‘Are you for real?’
Gabby laughed. ‘Yep. She slept in my bed last night.’
‘Whoa! Luciano, did you hear that?’ Cooper asked.
‘Yeah, I heard,’ Luciano answered, and by the tone of his voice, Gabby was pretty sure this was a frequent topic of conversation between them.
‘Do you have a dog?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m not allowed. But I want one more than anything.’ He scowled at Luciano, who tousled his nephew’s hair before setting to work cleaning out the husk bin.
‘Well, maybe one day,’ Gabby said.
‘I’m saving up my pocket money and everything. I have a collar and lead already and a water bowl too.’
‘Sounds like you’re organised,’ Gabby said, taking the ice pack away from her hand and tentatively stretching out her fingers to see how much damage she might have done. It felt like the joint below her middle finger had been hurt the most.
‘Can I come and visit your dog?’ Cooper asked, glancing over his shoulder at his uncle.
Luciano looked up from the cooling tray, where he’d positioned the chute to dump the beans. ‘Coops, Gabby doesn’t need us invading her house.’
‘But, please, oh please, oh please, oh pleeeaaase!’ Cooper sing-songed, dancing on the spot. The child was completely adorable.
‘You’re welcome to come and visit Sally,’ she said. ‘Any time you like.’
‘Do you have a photo of her?’ Cooper asked.
‘Um, yes, on my phone. Follow me.’
She led the way to the other side of the room and to her enormous bag – big enough to hold all her medications, dental floss, creams for various skin flare-ups, antiseptic ointment to quickly treat small cuts that could become infected, random paraphernalia belonging to her children – put the ice pack on the benchtop and lifted out her phone, finding the photos she’d taken of Sally playing with the kids on the lawn last weekend.
‘Oh, look at her!’ Cooper said, grabbing the phone with both hands. ‘She’s a golding retriever, right?’
‘A golden retriever, yes.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ he said softly.
‘She is,’ she agreed, thinking how many times Sally had helped her out recently.
‘How old is she?’ he asked.
‘Four.’
‘How much does she weigh?’
‘Er, about twenty-eight kilos, last time she stood on some scales.’
‘That’s about right,’ he said, nodding, his brows knitted in concentration.
Gabby had to stop herself from giggling at his intensity.
‘Sometimes I bark at school,’ Cooper said, flicking through the photos. ‘But the other kids call me weird.’
‘Oh. How does that make you feel?’ she ventured.
He shrugged. ‘They don’t understand how much I love dogs and how awesome they are. Did you know that dogs have three hundred million factories in their noses to smell with?’
‘Factories?’ It was Gabby’s turn to frown. ‘Oh, you mean olfactory receptors! They’re the bits that receive the smells.’ She wondered if she’d somehow got more olfactory receptors from Evan, or whether she had just become better at using the ones she already had.
‘Yeah, and their brains can smell invisible stuff like fear and sadness.’
‘They can smell fear?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Well, that would explain why Sally rushed to her bedroom door when Gabby was having a nightmare.
‘I’m impressed you know so much about dogs, Cooper.’
‘I have a lot of books,’ he said. ‘Aw!’ He was looking at a picture of Celia and Sally in the teepee together, Celia reading a book and lying with her head resting on Sally’s belly.
‘That’s my daughter Celia. Sally is really her dog but she shares her with the rest of us. I’m sure she’d be happy for you to visit.’ Gabby looked up to find Luciano watching them, his eyes soft and a look of love on his face so pure it melted Gabby to her core.
‘Luciano, if you’re free on the weekend, maybe you’d like to bring your three kids to my place, and they could have a play and Cooper could meet Sally?’
‘Oh, please, oh please, oh please!’ Cooper sang again, bobbing up and down next to Gabby.
Luciano swallowed – she could see the muscles in his neck flex – but he took a moment to speak. ‘That sounds great,’ he said, his voice quiet and gravelly.
‘Yay!’ Cooper screeched and ran to Luciano, flinging his arms around his uncle’s waist.
Luciano patted him on the back gently and smiled at Gabby. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, already counting how many sleeps it was until they visited.
