by Karina Bliss
Torn, Kezia took a perch, then tentatively reached out a hand to stroke the crying child’s sturdy back, warm through his thin cotton pajamas. John Jason squirmed away.
“I hated taking you away from your mummy,” she began, and the stars playing across their bodies made it easier to speak. “Can you remember I cried, too, when I did it? But you were so upset and I was scared you might try to touch her.”
John Jason’s sobs abated. He was trying to listen and Kezia took that as encouragement. “When someone hurts their back, you’re not supposed to touch or move them. Only the ambulance people are allowed to do that. I had to look after her first, honey, but I’m so sorry it’s given you bad dreams.”
“Kezia has bad dreams about it, too,” said Christian, and Kezia stared at him. “I hear you. I’d come and wake you,” he added dryly, “but for some reason you lock your door.”
John Jason lifted a cautious face. “What happens in your dream?”
“I try to stop your mummy from falling,” she said carefully. “But I never do.” She sensed Christian watching her intently. “What happens in yours?”
“She won’t wake up.”
Kezia risked another caress. This time the child let her push back his damp fringe. “She’s not going to die, honey. I promise.”
“That makes two promises,” he reminded her. “Have you found Roland yet?”
She and Christian exchanged pained looks. “Not yet.” She did have an idea though, which meant sinking even lower than she had done already. But desperate times…
“When you do,” John Jason murmured, settling into Christian’s warmth with a drowsy sigh, “we can be friends again.”
The remnant of a last shuddering sob shook his small frame and Kezia couldn’t help herself. She bent and kissed him. “I love you, JJ.”
“Hmm.” He clutched her hand and fell asleep. Kezia sat up and her gaze collided with Christian’s, mere inches away.
“That dream of yours,” he said. “What didn’t you say?”
“Nothing.” She started to move away, but John Jason’s hand tightened reflexively on hers.
“Secrets can be destructive.”
“You should know.” Kezia loosened John Jason’s hold and stood.
Christian looked down at the sleeping child in his arms. “After my mother died, the only time my father held me was to stop me running away while he beat me.” Abruptly, Kezia sat again. Slowly his gaze came up to hers. “He blamed me for my mother’s death.”
Kezia’s stomach knotted in fury. “She died of cancer. How could you possibly be responsible?”
“She wanted to live.” Christian’s irises were steel-bright. “From the time she was diagnosed with cancer she fought to stay alive. Every hour, every minute, was precious to her and I stole that time from all of us.”
“Did she know you were sick?”
Christian looked at her blankly for a moment. “Yes, she gave me one of her tonics.”
Kezia struggled for the right tone. “The time she was fighting for was to spend with you—her child,” she said with calm conviction. “If she’d waited for you to get better she would have lost a week or more with you. She didn’t know if she had that to spare, so of course she chose to see you.” When he shook his head, she insisted, “Any mother would.” She hesitated. “I visit her grave sometimes.”
Christian’s expression darkened. “Who the hell gave you permission?”
She ignored the smoke screen of righteous anger. “I planted flowers last time. Purple pansies. Bernice May said they were her favorite.”
Under the anger, she could see how much he wanted to believe her.
John Jason stirred in his arms. “Jump through the hoop,” he commanded.
Kezia watched Christian tuck the child back into bed. It would be a tragedy if he never let himself experience fatherhood because of Paul Kelly.
“Let’s get back to what you’re not telling me,” he suggested in a tone that said his subject was closed.
“Nothing,” she said huskily, and headed for the door.
“I didn’t tell you about my mother for pity.” Kezia stopped. “I told you because one of us has to start trusting the other.”
The temptation to lean on him was sudden and strong and frightening. For five long seconds Kezia wavered. Then she thought about how many troubles he’d already borne in his life and knew she couldn’t burden him with hers. “Good night.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BREAKFAST WAS A minefield of things left unsaid, camouflaged in civility. Exhausted from a restless night, Kezia toyed with her food and noticed Christian did, too. Beside her, Batman wolfed down his cornflakes, keen to start the next search-and-rescue mission.
