Could it be possible that Cordelia-Aurora had played a very real, direct part in Evan’s death? But he was her brother! Surely even she wouldn’t …
Krystal rocketed off the chair to a standing position. The two women stared at each other for several seconds, then Krystal left without another word, her heart hammering in her chest.
29
Gabby watched baby Mykahla attempting to slide along the wooden floor like an uncoordinated caterpillar. Sally gently sniffed Mykahla’s fine hair, monitoring her every move.
‘You’re such a good dog,’ Gabby said. ‘But you know you don’t have to look after her, don’t you? The adults are doing that.’ The adults in the room – Gabby, Monty, Pippa and Luciano – all nodded. Sally looked up at them briefly, considering the offer, then turned back to the pink Wondersuit-clad, fleshy, powder-scented human on the floor and sat down, on guard. She’d made her decision.
‘Doesn’t she trust us?’ Pippa asked.
‘Clearly not,’ Gabby said.
To emphasise her point, Sally lay down next to Mykahla, watching her intently, apparently not prepared to leave this creature alone for a second. Mykahla lifted her head up as far as she could to look at her guardian, and broke into a huge, salivary grin. She reached out a chubby hand and touched Sally’s golden fur reverently before shrieking in glee.
It was surreal having this gorgeous bundle of baby goodness here in the lounge room while Mykahla’s father, and Gabby’s children’s father, was missing.
‘I wish there was something more we could do,’ Gabby said, rifling through her brain yet again for any possible places Cam might be hiding out, or old friends he might have turned to. But she realised they were long past that. Meri was his person now and Gabby didn’t know those parts of his life any more. ‘Maybe I should have offered to go out with Meri, to keep her company at least. She must be going out of her mind with worry.’
‘Shall I make us coffee?’ Luciano said, getting to his feet.
‘Yes, please,’ Pippa said, as if she’d collapse if she didn’t get some caffeine soon. ‘Soy latte, thanks.’
‘Monty?’ Luciano asked.
Gabby noted how much pleasure it gave her to hear Luciano use her father’s name so respectfully.
‘Long black, thank you,’ Monty said, pausing in gooing and gaaing at Mykahla just long enough to respond. The look on his face was so tender, full of so much delight, that it propelled Gabby back in time to when her kids had been babies. Monty had always been a wonderful grandpa, never afraid to jump in and change nappies, be puked on or peed on, always with a funny face or silly game to make them laugh. Watching him with Mykahla almost made her want another one.
Too late, though. Much too late now.
‘Gabby?’ Luciano asked, his voice softening to a wavelength just for her. Oh, man …
‘No, thanks. I think I’m wound a bit too tightly already.’
‘Tea, then?’ he asked.
Beside her, Pippa was smothering a grin, loving this impromptu version of Gabby bringing home a new boyfriend to meet the family.
Gabby was glad Pippa was here. She’d come over straightaway when Gabby messaged her on the off-chance that she had miraculously seen Cam somewhere. Pippa had busied herself, calling friends and family for Meri while she was driving around in search of her husband.
‘Okay, a chai would be great, thanks.’ Gabby knew Luciano would brew the chai in milk over the stove, the traditional way. It was really the only way to have it, in her opinion.
They watched him head over to the kitchen.
‘Why is he still here?’ Pippa whispered, widening her eyes at Gabby. ‘Doesn’t he have his own kids to go home to?’
‘Don’t you?’ Gabby retorted.
‘Harvey’s picking them all up this afternoon,’ Pippa said. ‘It’s part of our new arrangement as we work out how to divide their time with each of us.’
‘Ouch. Sorry,’ Gabby said.
‘Have you seen a lawyer yet?’ Monty asked. The bruise on his forehead was now a deep indigo. He should still be putting ice on it.
‘I’m seeing her tomorrow.’ Pippa wrinkled her nose.
‘It’s not fun, but you have to do it,’ Gabby said, getting up to remove a remote control from Mykahla’s hand. She handed her a plastic set of keys from the baby bag instead, which she immediately shoved into her gummy mouth. ‘It will get easier. This stage is messy and difficult but you’ll find your new normal.’