20
Krystal sat at the table at the far end of the staffroom. She was pretending to listen to Janice’s team meeting ramblings, but all she could think about was Gabby’s revelation of the other woman in Evan’s life. Although she’d suspected it, hearing it spoken was like being shot through the middle with a cannon. A hole gaped where her innards should be and all that was left was the shell that looked like her.
Her eyes drifted longingly to the door at the other end of the light-filled room, over near the teachers’ pigeonholes, as she wondered how much longer she’d be trapped here. She noticed that the specialist teachers were having a meeting over that side of the room but that their gathering included iced cream buns and regular bursts of laughter. She sighed and focused her attention on Janice’s fingernails, freshly lacquered red with gold tips.
Janice checked her diamante-encrusted gold watch. ‘I’ll have to wrap this up soon as I have a meeting in the principal’s office to go through the extensive list of jobs coming our way for the organisation of all the various Christmas parties and break-ups happening before the end of term,’ she said, then scribbled a note to herself in her large executive diary.
Margie had once said that if Janice were a man then the size of her diary would be screaming to the world that she was compensating for inadequacies in other areas of her life. Krystal flicked her eyes to Margie now and her colleague returned the look with a smirk and a tiny eye roll. Janice held these meetings once a month on a Wednesday, when both her underlings were present. Normally, Krystal welcomed the break from the humdrum at her desk even if it meant she had to listen to Janice drone on. Today, though, she just wanted it to end so she could get back to pretending she was a functioning person when all she really wanted to do was lie down in bed and stay there.
‘One more thing,’ Janice said. ‘As of next year, the two part-time roles that you both occupy will be consolidated into one full-time position.’
Now Krystal forced herself to concentrate. It sounded very much as if Janice had just said that one of them would lose their job.
‘I’ll email you a position description and instructions for applying when we get back to our desks. You have ten days to submit your application, which the principal and I will consider. If necessary, we’ll advertise the position to the public. But, obviously, your previous employment in this role means we’d prefer to keep one of you on.’
Yes, that was what Janice was saying. Someone would be let go.
‘Do either of you have any questions or comments?’ Janice peered at them over her glasses and closed her diary with a finality that made it clear no one was to offer any other words. That was fine with Krystal; she’d had nothing to say all morning.
‘I think we have everything we need, thank you,’ Margie said, and Krystal felt herself bristle ever so slightly at the tone of her friend’s voice. She wrinkled her nose at her to say, Oh, you big suck-up! but Margie slid her gaze away. They walked in silence back to the admin building and to their respective desks.
‘I can’t believe they’re going to ditch one of us,’ Krystal muttered. But Margie just tutted noncommittally and stared straight ahead at her screen. ‘I mean, this is a bit awkward, isn’t it? Both of us having to compete for the one job?’ She wanted to get it out ther
e as soon as possible. Margie was her friend.
‘It doesn’t have to be,’ Margie said calmly, continuing to click with her mouse.
‘What do you mean?’ Krystal rolled her chair closer to Margie. ‘This is not good. One of us will lose her job.’
Margie considered Krystal briefly, gave a small smile and shrugged. ‘What will be will be,’ she said, and turned away again.
Krystal had been so obsessed with thoughts of Evan’s betrayal this morning that she’d failed to notice Margie’s new navy shirt dress with a brown belt to match her mules. She’d put a colour through her hair, too.
‘Have you got a new man?’ she whispered.
‘What? No. Why?’ Margie said, frowning.
‘New dress?’
Margie continued typing. ‘I just thought it was time for a change.’
Krystal waited a beat but when Margie offered nothing further she just said, ‘Okay,’ and turned back to her own desk. She couldn’t help but think that it was rather fortunate timing that Margie had chosen today – the day Janice announced that they would have to compete against one another for a job – to improve her working wardrobe.
Traipsing into the foyer of her apartment building with her two boys by her side, Krystal found a yellow manila envelope sticking out of the letterbox. She was distracted by Olly tugging on her arm, wanting to get up to his room to play with his PJ Masks headquarters, and Jasper asking if they could have ice cream for dinner and refusing to accept that dessert was not dinner and no, they couldn’t have dessert every day anyway because it wasn’t good for them. She pulled out the envelope, opened the box with her key and collected several more letters, and shoved them in her handbag.