“My business partners are arriving after dinner.” Christian pushed his plate away. “Some proposal that needs discussing. I suggested they stay the night.”
“All the bedrooms are finished, that shouldn’t be a problem.” In a mild tone she added, “It’ll be good to have some feedback before we start taking paying guests.” In truth she couldn’t care less about the hotel since the accident, though she feigned an interest for her staff.
The bar was next in line for renovation but improvements would happen outside drinking hours to avoid a wholesale riot. As it was, Bob Harvey still hadn’t forgiven Christian for its temporary closure.
Peach bustled in with coffee and noticed their untouched plates. “What sort of example are you setting the boy?” she scolded—then looked at their faces. “Come with Peach, darling,” she said, and took John Jason away with her.
Watching him skip off, Kezia’s heart sank. The odds of finding Roland were getting less by every hour.
“Well—” Christian got to his feet “—off on another fruitless day of trying to prove I’m good enough for you.”
“It’s not about that and you know it,” she said sharply. “I’m not saying yes to a proposal motivated by guilt.” Because when that wears off, you’ll leave.
“If guilt’s clouding anybody’s logic, it’s yours.” His expression of exasperation softened as he looked at her. “Sure you haven’t got anything you want to tell me?”
Her throat suddenly tight, Kezia shook her head. “No, but…thanks. I am grateful.”
“How grateful?”
“You never give up, do you?”
“At last,” he said, “you’re getting it.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and left.
The kiss still burned like a brand when Kezia phoned the hospital ten minutes later. “Marion’s sister will ring me back, yes, I know, I’ve heard it all before.” She’d long given up trying to wheedle information out of the receptionist.
Disconsolate, she rang off, hesitated a moment, then phoned Everton’s pet shop. Feeling like Judas, she ordered a white male rat, about Roland’s size, to be delivered before lunch. The thirty pieces of silver went on her credit card. “Sorry, Roly,” she whispered as she hung up.
John Jason’s face, when she presented the substitute at lunchtime, almost made her duplicity worth it. Almost.
“Roland!” He shoved aside his peanut butter sandwiches, seized the rat and stroked between the tiny ears. The rat’s whiskers even twitched as nervously, as Roland’s. “Where’d you find him?”
“Outside. He, um, walked over when I was watering the garden. Probably thirsty.” Okay, Kezia cautioned herself, don’t overdo the lies. White lies, she amended.
“You look funny,” said John Jason. He tried to coax the rat into eating some peanut butter. The rat balked. “That’s weird, normally he loves peanut butter.”
“Does he?” She dragged her voice down from the rafters. “Maybe he’s full of…hayseed and the other stuff he’s been eating.”
“Hi, honey, I’m home.” Christian’s voice came from the hall, a timely diversion. He was back for a quick lunch, then taking John Jason to playgroup. “And look who I found poking his nose out of Kez’s car….”
Oh, no. No, no, no, no! Kezi
a’s coffee cup clattered in the saucer as she sprang to her feet, but she couldn’t move quickly enough. Christian stood in the doorway beaming, gingerly holding a towel wrapped around a—
“Roland?” John Jason sounded puzzled. Kezia subsided back into her chair.
Christian caught sight of the rat cupped in John Jason’s hands and his mouth fell open. “I’ll be damned,” he said. His gaze flew to Kezia and she couldn’t help herself. She blushed. Christian’s eyes widened, then he started to laugh.
The blush scorched to the roots of her hair but she managed to look surprised. “Wow, two white rats!”
Christian couldn’t play ball; he was laughing too hard. Deep down a similar tremor shook Kezia. Oh, no, one of them had to be sensible, carry this off for John Jason’s sake. The child looked completely bemused. She took Christian’s rat out of the towel and inspected it. Amazing, his clone was as good as hers. Almost.
