It was hard not to reflect on the trauma my family had endured but I’d given up searching for answers. Love doesn’t question how or why. It just exists – giving us purpose to get up and fight another day.
Losing the anger and being grateful for the good was important. It was about understanding the difference between darkness and blackness.
For a scary moment, there was an absence of light, which I’d perceived as blackness. Seeing my son in the arms of his mother proved how wrong I’d been. Blackness hadn’t clouded or dulled any of us. Darkness finally lifted and we were shining again, just as clearly and brightly as we always had.
33. PRISONER OF WAR
Gabrielle went from strength to strength over the next few days, and slowly but surely life seemed to regain some semblance of normality.
Charli was understandably keen to get back to New York and I urged her to go. Bridget’s fourth birthday was just days away, and if she missed it, I’d never forgive myself. I’d kept her to myself for too long.
The plan for that day was to drive her to the airport and spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out with Gabi and Jack at the hospital. It was the last day I’d have them to myself for a while. Gabrielle’s parents were due to arrive the next day. Sharing was going to be difficult, but I vowed to try.
I arrived at the cottage much earlier than necessary, which turned out to be a good move.
My daughter was in need of rescuing.
I got out of the car and walked over to the shed. “Should I ask what you’re doing up there?” I put my hand to my forehead, shielding my eyes from the sun as I looked up at her.
Charli was sitting on the roof of the shed, leisurely swinging her legs over the edge. “I’m a prisoner of war,” she announced.
“The Lost Boys?”
She grinned down at me. “Yeah. They caught wind of the news that I’m going home today.”
The fact that they’d taken her prisoner didn’t shock me. What surprised me was that they’d managed to get her on to the roof in the first place. “You’re off your game, Charlotte.” I almost sounded disappointed.
“No,” she replied, laughing. “They lifted theirs.”
I listened intently as she explained how the Lost Boys had gotten the better of her. She’d caught Mason half way up a ladder, trying to retrieve a lost Frisbee off the shed roof. She’d gallantly moved him aside and climbed up to get it herself.
“The little scammer was crying and everything.” She frowned, probably cursing herself for being so gullible. “Before I knew what was happening, Tyler and Sean swooped in and took off with the ladder. They said they’d come back for me when they were sure my plane had taken off.”
It was hard not to be impressed by their tenacity. I should probably have been a little alarmed by their tactics as well, but I wasn’t. I had trouble letting her go too. “Didn’t you think to yell for help?” I asked, doing nothing to hide my wry smile. “Hannah or Flynn would’ve rescued you.”
She turned her head, glancing back at the house next door. “Well, I was going to but then something terrible happened.” Her dramatic tone wasn’t the least bit believable. “Wade, Jasmine and the non-rhyming juniors turned up next door. I decided to just bunker down and wait for you.”
I laughed, mainly at her choice of words. “Gabi worked it out, you know,” I said irrelevantly. “The rhyming thing.”
“She did?” Her whole face lit up. “Tell me.”
Gabrielle was an extremely lateral thinker. She always approached things creatively and indirectly. Perhaps it was because she was an artist. Or maybe it was just because she was brilliant.
Wade wasn’t brilliant. He was an idiot who got his words mixed up.
“Lincoln, Lachlan and Cheyne,” I announced, looking up at her. “Get it now?”
Charli frowned, gazing out at the ocean in the distance while she pondered my words. “Link, lock and chain,” she said finally. “That’s almost clever.”
I dropped my head, laughing down at the ground. “Almost.”
“Go over there and tell them how clever they are,” she joked. “And while you’re at it, tell the Lost Boys I want my ladder back.”
I lifted my head to look at her. “I’m not sure I want to,” I admitted. “I like having you around too.”
Charli smiled, but it was sad. “I miss my kid – and her father.”
There was no better reason to let her go.
“You should get off the roof then,” I teased. “You’re going to miss your plane.”
In a move that made me nervous, she leaned forward, looking down at the ground. “I need a ladder.”
“Just jump,” I replied.
The smile she flashed me was different this time. It was cheeky and lovely and threw me right back to when she was little. “Will you catch me?” she asked.
I barely hesitated. “Every single time you jump, Charli, I will catch you.”
We’d had a lot of very important conversations over the past few days, and this one was shaping up to be no different. Charli knew it too.
“I never doubted it,” she replied.
I couldn’t quite believe her. Charli had seen me in a completely different light over the past week, and there had been more than one moment that I wasn’t necessarily proud of.
“You were my first, Charli,” I told her. “No matter what, don’t ever forget that.”
“First what?”
I shrugged, feeling slightly coy when it came to elaborating. “First love, first child, first always and first forever.”
She stood up, steadying herself by stretching out her arms. “Don’t make me cry again, Dad,” she said in a wobbly voice. “Just get me down from here.”
I grabbed my keys from my pocket, unlocked the shed and grabbed a ladder.
When she was safely on ground, I added the last piece to my declaration by pulling her into my arms. “We’re a team, Charli,” I told her. “The team is just a little bigger now.”
“I like it bigger.”
“Me too.”
I no longer measured the mark I was leaving on the world. I realised that the mark the world left on me was much more important.
Gabrielle’s hand fit perfectly in mine. Jack’s little body was the perfect fit for the crook of my elbow. And Charli’s head fit perfectly under my chin when I hugged her. Those are the marks of a man who has everything.
THE END
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