With both boys bouncing and spinning in the elevator, she began flicking through the fistful of envelopes – a phone bill, a body corporate notice, an electricity bill, a roadside assistance renewal notice (why did all the bills always come at once?), and then the big yellow envelope. She flipped it over and paused at the sight of the return address stamped on the back. It was from the law firm of Trentino Cossa. Her heart skipped. Had he found a way for her to sue Cordelia-Aurora after all? She tore the envelope open. Inside was a law journal with a handwritten note from Trentino paper-clipped to the front.
Krystal, here is the latest issue of this journal, which arrived at my office last week. There is an article on page 16 that I thought you would be interested in. Best, T.
How odd. Then, with growing excitement, she wondered if perhaps the journal contained something that might help with a potential lawsuit against the Arthur family.
She hurried the boys inside, tossing their bags on the kitchen bench, ignoring their lunchboxes and water bottles for now.
‘Boys, go to the toilet and wash your hands for afternoon tea,’ she said, and shooed them in the direction of the bathroom. Olly was still learning to pee standing up and Jasper was taking great pride in showing him how to do it. Sadly she’d have to clean up their efforts later.
She flicked on the kettle to boil water for tea and leaned against the bench, flicking the pages of the journal to get to the article. And there was Cordelia-Aurora staring out at her. She was dressed as usual in black, seated against the backdrop of a tall bookcase filled with leather-bound law books, her hands clasped in her lap.
The gift that keeps on giving
On the second anniversary of her brother’s death, leading Melbourne barrister Cordelia-Aurora Arthur, of the firm Arthur & Arthur, says it was ‘a natural decision’ to offer her services to Australia’s organ donation authority.
Ms Arthur’s younger brother was Evan Arthur, a Victorian barrister best known for his work on the Farner Seven case, and whose life was claimed by a tragic accident. She says that the family’s decision to donate his organs was ‘simple’ and that it gave her great comfort to know a part of him lived on.
‘He was such a good person, such a generous individual. It’s what he would have wanted and it was both our duty and our privilege to carry out his last wishes.’
Ms Arthur says that the statistics show that the majority of people in Australia support organ donation yet only a small percentage ever register their intent or talk about it with their families. ‘This has to change.’ She is putting her passion to good use, now serving on an advisory board to the country’s organ and tissue donation authority, advocating for laws to fill the gap between a person’s intention and the family’s final say.
‘We were lucky in that the family was in total agreement. But that’s certainly not always the case and it’s in those murky waters of consent that I hope to best use my legal expertise to achieve the vital outcomes.’
Krystal stopped reading, feeling bile creeping its way into her throat. How dare Cordelia-Aurora use something as tragic and painful as Evan’s death to drum up more business for herself?
Total agreement? Nothing could have been further from the truth. The family’s decision? It wasn’t the family’s decision that mattered, it was hers, as his wife and legal next of kin. What he would have wanted? No one could say that for sure. He’d never registered his intent and he’d never discussed it with Krystal. No one had any idea what he wanted.
The article didn’t even mention that Evan was a father and husband. No mention of the three people who mattered most. It was all about scoring goodwill for the Arthur empire.
‘Mum!’ Jasper called from the bathroom.
‘Yes?’
‘Olly’s wee’d on the floor again.’
Krystal blinked quickly and closed the journal to return to later when she’d stopped shaking from the lies, the deception, and the omission of the fact that the only reason Krystal had signed those consent forms was because Cordelia-Aurora, upstanding citizen and barrister, and now champion of The Cause, had blackmailed her broken, vulnerable, distraught sister-in-law into doing so.
Within two months of their first meeting, Cordelia-Aurora had confronted Krystal face to face. Although she’d overheard snatches of whispered bickering between Evan – defending his girlfriend – and Cordelia-Aurora, Krystal had always managed to shake it off. Never for a second had she imagined that her mere presence in Evan’s life would trigger such out-and-out hatred. But then, one summer evening, on the balcony of Evan’s apartment during another attempt by Evan to encourage his snooty relatives to warm to Krystal, everything changed. In a moment when almost everyone happened to leave the balcony at the same time and it was just Krystal and Cordelia-Aurora overlooking the lights of the city, the full shock of Evan’s big sister’s hatred hit her.
