that Danika won’t feel crowded.
For a moment, they sit in silence. The wind curls around them, lifting the ends of Danika’s short brown hair.
Her cheeks are ruddy with the cold, giving colour to her otherwise pale face.
She stares straight ahead, looking over the pitch but not at it.
Her gaze doesn’t follow the kids playing a friendly match to end the week.
Kim waits. Danika will talk when she’s ready. Her hands twist in her lap.
It’s a few minutes before Danika looks across at her. One corner of her mouth lifts in a half-smile. “I barely slept last night. Luckily, Mirza brought the girls here today as Sylvie had to leave early. I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling.”
“I’m sorry,” Kim says, although she’s not sure for what. For a sleepless night? For inconveniencing Mirza? Or for being in a relationship with Danika’s husband for most of nine years?
“Around 4 am, I realised two things. The first is that I believe you, and I don’t blame you in any way.
I think you are as much of…” She runs her hands over her short hair.
“I don’t want to say ‘victim’. I don’t like that word.
It implies we’re powerless, and I don’t think we are.
But right now that word fits. So I think you are as much of a victim as I am. ”
Kim scans Danika’s face, wondering what’s coming next. There’s a “but” in here; she can see it coming like a bowling ball down a hallway.
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Danika continues, “and to be honest, I’m struggling to deal with it—to figure out how to talk to you.
I look at you and I see someone who took my husband away.
” She studies her nails. They’re cut short, not buffed, as if she cut them with clippers.
“And I didn’t even have the chance to take control of that because I didn’t know.
” She looks up at Kim, and her eyes are sheened with moisture. “I didn’t know.”
“What would you have done if you did?” Kim asks.
One thin shoulder lifts in a half-shrug.
“I don’t know. Given him an ultimatum, maybe.
Or just taken Cami and left—although if he’d told me when he moved in with you, there might be no Cami.
” She stares down at her feet. “Cami is keeping me going right now. I like to think I would have been strong, not begged him to stay—or ignored it. But hindsight is everything.” She glances across to Kim.
“And of course, you didn’t know either. What would you have done? ”
The million-dollar question. How often had Kim lain awake in the past few months asking herself exactly that?
“What I like to think I’d have done and what I might have actually done could be different.
I like to think I’d have confronted him, demanded to meet you, and then if I saw you and he were happy together, I like to think I’d have stepped back.
Kicked him out. Sent him back to you. But would I have been that honourable? I don’t know. I loved him.”
“So did I.” Danika sighs. “A love triangle. It’s like a romance novel.”
Kim looks across at her. She’s talking about a triangle pivoting around Chris, of course, but Kim’s mind has jumped to other options. Her lips twitch in a small smile.
“I’d like to stay in contact, if that’s what you want, too. But maybe we could take it slowly,” Danika says. “I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to handle this. And the girls…” She falls silent.
Kim nods. “You’re not the only one wondering.” She huffs a laugh. “But I’ve had longer to come to this point.”
“The other thing,” Danika continues, “is I think there’s a lot to sort through.
Where we both stand, how it affects us going forward.
” Her mouth turns down at one corner. “Listen to me. I sound like a lawyer. I hope it won’t involve lawyers.
But I’d like to keep in contact, to meet up.
And when we each tell our daughters, that’s a whole ’nother ballgame.
” She looks at the pitch, where Cami and Bella stand together, sucking orange quarters. The friendly match must be over.
Kim hasn’t been following the match at all.
Hopefully, she can bluff her way through it later when Bella asks if she’s watched.
She turns her attention back to Danika. “I didn’t know what would happen when I turned up at your door.
Honestly, I didn’t think it through as much as I should have.
But if there’s a ten-step plan for this sort of thing, then I missed the memo. ”
Danika has a lovely smile. It’s the first time Kim has seen it fully, but it shines on her face, and she finds herself smiling back.
“Mum and I talked last night,” Danika says. “She encouraged me to take this step…with you. If you’re willing. But to be honest, it’s hard to think of sharing Chris’s memory with anyone. But you probably think the same?” Danika has an expressive face; her emotions flit across it like summer showers.
Kim’s mouth turns down on one side. “The hardest part for me was when the police said there was no such person as Chris Henwood. That the person I lived with didn’t exist. And so I don’t know what I am now.
I’m not a widow. I’m a single woman with a child and a deadbeat partner who didn’t provide for us in the end. ”
“Did he…did he support you when you”—Danika squares her shoulders—“when you lived together?”
“We kept separate bank accounts—his idea.” Which of course now was understandable.
“I have my own business—I help people declutter their lives. Moving houses, after a bereavement, retirees moving to smaller places, that sort of thing. Chris moved into my apartment, and we split expenses. He told me he’d taken out a life insurance policy for me and Bella, but I never saw any paperwork, and when I contacted the firm he’d mentioned, they had no record of him. ”
Danika is silent, and Kim wonders if she’s overstepped, talking about money. It’s tight, of course, as a single parent, but she’s getting by. “I’m not after money. Bella and I, we’re doing okay.” She waves at the field. “Here we are at an expensive soccer clinic.”
