All the Ways to Here

by Emily O'Beirne

  Nan stands at the counter and listens patiently to Riley’s word-vomit recap of the weekend. “I’m glad you girls had a good time,” she says, already pulling washing from Riley’s bags.

  Willa hugs Jack to her side. “So, did you win?”

  “Yep. Kicked two goals.”

  “He was excellent,” Nan says. “Your dad and I both watched.”

  “Well done. My champion brother.” Willa lets Jack go and looks nervously around for traces of her father’s presence.

  “He got a flight out last night,” Nan says.

  Willa feels an odd emptiness. Despite everything, it’s weird to think he won’t be here anymore, ghosting around the house. It’s back to the four of them again. She knows she’s supposed to feel happy about it, but now she just feels strange. Like there’s a thread hanging loose. One she’s too scared to pull in case of the damage it will do. She frowns at her stupid, unwieldy thoughts. How stupid to spend so long resenting the imposition of him, only now to feel the lack of him.

  Get over it, Willa. She picks up her bag and heads for the stairs.

  “Bring your washing straight back down for me,” Nan calls. “Then it will have a chance to dry this afternoon.”

  “Okay.” It’s an odd little bliss, being ordered around again, to come home to the sunshine calm of their little house, where Nan presides once more.

  Willa climbs the stairs slowly, still luxuriating in that feeling of being bleached and salted by the hours on the beach. Even though it was never quite hot enough, she swam anyway. Couldn’t not. They walked too, hiking along choppy stretches of coast, exploring with Finn and family. It feels as if the wind has whipped right through her insides, cleansing her somehow.

  In her room, there’s an envelope propped against her pillow. She drops her bag on the bed and picks it up, frowning. Inside is a small piece of folded paper and a cheque for more money than Willa’s seen in a while.

  She unfolds the paper, her heart a ticking mess. His writing is a childlike scrawl that marches lopsidedly across the page. Just like Jack’s.

  You don’t have to worry. I promise you that if anything happens, I’ll come back. You and your brother and sister will always be looked after. For as long as you need it. Never, ever worry about that.

  This money is for you. It’s not a bribe. It’s not anything but the fact that I know you need a new computer. How else will you keep showing your teachers what a brilliant girl you are? Your nan sends me your essays sometimes. Maybe you don’t know that.

  Someday you three should come up here to visit. It’s been too long. I’ll take you camping in the forest where we went when you were little. There are waterholes and waterfalls and secret green places everywhere. Maybe you’ll like it as much as you did back then, when neither your mum or I could get you out of the water for a second.

  Love Dad.

  For a minute, Willa can only blink, awash with a sudden memory of a waterhole and brown water. The sounds of her gasping breaths and the feel of his hand under her belly, holding her up as she splash-kicked her inching way across the surface.

  She drops the note on the bed. But then the next thing she knows she’s picking it up and tucking it into a book in her bookshelf, because she needs it to be out of her sight. But she also needs it to be close, though she doesn’t know exactly why. In fact, she doesn’t recognise anything in the cocktail of feelings currently assaulting her. All she knows is it’s making her throat ache and her insides hurt.

  Shifting into the comforting automatic of doing, she pulls her washing from her bag and marches numbly down the stairs. Dropping her clothes on top of Riley’s, she switches on the machine.

  In the kitchen, Nan’s straining something at the sink. She looks at Willa and frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Before Willa even knows the storm is coming, it’s on her. She sinks into a kitchen chair, rests her head on her arms and sobs. Sobs until it hurts. Suddenly, Nan’s fingers are running soothing journeys through her waves of hair. Under the comfort of her touch, Willa somehow finds her breath. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

  Nan pulls out the chair and sits next to her. “Yes, you do.”

