Chapter 29 Danika #2
Amanda steps forward. “Chris was many things to many people, and while it is hard to condone his choices, he is a part of my grandchild Bella. An important part of Kim’s life for many years.
And that will always be. Bella, you had a good daddy who loved you.
Kim had a loving partner. Danika and Camille, you too, have shared these things.
Whatever the future brings, let us remember Chris for the good things he brought us.
” She stares at Jorge, as if to soothe his anger down to socially acceptable platitudes.
Amanda steps back.
Danika suppresses a gasp as Cami steps forward.
“My daddy was also Bella’s daddy, and I’m happy to have a sister now. I wish we could have always been together, but we are now.”
Kim looks around again. “If no one else has anything to say, if you wish, please join Bella and me in sprinkling the sand into the water.”
Everyone moves forward and takes turns to take a handful of sand and throw it into the sea.
The sand is cool, slightly damp. It’s coarse and gritty and sticks to Danika’s fingers after she’s thrown it. She brushes it off. It’s not Chris, but it symbolises him, and right now she doesn’t even want that on her hands.
Kim and Bella empty the pot between them.
“Please come back to the apartment for lunch,” Kim says.
Danika and Cami walk to their car together.
“That was nice,” Cami says. “It was different to Daddy’s funeral. Bella is happy, though.”
“That’s the important thing,” Danika says. She can’t say more. Not now. But later… Can she talk about this with Kim? This consuming anger? She doesn’t know. Has Kim already put this together? She doesn’t know that either. But today is not the day for that conversation.
The group gathers in Kim’s living room. There are photos of Chris on every surface.
They weren’t there previously—Kim must have put them out for today.
Some Danika has seen before; others are new to her.
There’s Chris coming out of the ocean at Johanna Beach, hauling up his board shorts with both hands.
Another of him and Bella kicking a ball around on the sand at St Kilda Beach.
One of him waving from the window of the car—the same car he was driving the day of the accident.
Bella, Cami, and Jorie are looking at the photos together, and Bella’s voice rises and falls as she explains them.
Lies. Farce. A life of deception.
Danika finds a chair away from the rest of the group and sits.
She needs a moment to compose herself before she can make nice.
She’s aware of Jorge’s glare, of Amanda’s assessing glance, of Suze’s sympathetic smile.
And of course Kim’s gaze, too frequent to be casual, a wrinkle between her eyes as she looks at Danika.
Kim must know Danika is struggling, but right now, she is the hostess.
“Danika.” Amanda stands in front of her, a glass of white wine in her hand. “May I sit?” She indicates the chair next to Danika.
Danika nods and composes her face into welcoming lines. Amanda seems, while not exactly friendly, there’s no animosity in her face either.
Amanda sits and angles her body toward Danika. “I could ask you how you feel about this”—she indicates the small gathering in the room with a nod—“but your face is expressive. Is this hard for you?”
Danika considers. “It is, yes, but not in the way you’re probably thinking.
I guess a lot of things about Chris—the man that I thought I knew—have come into sharp focus.
Right now, I’m very, very angry and struggling not to show it for Kim and the girls’ sake. I guess I’m not doing a very good job.”
“You’re doing pretty well,” Amanda says. “Did Kim tell you I was a psychologist before I retired?”
Danika shakes her head. “She hasn’t mentioned you much, to be completely honest.”
Amanda’s mouth thins. “She only told Jorge and me the full story, about you, about Camille, last week, so I’m not surprised she hasn’t talked about us.
” She tilts her head. “Jorge is as angry as you. He’s holding it in.
I have to make sure we leave before he gets to the point where he says something he will doubtless regret.
He is angry at Chris—not at you, not at Kim, certainly not at the kids. ”
“That makes two of us.” Saliva floods Danika’s mouth, and for a moment she thinks she might throw up.
“Would it help to talk through that anger?” Amanda asks.
“If I didn’t know you were a psychologist before, I do now,” Danika says. “And thank you for the offer, but I’m okay.”
“You’re not being entirely truthful, I think. I hope you have someone to talk to, Danika. Your parents, maybe. I hope to talk with them later. After all, we share grandchildren.”
“Right now, I’m angry at Chris because today brought home the extent of his duplicity.
” The words rush out of Danika’s mouth almost without conscious thought, and once started, she can’t stop.
“The things I thought were ‘special’ to my family…it turns out many of those things were also ‘special’ to his family with Kim and Bella. And I feel more betrayed. Furious, as it shows a calculation in what he did. Before I guess, I thought he just somehow fell into his second relationship and was too weak to level with us.”
“There’s probably a bit of that,” Amanda says thoughtfully. “But you’re right; manipulators and serial liars often stick to one version of the truth so they’re less likely to slip up.”
Danika huffs. “Imagine if one day Chris put on our family song and it wasn’t ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ but was ‘Baby I Love You’ or something. I certainly would have wondered at that.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Amanda says gently. “When you’ve lived with a situation for many years, it’s very hard to pick up on the warning signs.”
“You’re right.” Danika stares down at her untouched wine. The urge to throw up has abated, but there is no way she wants to drink anything except water.
