Page 112 of Kiwi Gold

I said, “They’re the girls I’m going to do better by than you did, that’s who. But right now, I’m going to take you home.”

So I didn’t have to hit my stepfather—adoptive father—ex-father—in the vagus nerve, and Torsten didn’t get to hit him in the nose.

Probably for the best.

48

TO THE MOON

Laila

Lunch was a bit of an anticlimax. Everybody ate pretty fast and got out of there, except Lachlan’s mum, Philippa, who stayed to help Dad and me with the washing-up. The girls were in the playroom again, fortunately, and this room was big, which meant that whatever we said, Amira wouldn’t be repeating it. Something I needed to talk to her about.

I sighed inwardly. Sometimes, you just wanted motherhood to stop for a minute so you could catch your breath.

Philippa, the poster woman for impossible levels of mothering difficulty, had a tea towel tied around her waist as a makeshift apron and was wrapping leftover kebabs in foil when Dad said, “You did a good job with them. Your girls.”

“So did you,” she said. “We both did too much alone, though. Lexi—I’m a bit worried about Lexi.”

“Nah,” Dad said. “She’s all right. Got a wild side, that’s all. When she finds what she wants, she’ll settle down. That must come from me, because it was never you.” He’d been scrubbing a roasting pan in the prep sink beside her, but now, he turned to smile at her, and my hands stilled on the cutlery I’d been slotting into the top rack of the dishwasher.

Should I leave? Or was I wrong about what I was sensing?

“You?” Philippa asked. “A wild side? I don’t remember that.”

“Before my marriage,” he said. “I was looking for something, I reckon. Once I found it, I didn’t have to look anymore.”

“You loved her that much,” Philippa said.

“Yeh,” Dad said gruffly. “I did. Worst day of my life, the day she died, except for the days after that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“And I’m sorry Peter left you high and dry,” he said. “Wish I’d known, though I should’ve known, because I knew him. More like—wish I’d warned you.”

“But then I wouldn’t have had the girls,” she said. “And I think I may have got the right sperm after all.” She laughed. “Sounds awful. Who could have foreseen this?”

He grinned. “Yeh. Who’d have thought? We could have lunch sometime, maybe. Talk about this without the whole group of them around. Sort through it, the two of us.”

“Only if you don’t have dementia,” she teased.

I thought he’d bristle, but instead, he laughed. “Not so far, anyway. The brain seems to be in pretty good order. Got a broken nose, though. Not as pretty as I once was. Wait. I was never pretty. That’s what the beard’s for.”

They were both laughing now, and I shut the dishwasher and headed back to the playroom for the girls, not one bit sure how I felt about all this. I’d sort it out tomorrow, because today, I was done.

When I got to the playroom, Yasmin and Amira were building with the enormous box of bricks my dad had cut and sanded to my mum’s specifications, close to thirty-five years ago. And, yes, I was thinking about that, because it appeared I wasn’t done after all.

My mum had said, one day when I’d pulled both my parents into my room to show them the castle I’d built, complete with turrets and semicircular windows and a moat, “It’s good that you made these for her, Torsten. Girls need spatial awareness, too, and look how she’s developing it. That’s because of you.”

“Course I did it,” my dad said. “You asked me to, didn’t you? And what d’you mean, that’s me? Who’s the architect here, and who’s the dwarf grubbing in the dirt?”

She laughed and held his arm. “No dwarf. My hero.”

“Mm,” he said. “Who knows, Laila could turn out as talented as her mum. Got to give her wings if she’s going to fly.” And, as usual, he’d wrapped his arms around Mama as if he couldn’t do anything else.

I may not have always been the focus of my parents’ attention, but I’d had no doubt they loved each other, and that they loved me, and that was a gift to treasure.

Here in the present, my own girls were building a house for Barbie, and I admired it the same way my parents had, then said, “It’s about time to go.”