  She does, a little. That clumsy letter let loose all kinds of feeling Willa didn’t even know she had about him––that she could have about him. There’s sadness. There’s also something like guilt. Because maybe she could have tried harder too. She looks up at her grandmother, staring at the blissful familiarity of her ruddy, lined face, and her no-nonsense hair. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

  Nan smiles, her fingers still busy with the job of smoothing Willa’s hair back from her face. “Will you let me tell you some things about your dad?”

  Willa nods slowly, and rests her face on her arms again.

  “He doesn’t seem like much of a father to you. I know that.” Nan sounds sad about that.

  Willa scratches at a mark on the table and wonders what it’s like to watch your child be a parent. How strange.

  “And maybe he hasn’t been,” Nan says. “It’s a pity. But he never really got a chance to learn to be. It was your mum who loved babies, you know. Wanted a heap of them, and she wanted them young, and he would have done anything she wanted. So he took jobs in the mines, on boats, in factories, so she could have the thing she wanted. And I think he got to like it too when he was home. He was never going to be the chatty, share a deep-and-meaningful-fatherly-advice dad, but I think he would have figured it all out. He would have grown into the job if she’d been by his side, showing him how. But sometimes people are put in situations they aren’t ready for.” Nan plucks a tissue from her pocket and passes it to Willa. “No one knew what would happen to her. To him. To all of you. Suddenly he was in his twenties, alone with three kids. He had no idea what to do, but he did try.”

  “I offered to take you all back here right after the funeral, at least until he found his feet and a job he could do with you all in his care, but he wanted to see if he could do it himself. He thought he should. But in the end it was just too hard with the kind of work he was a fit for, and Jack and Riley being so young. He called me one day, and he was crying on the phone because he felt like you weren’t living the life you should be, always with the neighbours or stuck in that house because he was too tired from work to do anything with you most nights.”

  Willa’s chest squeezes, because the thought of him crying on the phone to his mother makes her want to cry again too.

  “Even after I convinced him to bring you here, he felt terrible about it. He tried to get a job down here, but he couldn’t find one and had to go back. But he’s never missed sending money, not once. And this time, he used up every single day of leave he had being down here. He wanted to stay longer, to make sure we’d be okay, even if it meant losing his job. I told him to go back.”

  She takes a hold of Willa’s wrist. “That’s how he fathers you now. By supporting you. When you started at Gandry and we found out the bursary didn’t cover the uniform, he found the money for it. I don’t know where, but he did. Sometimes I’m worried that he doesn’t leave himself enough to live on.”

  Willa can only sit there and blink at Nan. She had no idea. She didn’t even know they had to pay for the uniform, and she definitely didn’t know that he paid for it. She didn’t know he wanted to stay longer. She didn’t know any of this.

  “This is how he takes care of you,” Nan says. “Because this is the only way he knows how to. I know it probably doesn’t feel like enough, but it’s going to have to be.”

  “I know,” Willa whispers. And maybe it is enough. He’s promised he’ll come if he’s needed. Maybe Willa can let that be enough. She smiles at Nan through her tears. “I have you, anyway.”

  “You have me. Always”

  “Do you really send him my essays?”

  “I’ve been sending him your schoolwork since the day you came here. And if I don’t send it, he asks for it.”

  Willa sniffs. “I didn’
t know that.”

  “I didn’t tell you. Maybe I should have.” Nan smooths another non-existent hair from Willa’s forehead and leans in, her face serious. “You have me, of course. But maybe, with a bit of effort on both sides, you might be able to have each other too.”

  “Maybe,” Willa whispers.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER 65

  Finn

  Finn walks out of the classroom reading the text that’s come from her dad.

  It was a treat to see you this weekend, kiddo. I like your Willa a lot. She’s a quiet fire, I can tell.

  What he doesn’t know is that sometimes Willa’s a blaze too.

  This weekend, her dad finally told Finn about the article he’s working on, a piece about a war correspondent who reported so hard and for so long from war zones she forgot how to live in the real world. He almost seems glad he lost his job now. He says it’s freed him for other things, things he feels are more worthy than the daily drudgery of political news. “I felt more like a gossip columnist than a reporter sometimes,” he said to her.