Pippa sighed and adjusted the cowl neck of her sleeveless white shirt. ‘I suppose. Anyway, back to your man over there.’
‘Shh!’ Gabby warned her. ‘We were out at lunch when Meri called. I explained and said I had to go but he insisted on coming with me.’
‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? Him helping you to find your ex-husband?’
‘That’s what I said, but he said that if it was important to me then it was important to him.’ Gabby glowed just thinking about Luciano’s unwavering determination to stay with her to see this through to the end.
Monty nodded in approval.
Pippa cooed. ‘Oh, wow. He’s a keeper.’
‘His mum will look after his kids when they get home from school.’ Gabby checked the time. ‘Which should be any minute, which means my three will be here any minute too, which means I’ll have to explain why Mykahla is here.’ She bit her lip. ‘What the hell am I going to say?’
They had no time to formulate a plan, because a minute later Celia walked in the door.
‘Shit.’ Gabby’s stomach flipped.
‘Hi! Guess what we did at … oh! Mykahla!’ Celia dropped her schoolbag with a loud thump on the wooden floor and rushed to the baby. Her voice rose an octave. ‘Hi, Mykahla. What are you doing here?’ She picked up her half-sister and sat cross-legged on the floor with Mykahla in her lap. ‘Is Dad here?’ she asked, looking around.
Gabby opened her mouth but didn’t get a chance to answer because Summer entered the room, dropped her bag next to Celia’s and went straight to the baby, smiling at her, Mykahla instantly wrapped her fingers in Summer’s long hair and pulled hard.
‘Ow, ow, ow,’ Summer complained, and carefully prised the vice-like grip off her locks. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked the baby. Gabby, Pippa and Monty remained silent, glancing at each other helplessly.
Summer turned to Gabby. ‘Where’s Dad?’
Luciano arrived with hot drinks on a tray.
‘Hi, Luciano,’ Summer said.
‘Hi,’ Celia added.
‘Hey, girls. Good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’m doing the barista thing. Would you like something?’ He positioned the drinks in front of the respective parties.
‘Hot chocolate, please,’ said Celia.
‘Latte, please,’ said Summer. Then she turned back to Gabby. ‘Where’s Dad?’
Gabby’s heart galloped in her chest. ‘Well …’ She should tell them the truth, she knew that. All the experts said so. If you didn’t tell them the truth, your kids wouldn’t trust you. And she’d had to do it many times over the years.
Your father and I still love each other but we have decided to live apart.
My heart is sick.
I need a heart transplant.
Yes, it’s possible I could die but we’re doing everything we can to give me the best chance of life.
Your grandmother died last night.
Children made you say aloud all the things you wished you didn’t have to. This time was no different.
‘Mum?’ Summer prompted.
Monty cleared his throat and put his coffee cup back onto the wooden chest in front of the lounge.
She’d never told the kids about Cam’s drug use, though. That was something she didn’t feel they would benefit from knowing. If she told them that no one knew where Cam was, they would worry. And everything might still be okay. Then again, it might not be. He could be anywhere and there could be endless explanations for his disappearance. He could have met up with a dealer
and gone and got himself so stoned he couldn’t find his way home. Or he could have met up with that dealer and something could have gone wrong, like you see on television, and Cam was injured or worse. Maybe he wasn’t just using weed any more. Maybe it was harder stuff. Or maybe he’d had an accident. But if he had, surely the police would have contacted them by now. Maybe he’d become one of those statistics about missing people who walked out of their house one day and never came back, the pressures of family life and mortgage stress causing them to run away. Maybe he’d hit his head and had amnesia. Or maybe he’d killed himself. A shiver ran down her spine and she hugged herself.
‘Mum!’ Summer prompted again, cranky this time.
‘Sorry, I was just thinking.’ Gabby began to pace. ‘We’re minding Mykahla for a bit because Meri has some things she has to do.’
Summer frowned, still holding Mykahla’s hand. ‘But where’s Dad?’
‘We’re not sure, exactly,’ Gabby said, casting her eyes at her sister and father. Is that okay? Is that enough? Pippa chewed a fingernail nervously and raised one shoulder.