Danika reaches out a hand and touches Kim’s.
Her fingers are dry, slightly rough. It’s the first time she’s touched Kim, who stares at the pale fingers resting on the back of her hand.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I didn’t think that.
And if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that money isn’t happiness.
” She switches her gaze to the field. “Guess it’s all over down there. ”
Bella and Cami are looking around, obviously searching for their mums. Then, side by side, the girls race up the grandstand toward them.
Bella jumps over the bench in front and hugs Kim around the waist. “You’re talking to Cami’s mum!
That’s super cool.” She looks at Cami, and the two of them giggle.
Cami sits next to Danika and nestles into her side.
It’s so like what Bella does that Kim catches her breath.
“Bella’s my new friend. Can she come around sometime? ”
Bella and Cami share a look. It’s as if they’ve jumped several layers of friendship and moved straight to besties. Or sisters.
“We’ll have to see,” Danika says. “They live quite a way away.”
“But can she?” Cami presses. “If it’s okay with Bella’s mum.”
“And can Cami come to ours, too?” Bella asks.
Oh, this is so unfair. How can she refuse when Bella is looking at her with big eyes and a hopeful expression? “That’s fine with me, Hella-Bella, but it’s a long way and Cami’s mum may not be able to bring her. You can’t go organising people’s lives like this.”
Bella sucks her lower lip and nods.
“We’ll see,” Danika says to Cami. “Now, have you got your things from the clubhouse?”
“I’ll get them now,” Cami says, and jumps down the steps two at a time, followed by Bella.
Danika rolls her eyes. “I guess we should have expected that, the way these two have bonded this week.”
“What do you want to do?” She’s letting Danika drive this. It seems only fair after how she landed the whole situation in Danika’s lap.
“Honestly? Hope Cami forgets about it. They’ll get together again at some point, but I’d rather go at my own pace.”
“I’ll go along with that. Hopefully, Bella will stop pestering me, too.
” She wants to prolong the conversation in case Danika and Cami disappear from their lives.
In case Danika finds she can’t, after all, deal with this at all.
Kim wouldn’t blame her for that. But the urge to get to know them both better is beating in her chest. They’re family.
Sort of.
Or they could be.
“Two goals!” Bella bounces so hard in the back, the seat rocks.
“You’re awesome,” Kim says again. “What was the final score?”
“Fifteen to thirteen. So if I hadn’t scored two, it would have been a draw.”
Kim nods. That’s a massive score, but the idea is to get all the kids involved and give them a chance to shine, so it’s not surprising.
“And Cami scored one, and Sylvie would have, but she had to leave early. Can Cami come around next week? Sylvie too?” Bella continues with barely a pause for breath. “I really like them. Cami best. The coach thought we looked alike. He called me Cami once.”
Kim goes cold. She should have expected this. The kids look alike; it’s there in their face shape, their skinny bodies, their gestures. But there’s no reason for Bella to think it anything but a coincidence—at least, not until Kim tells her the truth. She swallows hard.
“We can’t do next week, Hella-Bella. I’ve got to make up the work I missed while I was sitting in an icy grandstand watching you run around.”
Bella giggles. “S’okay. I’ll see Cami next weekend anyway.”
She will? Kim racks her brain to figure out what she’s missed.
“The kids and parents’ match. Next Saturday. I gave you the note yesterday.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Silly Mummy.” Bella giggles again. “It was in my bag.”
“Which is still by the washing machine waiting for you to empty it.”
“Oh.” Bella deflates for half a second. “Well, I’ll give it to you when we get home.
We’re gonna have a match…the kids play the first half, the parents the second.
It’ll be awesome! And then we have sausages in bread, and ice cream.
I said to Coach that you’d be great playing.
’Cause you play tennis and go running and stuff. ”
“Right,” Kim says. “You get your sporting skill from me.” She grins at Bella in the rearview mirror.
“And Daddy. He can run ever so fast and shoot a basketball hoop from ever so far away.”
“And Daddy,” Kim agrees. It’s all closing in on her.
Bella doesn’t mention Chris as often as she used to.
The psychologist Kim took her to after Chris went missing said to allow Bella to work through it at her own pace.
But after only a few sessions, she hadn’t wanted to go anymore, and Kim hadn’t pushed her.
“Sometimes I dream Daddy comes back for us,” Bella says quietly. “He’s not dead, he can’t be, as he’s so strong and fast. He wouldn’t let anything hurt him. So he must have run away.”
Kim’s heart sheds another layer. How many more to go before it cracks and shatters? These wafer-thin layers that peel away one by one must surely be running out. “I don’t think so,” she whispers. “Daddy would never have left us. It’s more likely he’s gone.”
“You mean dead?” Bella’s lips twist. “Cami’s dad is dead. He died in a car crash. She’s sad.”
“Is that part of why you like Cami? Because she’s lost her dad as well?”
“Maybe.” Bella nibbles her lower lip. “I mean, Jorie’s my best friend, but I really like Cami.”
“You can have more than one best friend,” Kim says, and the inevitability of what’s going to happen draws a little closer.