  She’s glad for him, even though she wants him back. Even with the rift it caused, Finn will never stop admiring him for doing what he did. For standing up for people who couldn’t do it themselves. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for his journalism career, but it was the right thing for his soul. She likes to think that she’d do the same thing he did.

  And maybe that’s why she finds herself heading towards Mr Granger’s office when the lunch bell rings. She marches the familiar journey to his office as fast as she can, refusing every temptation to change her mind and go find Dan instead.

  Mr Granger’s hunched over his desk, a trail of crumbs guiding his sandwich from lunchbox to mouth. Ms Lehrer’s there too, staring into space, her long legs crossed, a sandwich in her hand too. Looks like they still haven’t cottoned on to the whole matching lunch giveaway.

  Finn plants herself in front of his desk. “Hey,” she says, already wondering how much she’s going to regret this.

  He looks up at, blinking. A fleck of something green is stuck to the corner of his mouth. She points at the same spot on her lip.

  He swipes it away. “Are we meeting today, Harlow?” He looks at his desk planner. “Because if we are, I for—”

  “No, I just have something to tell you.”

  He tips his head to one side, looking wary. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Shoot.”

  She takes a deep breath, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Okay, so, on Speech Night, the principal thanked me for organising the whole night. But Zehra did just as much as me. Actually, maybe she did more in the end. The important stuff, anyway. I just think…” She feels herself losing momentum as regret begins its slow seep. “I don’t know, I just think someone should know how hard she worked and that she had some really amazing ideas. And then she kind of saved the whole night when the alumni guy pulled out, by finding a replacement while I was doing something else. It was her, not me. I just think someone should know,” she says. “That’s all.”

  His stare lingers. Then he grudges a nod, like he’s finally accepting something he’s been talked into. “Copy that.”

  She stands there, waiting for something else to come. It doesn’t. “C-cool,” she says, her face flaming. “I’m out.” She backs out of the room without looking at either of them and makes a dash for it.

  When she’s clear of the building, and clear of possibly the best or stupidest thing she’s done all week, she hunts down Dan via text.

  In the computer lab, she sinks into a seat next to him.

  “What’s with you?” he asks. “You look like you just witnessed a murder.”

  “The murder of my reputation, maybe. I can’t believe I just did that.” She blinks at the editing software on his screen. Her ribs feel tight, and all the righteousness she marched into Granger’s office with is gone, leaving only a fizzing of nerves. “I might have done something stupid.”

  “How stupid?”

  She tells him.

  “What?” He drags his eyes from the screen again, his face scrunched in disbelief. “Zehra? Why’d you help out that suck?”

  “Hey, don’t be like that. Just because you’ve got some ancient, infantile beef with her.” She glares at him. “I did it because she deserves to be acknowledged. So what if she can be a suck? She’s really nice and she also works really hard and tries really hard. I mean, what’s actually wrong with that?”

  “Okay, okay. Nothing.” He holds up his hands. “Don’t get angry with me. Zehra deserves all the kudos in the world. But aren’t you worried? You’re basically acknowledging, to a teacher, no less, that she did your job for you.”

  Finn gnaws at a fingernail and shrugs. “Well, it’s the truth, so…”

  “Harlow, I swear…” He shakes his head at her. “Honesty has got to be your worst freaking trait.”

  “Shut up,” she mutters. “I already know that.”

  CHAPTER 66

  Finn

  Finn tucks her hands under her head and stares at the ceiling. She can still see the places where the glow-in-the-dark stars her dad put up there when she was little used to be. They’ve all dropped away since, leaving only faint, sticky marks.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” she asks. “For telling Granger about Zehra and Speech Night?”

  “Finn.” Willa gives her a wry smile. “I told you, you’ll do what you do. So I already knew you’d do that.”

  “You did?”

  She presses a finger to Finn’s sternum, still smiling. “I know you, Finn Harlow.”