‘Okay, look,’ Gabby said. ‘Everything is probably okay, but your dad left for work this morning and then didn’t show up. The school phoned Meri to ask her where he was but she didn’t know either, so she’s out looking for your dad.’
‘What does that mean?’ Celia said, putting Mykahla back down onto the floor. Sally immediately sniffed the baby to make sure she was fine and resumed her guarding posture, lying alongside her.
‘We don’t have all the answers right now,’ Gabby said, scrabbling for words. ‘Hopefully, your dad just took himself off for a day to have some time out.’ She tried to make her tone light.
‘Hopefully?’ Summer repeated.
‘Look, girls,’ Monty said, weighing in. ‘There’s no point getting upset about this right now because we simply don’t have enough information. At the moment, all we can do is look after Mykahla and wait for Meri to call us when she’s found your father.’
Charlie arrived then, his heavy footsteps clomping down the hall. When he entered the room, he took one look at everyone’s miserable faces, eyed the baby and said, ‘What’s happened?’
‘Dad’s missing,’ Summer said helpfully.
‘What?’
Gabby repeated the previous conversation and Charlie shook his head, whether in disgust or despair Gabby wasn’t sure, and then he charged upstairs to his room.
Gabby’s phone rang and vibrated on the wooden chest. Pippa jumped and leaned forward to read the screen. ‘It’s Meri,’ she said.
‘Hello?’ Gabby’s heart had climbed right up into her throat.
‘The police have found his car but not him,’ Meri said, her voice hitching.
‘Where?’
Around her, everyone clamoured for information.
‘What is it?’
‘Is he okay?’
‘Where is he?’
‘What’s she saying?’
Gabby waved a hand at them to be quiet. She heard Charlie thunder back down the stairs and into the room.
‘The car’s at Lillydale Lake,’ Meri said. ‘I’m going there now.’
‘Right. Okay.’ All Gabby could think was that stories of abandoned cars found near forests and lakes usually didn’t end well. ‘Don’t worry about Mykahla, she’s totally fine. She’s playing with Celia and Summer, there’s plenty of formula in her bag, we’ve got it covered.’
‘Thanks.’ Meri’s voice squeaked.
‘Call me as soon as you find him,’ Gabby said.
She disconnected the call and looked at the waiting faces. Luciano stood behind the lounge, offering his support but keeping a respectful distance from the family in crisis.
‘They’ve found his car at Lillydale Lake, so that’s good.’ Gabby tried to sound positive but it rang hollow even to her own ears.
Pippa groaned, then caught herself. Sorry, she mouthed to Gabby.
‘Can we go there now?’ Charlie asked.
‘Oh, honey, Meri’s on her way there and the police are looking for him. I’m sure he’s just taken himself for a long walk to clear his head.’
‘I want to go now,’ Charlie repeated. ‘I want to help look for him.’
Monty stood. ‘I’ll take him.’ Then his face dropped. ‘Except I don’t drive any more. Maybe just this once, as it’s an emergency?’
‘Emergency?’ Celia repeated, her eyes bright with tears.
‘No, not an emergency,’ Gabby soothed. ‘Important, yes, but not an emergency.’ She had to admit, though, that she’d feel better if she could help look too. But what if they found Cam and he’d done something awful to himself? That wasn’t the last image she wanted her son to have of his father.
‘I’m going,’ Charlie said, pulling out his phone. ‘I’ll take an Uber.’
‘Wait, Charlie,’ Gabby said, realising that her son was now of an age where she could no longer control his choices. ‘Just hold on a moment. Dad, why don’t you stay here with the kids and look after Mykahla, and I’ll take Charlie.’
Monty nodded. ‘All right.’
‘I’ll come too,’ Luciano said. ‘I’ll drive, so you can keep your hands free for phone calls.’
‘Let’s go,’ Charlie said, already heading for the door.
It took them nearly an hour to get to Lillydale Lake, the phone infuriatingly silent in Gabby’s hand. When they arrived, they could see the shadows lengthening across the parkland and the lake’s surface. Luciano pulled in near the barbecue facilities a few spaces down from a police car, the sight of which made Gabby’s legs shake. It was real. This was really happening.