“Kim says you live in Belgrave,” Amanda says. “Are you still in the house you shared with Chris?”
“Yes. Luckily, we were joint tenants, so it automatically came to me.”
“Lucky how?” Amanda’s gaze sharpens. “From what Kim has said, your Chris went by his legal name, so you would have had no issue sorting out his affairs.”
“Not entirely true.” Danika falls silent. She doesn’t want to say too much. She’s made her decision about Chris’s assets, but Kim should learn that first, not Amanda. And now is not the time nor the place.
“How so?”
“It’s never easy, is it? Sorting out anything like that. And you have to do it all while grieving. Even with a solicitor, there’s still so much to do.” Vague enough, she hopes, to throw Amanda off the scent.
Her parents approach. Shirley kisses Danika’s cheek, then holds out a hand to Amanda. “I’m happy to meet you, Amanda. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Kim and Bella.”
Paul clasps her hand as well and murmurs something.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Danika murmurs, and takes the opportunity to slip away.
She goes to the kitchen and dumps her untouched wine in the sink, rinses the glass and fills it with water.
For a moment, she rests her hands on the edge of the sink and stares unseeing out of the kitchen window.
This window overlooks the next apartment block, and Danika stares at curtained windows and a man at his kitchen sink one floor down.
Footsteps sound behind her, then Kim appears at her side. Kim touches her back, runs her hand down to her waist. “Are you okay? You seem uncomfortable.”
Danika forces a smile. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Kim wraps her arm around Danika’s waist and taps her hipbone. “You’re obviously holding something in. Have my parents said something to you?”
“Amanda’s been perfectly lovely. I haven’t talked to Jorge yet.”
“Still.” Kim leans in for a moment. “You can talk to me, Danika. Something has happened today to upset you. I thought we could talk about these things.”
Danika swings around to face Kim. “You’re right, but I don’t want to talk about it today. This day is for Bella and you, and I don’t want to spoil it. It’s just something small to do with Chris, but it made me angry. We’ll talk about it later, I promise. But not today.”
“I understand,” Kim says. “And thank you. I think today will help Bella.” Her hand falls from Danika’s hip. “How long can you stay? We could go out for Thai noodles with the girls after everyone has left.”
“I have to go home.” She bites the inside of her cheek. “We’re eating dinner with my parents tonight. But thank you. I assumed you’d be spending the evening with your parents.”
“They have friends in Melbourne,” Kim says. “They’re having dinner with them tonight.”
“We’ll catch up soon, then.”
“Next weekend? Weeknights are hard when the kids are in school.”
“For sure.” Danika forces a smile. “Thanks for checking in, Kim.” She leans in, kisses her cheek. “Now, go back to your guests. I’m going to look at your photos.” She picks up her glass of water and follows Kim back to the living area.
Danika browses her way along the wall of photos. She tells herself she’s simply looking so she can talk about them with Kim and Bella later, but one part of her mind is searching for more similarities.
And she finds them.
Three photos of Chris wearing the pants he told her he’d ripped and thrown away the week he bought them.
No doubt he simply took them to Kim’s. Bella riding piggyback with her hands over Chris’s eyes—the game he used to play with Cami where she’d guide him around the garden with “left a bit, right a bit, stop!” Kim unwrapping a gift box containing a silver bangle shaped like the infinity symbol.
The date under the photo was three years ago—the year Chris had given Danika the exact same bangle for her birthday.
Bile rises in her throat once more. How come she didn’t notice these similarities when she and Kim shared photos on their phones?
Because Amanda is right—then, she wasn’t looking for these things. Then, she was sure she was the main person in Chris’s life, his wife, and despite Kim’s de facto status, Danika was sure she was the most important.
So not so.
She catches up with Cami, Bella, and Jorie. They’re looking at a photo of Chris hanging one of Bella’s finger-paintings on the wall. It’s still there; Danika noticed it in the hall.
Cami comes over and leans against Danika’s side.
“Bella says Daddy told her it should hang in the big gallery in Melbourne. Just like he said about mine!” There’s a smile in her voice, and it’s all Danika can do to keep the shake out of her voice as she says, “That’s because you and Bella are both equally good at painting. ”
The little things pile up until Danika feels smothered.
How come she had never noticed them before?
The answer leaps out at her. At first, she was too stunned, too disbelieving that Chris would do that to her.
Then, when she and Kim shared photographic glimpses into each other’s lives, they were curated glimpses.
And it seems that Kim, like Danika, picked general photos to share, not ones that would drive home their importance. And why did she do that?
The answer rolls over her like the tide.
Because even then, she was empathetic to Kim and the situation they were in.
Even then, she didn’t want to hurt her by parading the important parts of her and Cami’s lives with the man they had inadvertently shared.
And, it seems, Kim did the same. But now, at this celebration of life, of course the milestones are being celebrated and remembered.
Danika forces herself to continue on around the photos, letting Cami chatter away, pointing out Chris in all sorts of places, the goofy look she knew so well. It hurts, but not much.
The dominant emotion churning in her mind is rage.