  “You do know me.” Finn buries her face in Willa’s neck, her favourite place to hide.

  “So when do they announce school captain?” Willa asks.

  “Friday.” Finn’s stomach does that flip-flop thing it does every time she thinks about it. She doesn’t know if she’s nervous because she wants it or just because she wants to know what’s going to happen for sure. But she does know that she doesn’t want to think about it right now, so she rolls over and kisses Willa. Because kissing Willa is the best kind of distraction there is.

  Willa agrees, apparently, pulling her close and stroking a hand over her waist. And as Willa’s tongue finds hers, Finn wraps a leg over Willa’s and kisses her harder.

  Since that morning at the beach house, Finn’s only problem with Willa has been keeping her hands off. Because now that she’s taken a baby step, she just wants more. Much more than the alone time they seem to be able to snatch lately. More than the hot, breathless minutes curled on her bed with the door open, alert for footsteps. More than hot kisses down the side of Willa’s house because there’s nowhere else to hide when they’re over at her house. She wants more than the slide of Willa’s legs against hers. More than the push of lips against her neck. Whatever it is that began to unfurl in Finn that morning at the beach is completely unravelling. And the best part is that it feels completely okay.

  She rolls onto her back, making room for Willa’s fingers to creep higher under her school shirt.

  “Girls?”

  Finn whips her hand out from where it’s made a stealth slide under Willa’s school dress, exploring the soft stretch at the back of her thigh. She sits up, yanking her brain back into being. “Yeah, Mum?” she replies, instead of screaming like she wants to.

  Anita sticks her head around the door, frowning. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get going, Willa. Finn’s father’s on Skype, and we want to talk to her about something important.” She gives Finn a smile, but her eyes are serious. “Two minutes, okay, hon?”

  Finn nods numbly. Then she just sits there, her stomach turning another lurching flip-flop. “I’m terrified,” she tells Willa as she gets up slowly.

  “Don’t worry.” Willa grabs her hand and squeezes it. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Will it?” Finn chews on her lip. “What if they’re going to say they’re getting a divorce?”

  “Well, at least you’ll know then. And what if the
y’re going to say your dad’s coming home?”

  What if? Finn yanks in a breath.

  “Go find out.” Willa pushes her gently towards the door. “It’s easier to know, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  At the front door, Willa kisses her and says, “Call me later? After?”

  “Of course.”

  “Remember, whatever they say, everything will be okay.”

  Finn nods because she wants to believe her.

  Her dad is all smiles on the laptop screen when she sits down on the couch next to her mother.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he says. “How’s Willa?”

  Finn frowns and folds her arms. Small talk? Really? “What’s going on?”

  He and her mum look at each other.

  “Do you want to tell?” Anita asks him.

  “Okay.” He picks up a mug and takes a sip. “So you know I’ve been writing this article?”

  “Yeah,” Finn says slowly.

  “Well it’s going really well, but it’s going to be a long one. I think I’m going to need the summer to research, interview, and write.”

  “Okay,” she says slowly. What’s this got to do with anything?

  “But I’m hoping to be back with you guys by mid-January.”

  She stares at him for a second, her breath snagged in her throat. “Here? Back in the house?” She turns to her mother, blinking.

  Anita smiles and nods. When Finn doesn’t smile back, she clasps her wrist. “What’s wrong?”

  Finn yanks her arm away. “What’s wrong? What do you think’s wrong?” She turns to her dad. “You know how you always complain when people bury the lead? Well, don’t do it to me! I don’t care about where you want to write your damn article! I just wanted to know you’re coming back.” She swipes at her face, feeling the hot slide of tears under her fingers. “That’s all I’ve wanted to know.”

  “Oh, Finn. I’m so sorry.” He leans in, his eyes wide. “I’m coming back. Soon.”

  “Well, I know now, don’t I?” She brushes her sleeve over another falling tear. Anita moves closer, but Finn shifts away. She’s too mad to be comforted.