Cordelia-Aurora rose from her chair like a serpent readying to strike, placed her wineglass on the table between them, and made a direct line for Krystal. Krystal looked up from her seat, surprised and apprehensive. Cordelia-Aurora didn’t speak to Krystal voluntarily – only under the scrutiny of Evan.
‘I know what you did,’ she said flatly, glaring at Krystal.
‘What?’
Cordelia-Aurora leaned down so their faces were close and her body cast a shadow over Krystal. ‘You do realise I’m a barrister, don’t you? One with many powerful connections?’
Krystal scoffed. ‘So what?’
‘So that means I only had to ask the right person for a favour and I was able to get a full criminal record check on you.’
Krystal was stunned into silence, frozen, just as she’d been as a little girl when one of her mother’s boyfriends began to look at her the wrong way. She was trapped.
‘I know what you did,’ Cordelia-Aurora hissed again. ‘I was going to take the information to Evan, but right now he is so …’ Her eyes flashed, reflecting lights from inside the apartment. ‘Well, there is an indelicate word for it, but I’m too civilised to go to that level so I’m going to say enamoured of you, that I know it would only make him deaf to what I have to say.’
Krystal swallowed hard and was ashamed when her voice came out shaky. ‘I-it’s not true. I was innocent.’
Cordelia-Aurora barked o
ut laughter. ‘Spoken like a true criminal.’
Krystal was angry now. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘But you just said it wasn’t true,’ Cordelia-Aurora countered, baiting her.
Krystal gritted her teeth. ‘If you’d read on, you’d have seen that all charges were dropped.’
‘Oh, I did read on. I read everything.’ Cordelia-Aurora paused, her gaze moving over Krystal’s face and down her body. Then she straightened and smoothed her hair. ‘Your mother has quite the history herself.’
Krystal could hear the others inside. Ivy was complaining about the lack of suitable venues in the city for an upcoming fundraiser auction for the hospital charity whose board she served on. Then Rupert suggested they hold it at their white house, as a tea party out on the lawn, which sounded lovely to Krystal but the explosion of laughter from Evan’s parents indicated that it was out of the question.
They’d be back out here any minute and then Cordelia-Aurora would stop this game. Krystal just needed to wait her out.
‘The thing is, as a barrister, I know that charges are dropped all the time, and it’s rarely because of something as simple or as direct as someone’s innocence. Cases go to court based on the admissible evidence, not on the truth.’
Krystal could hear her own breathing, feel her nostrils flare and her skin burn with humiliation. She wanted to screech at Cordelia-Aurora and also to rush to Evan and stop him from hearing all this.
Footsteps and voices were coming closer to the balcony.
Cordelia-Aurora got in one final sentence. ‘I’m just letting you know that I know your secret, and the second you put a foot wrong, the moment I see a crack in Evan’s faith in you, the very instant the winds of change blow in my favour, I will reveal your dirty little secret to everyone.’
Then she’d turned, painted a huge smile on her face and joined her parents and two brothers, leaving Krystal in her seat, trembling with rage and injustice.
Now, having cleaned up the bathroom, put a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner, lined up a set of plastic bowling pins and an inflatable ball in the hallway for the boys to play with and uncorked a bottle of wine for herself, Krystal leaned against the kitchen bench, seething. When would Cordelia-Aurora be out of her life forever? Right now, all she wanted to do was take the boys away, maybe up to north Queensland, the very opposite end of the east coast of Australia, and never have to communicate with anyone from the Arthur family again. But then the boys wouldn’t have any grandparents to speak of, and they wouldn’t have their uncle Rupert who, on the whole, was a reasonable sort of person, and she couldn’t say for sure that the boys wouldn’t need him to step up one day and patch some of the gaping holes left by Evan’s death.
The Gift of Life Page 19