She couldn’t suppress an explosive snort of laughter. It felt as if a detonator went off inside her, vaporizing the trauma of the past ten days. She laughed until she howled, until Christian stopped laughing and stared at her, until tears ran down her cheeks. Picking up a napkin, she wiped her eyes and said weakly, “Don’t mind me. Do carry on, Christian, you obviously know what you’re doing.”
He looked from one rat to the other and blanched. “I think it’s great we have two rats.”
“Yeah,” said John Jason, “but which one’s Roland?”
Kezia played up her smugness. “The one you’re holding.”
As expected, Christian bristled. “What makes your rat Roland, Miz Smarty Pants?”
Kezia started laughing again. “Because yours is a girl.”
“Oh, shit!”
“Christian said shit.” It was obvious John Jason’s day couldn’t get any better than this. “You can be my friend again,” he told Kezia magnanimously, and insisted on taking both rats to preschool with Christian.
Kezia napped while they were gone, a deep, heavy sleep of utter exhaustion, and woke feeling better.
“DOESN’T ASKING FOR VOLUNTEERS imply choice?” Christian complained as they finished an early dinner of Peach’s beef stew and mashed potatoes. “I had an idea for a preschool fund-raiser and suddenly I’m chairing the subcommittee.”
“I hope you told them you won’t be here.”
He scowled. “Very funny. And speaking of yanking my chain, time for the bells, Esmeralda.”
“Esmarella. That’s what I’ll call the mummy rat,” John Jason said. It didn’t help Christian’s mood but made Kezia smile.
As she pried John Jason out of his Batman outfit and got him bathed and ready for bed she remembered that at the town council meeting that morning everyone had sung Christian’s praises, too—not all of them women, either. It bothered Kezia that his popularity bothered her.
Christian had shaken them all out of a rut by challenging systems that could be improved. Which was about half of them, she acknowledged wryly.
Kezia flexed her fingers inside the cast. Still another month to go before it came off. Then Waterview could get back to normal. But deep down she knew normal had changed in some indefinable way for everybody, forever.
Absentmindedly she took the rats off a protesting John Jason and put them to bed in separate cages.
“They want to sleep together,” he complained.
“Tough.” The phone rang in the middle of their argument. “Breeding prevention center.”
“Kezia?”
She leaned against the wall for support. “Marion!”
“Listen, I had a couple of visitors earlier, friends of Christian’s.” Marion’s voice sounded strained. “They said you haven’t been getting any news.”
Kezia clutched the receiver. “Sally said yesterday there’d been no change.”
“That’s nonsense. I’ve been getting sensation and movement back since the day you left. The specialists say I’ll make a full recovery.” Kezia opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak. “Did you hear that, Kezia? I’m going to be fine.”
“Fine,” she choked out at last. “You’re going to be fine? John Jason, Mummy’s going to be fine.” Laughing and crying, she grabbed him with her cast arm and danced him around in a circle.
“I know that. Why are you acting funny?”
“Because I’m so happy! Oh, Marion.” She sank to the floor in relief. “I’m so happy.”
Marion started crying. “I can’t believe Sally put you through this…she told me she was keeping you updated. I’m sending her away.”
“No, don’t. She’s family. Just make her grovel. Now tell me again!”
“Actually, there’s something else Sally didn’t tell you.” There was a pause. “Joe’s been visiting.”
Kezia sobered immediately. “Marion, be careful.”
“I knew you’d say that and I am. Joe’s been in a rehab center all this time. He thought we’d be better off without him, but when he heard about my accident he came straightaway. He’s not expecting another chance but…I want to give him one. I think we’ve both changed enough to make it work this time. I want John Jason to see him on home ground so I’ve suggested he come visit you in Waterview this weekend.”
“But that will mean not seeing you for another week. Look, there’s something I need to confess—in person.”
“It can wait, can’t it?”
“No.” She heard disappointed silence on the other end. “Yes. Just tell me the good news again.”
“I’m fine, Kezia, I’m going to be fine. Now let me talk to my son.”
“You want me to prepare him for J-o-e?”
“I’ll tell him now, but yes, that would help.”
