Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Kim
Even though Kim and Danika have been sitting in Mirza’s kitchen for over an hour, Bella and Cami show no inclination to leave. Right now, they’re out in the backyard with their hobby horses, prancing around in a circle walking, trotting, and cantering.
Kim and Danika sit watching Mirza make wraps for lunch. Some chicken and salad; some just salad. A pile of tomatoes and radishes from her garden.
Ashwin coos to himself in a bassinet.
Mirza yawns. “Honestly, those three could talk the hind leg off a donkey. I gave up on them and went to bed at one in the morning. When I said goodnight, they were all in their sleeping bags, chattering away. When I woke at seven, they were talking again. For all I know, the only sleep they got was when I texted you. And look at them now!” She gestures to Sylvie cantering her hobby horse around behind the rose bushes.
Kim grins. “Bella was so excited about the hobby horse idea. She made me go to three shops before we found Cloudy.”
“Sylvie has a stable in her room for Midnight,” Mirza says. “She feeds him morning and night. Apparently, he likes Froot Loops best—which coincidentally is Sylvie’s favourite snack.”
“I suspect Cami will now start doing the same for Lily,” Danika says.
Mirza finishes the final wrap and shunts the platter into the centre of the counter. “Danika, can you get the plates out while I get drinks? And Kim, can you call the riders inside—horses to remain outside.”
Kim goes and does that. The girls rush in, horses abandoned on the deck.
“Can Sylvie and Cami come to ours next week?” Bella asks through a mouthful of tomato. “Can we go to Luna Park? Sylvie’s never been.”
Kim raises an eyebrow at Mirza and Danika. Danika gives a quick nod, but Mirza is already shaking her head. “Daddy’s home then, honey,” she says to Sylvie. “But another time, for sure.”
“Then we’ll leave Luna Park until Sylvie can come too,” Danika says.
“Yay! Daddy’s coming home!” Sylvie takes an enormous bite of her wrap and bounces on her stool.
Eventually, the hobby horses are stowed in their stables or in the boots of cars, the girls corralled, and Kim and Danika take their leave.
“Thank you so much,” Kim says to Mirza. “Sylvie’s welcome at ours anytime.”
“It was a pleasure,” Mirza says. She pulls Kim into a hug and whispers, “And I still need to hear about your night out, when the kids aren’t around.”
Cami and Bella hug goodbye. Cami whispers something in Bella’s ear, and they both giggle.
As expected, Bella chatters non-stop in the car. Kim learns Sylvie loves her little brother, but doesn’t like it when he cries, and she misses her dad when he’s away working. She doesn’t want babies when she grows up because then she couldn’t work on the oil rigs like her dad.
“She could still go,” Kim says, but Bella is already on to something else.
“Do you know Cami’s never been camping?” Bella says. “Sylvie has, and she doesn’t like it. Can we go camping with Cami?”
Kim worries her bottom lip. “We’ll have to see.” What she means is she’ll have to ask Danika when the kids aren’t around.
Her mind spins off into a fantasy of two tents pitched near the ocean—maybe down the Great Ocean Road.
A campfire with marshmallows, and homemade damper filled with honey cooked on the fire.
A bottle of red. The kids in bed—insisting on sharing a tent.
Which would mean Kim and Danika would have to share the other tent…
With a start, she realises Bella is talking. “What was that, Hella-Bella?”
“Cami says she wanted to go camping with Dad, but he’d never take her.”
Kim concentrates on the road, on the traffic through Rowville.
Chris had loved camping. Maybe, though, camping was something special that he did only with them, not something he wanted to share with Danika and Cami.
Her lips twist. Or maybe, more likely, it was so he didn’t muddle camping trips and talk about something that happened with them to Danika.
“It would be awesome to go camping with Cami!” Bella bounces in her seat. “It’s my favourite thing apart from soccer.”
Kim loves camping too, but what she loved most was seeing Bella and Chris so immersed in the experience. In nature, on the beach, finding shells and seaweed and the occasional washed-up sea creature. Salty bodies and stiff seawater hair. The stars at night.
Kim catches her breath. She would love to go camping with Danika, as much as Bella wants to go with Cami. “I’ll check with Danika.”
“Cool. Can we stop for ice cream?”
“We can do that on condition you tidy your room when we get home.”
“Okay.” Bella giggles and offers Kim a wide grin.
It’s the next day before Kim raises it with Danika.
“Bella wants to go camping,” she says, “and she’d love it if Cami came too.” A pause. “And I’d love it if you came too.”
Danika’s breathing breaks the silence on the line.
“Or if you don’t want to come, then would you be comfortable if Cami came with us?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to come,” Danika says. “I’m thinking practicalities. We don’t have camping gear. The closest we ever came to camping was a cabin in a caravan park in Gippsland.”
The opposite direction to the Great Ocean Road. Careful Chris, keeping his two lives apart, even for something as low risk as holidays.
“We have two tents, and most things we’d need. I’m sure I’ll be able to borrow anything extra from Suze. She and Jorie come with us sometimes. There’s a gorgeous place we know down the Great Ocean Road. It’s a national park campsite, right on the beach.”
“That sounds great,” Danika says in a rush. It’s as if she’s made an instant decision and wants to confirm it before she changes her mind. “When were you thinking?”
“If we go before school starts, I can manage three or four days. It will be busier during the holidays, but we can’t help that.”
“How about…” The rustle of Danika consulting a calendar. “Next week, Tuesday to Friday, if that’s not too short notice for you? Then we’ll avoid the holiday weekend when it’s likely to be extremely busy.”
“That works for me.”
They firm up the arrangements, and Kim hangs up and goes to tell Bella the good news.