She pulled her denim jacket around her shoulders, the sweet, sickly smell of springtime wattle in the air.
‘The lake’s huge,’ she said, her eyes roaming over the hectares of water in front of them and the forest beyond – an enormous area in which to disappear.
‘Where do we start?’ Charlie said, standing in front of the visitors’ information map.
There were ten kilometres of walking trails, and Cam could be anywhere along them. Two men were out in a small boat, lines in the water. Afternoon walkers powered by while others ambled with dogs on leads. It was idyllic, and yet possibly a nightmare. Tomorrow’s papers could be splashed with Cam’s photograph.
‘Maybe we should split up,’ Luciano said. ‘We can cover more territory that way.’
‘Good idea,’ Charlie said, pointing out the paths. ‘I’ll go towards the rotunda. Mum, you go towards the lookout. Luc, you go towards the dam wall.’
‘Okay,’ Gabby agreed. ‘Everyone got their phones?’ Everyone did.
Luciano squeezed her hand and they split up, Charlie moving to the left and Gabby and Luciano to the right, following the same path for a while before they would need to head in different directions.
‘It’s getting late,’ Gabby said, walking past a barbecue, sausages and onion sizzling, the smell drifting happily through the air as though everything in the world was perfectly fine. ‘What if we don’t find him before dark?’
‘We’ll deal with it.’
She looked at him while they walked. ‘You’re pretty great.’
‘You’re pretty great too.’
‘We should do this more often,’ she said. ‘Not the searching for my lost ex-husband bit. But this bit, you and me walking hand in hand.’
Luciano smiled and rubbed his chin. ‘Sounds good to me.’
Gabby felt a tiny spark of joy in the middle of her whirlpool of darker thoughts, and then her phone rang.
‘What’s happened?’
‘We’ve found him,’ Meri said, breathless.
‘Is he okay?’
‘I wouldn’t say that, but he’s alive,’ she said.
Gabby’s hand began to shake with pent-up fear dispersing into the air. ‘That’s a start.’
Luciano watched her, smiling with relief.
‘Where are you?’ she asked Meri.
‘I don’t
even know. Somewhere on the trails. I’m with a policeman. We’re bringing him back now.’
‘I’m here as well. So’s Charlie,’ Gabby said, omitting Luciano’s name for the sake of brevity.
‘Are you?’
‘We wanted to help look.’
‘Thank you.’ Meri paused. ‘But I don’t think Cam will want to see Charlie right now, if that’s okay. He’s …’ She searched for a word. ‘… A bit broken, and I know he wouldn’t want his son to see him like that.’
Gabby wiped at a tear that had slid down her face. ‘Sure, of course. I’ll get him and we’ll go home and we’ll look after Mykahla. Don’t worry about her for a second. She’ll be totally fine with us overnight. She’ll have five people and a dog watching her every move. You just take care of yourself and Cam, okay?’
‘Okay. Thank you.’
Gabby clutched the phone to her chest and took a deep breath. ‘He’s alive,’ she said to Luciano. ‘I don’t have any details but it sounds like he’s not in great shape.’
‘The important thing is they have him,’ Luciano said, reaching for her hands. ‘I’m so relieved.’
‘Me too,’ she said, and without preamble they moved straight into each other’s arms, their lips meeting perfectly, the feel of his whiskers igniting her skin. With his hand on her back, he pulled her close until their bodies pressed together. She slid her hands up to his neck, weaving her fingertips through his hair. The setting sun cast them in a rosy glow that permeated her skin and lit up her heart.
She was breathless as they broke apart. ‘Wow.’
Luciano rested his forehead on hers. ‘Yep,’ he whispered. They stayed that way a moment, just easing into each other.
‘We should go get Charlie and go home,’ she said, gently pulling away. Luciano ran his fingers through her long hair, making her skin break out in goosebumps, and she moaned softly, wanting to stay there under his touch. She held up a finger. ‘Just give me one second.’
Luciano grinned and thrust his hands in his pockets, stepping back to allow her to concentrate.
She phoned Charlie. ‘They’ve got him. He’s okay. Meet us back at the car as soon as you can.’
The Gift of Life Page 28