Kezia’s first thought while she waited for the child to finish was, I’ve got to tell Christian.
“’Bye, Mummy, I love you.” John Jason hung up. “My daddy’s coming to see me!”
They shared another celebratory dance, then Kezia grabbed the phone and dialed Christian’s mobile. It was switched off. She scooped up John Jason. “We’re going to tell Christian your mummy’s good news.” She buckled the child into the passenger seat, climbed into the driver’s side, and looked at her cast. Glanced at John Jason. What the hell, the church was only two kilometers down the road. “Let’s practice changing gear.”
As Kezia drove, while John Jason graunched between first gear and second, she broke down in tears of relief. “It’s okay, honey,” she reassured him. “This is happy crying.”
His face scrunched up. “I don’t like it. You stop!”
Swallowing the tears gave Kezia the hiccups, and they were both laughing when they pulled into the churchyard. If only she didn’t have the confession still hanging over her head.
When she lifted John Jason from the car he clapped his hands over his ears. “What’s that awful noise?”
“A beginner,” she said smugly as another discordant clang rang through the air. At last something Christian Kelly wasn’t good at. Though to be fair, it took at least twelve lessons to control a bell well enough to adjust its speed and stop it at will before you even started learning to ring rounds with other people.
Of course Christian didn’t know that, or he wouldn’t be attempting to replace her at next Sunday’s service. Kezia quashed a niggle of conscience.
She followed John Jason, running ahead up a narrow spiral staircase that led to the tower’s small ringing room below the belfry. Near the top she held him back, put a finger to her lips. “Let’s listen first, shall we?”
The six bell ropes, each woven with a colorful tuft of wool to mark where the ringer caught the rope, hung through holes in the twelve-foot stud. Four ropes had been hooked out of the way, leaving two for Christian and his tutor.
Bob Harvey was dressed for church in a bright blue suit, circa 1970. In deference to the stifling air of the tiny room, Christian had abandoned his shirt and the faint sheen of sweat on his tanned back was disturbingly pagan. Kezia felt her own temperature rise.
&n
bsp; Muscles bunched as Christian pulled the bell rope. “Too bloody hard!” bellowed Bob. “Lightly, lightly.” The rope slithered upward as the unseen bell swung through its full circle to the up position. Christian pulled again to send the bell through another 360 degree spin in the other direction—mistimed, thought Kezia, counting automatically, a view confirmed when Bob sucked air through his teeth in noisy disapproval.
“Stand!” he ordered, and Christian tried to park the bell. It clanged through another turn and his curses turned the air blue and John Jason’s ears pink.
“Halloooooo,” Kezia called to drown them out, and his swearing stopped abruptly.
“How the hell did you get here?”
“I drove,” said John Jason proudly. “And you said shit again! And hell.”
“Watch your mouth, young man,” Bob growled. “And stay away from the ropes—these bells can pull a grown man into the air.” He glanced at Christian and received a warning glare. Bob’s mouth twitched but he said no more.
Looking at Kezia, Christian’s expression grew anxious. “It’s good news,” she reassured him, but her tears were already welling again. “Marion’s going to make a full recovery.” Unable to help herself, she grabbed him and held tight. “I had to tell you as soon as I could.”
He stilled, then pushed her away and left the room. She took no offence, hugging Bob instead, who smelled of yeast and hay and Old Spice after-shave. “That’s grand news, grand…” He patted her back awkwardly. “Bloody hell, I’ll start bawling myself if I don’t watch it.” He pulled away, his eyes wet. Kezia pretended not to notice.
“Where’s Christian gone?” John Jason wondered.
“He’ll be back, young fellow. Why don’t you come up the tower with me and I’ll show you the bells, eh?”
Though she longed to follow Christian, Kezia stayed where she was, too emotional to trust herself. He wasn’t gone long—his self-control was too good for that—but his eyes were red. He hesitated when he saw her there, alone. “I can’t touch you right now,” he said awkwardly, “or I’ll make a fool of myself.”