Luciano drummed the fingers of his right hand on his jeans, like a cat swishing its tail in agitation while its face remained impassive. She felt nervous then, worried he might leave his job, which would be awful.
‘Please don’t leave The Tin Man,’ she blurted.
His fingers stopped moving and he shook his head, bemused. ‘Why would I do that? I love my job. I love The Tin Man.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes!’ He seemed aghast that she would think otherwise.
‘Because I know it’s selfish to say I want you in one part of my life but not the other –’
He held up his hand and she fell silent. ‘Listen to me. You don’t get to claim the top prize for complications. I am still reeling from losing my brother. And the kids?’ He shook his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘They’re great, don’t get me wrong, and I would do anything for them, but I feel like I’m ten years behind where I need to be and they are checkmating me at every turn. They’re emotionally volatile, unbelievably hungry all the time, and they ask dozens of questions I simply can’t answer. Every single day, I’m a drowning man grasping for driftwood to keep myself afloat. I’m relying on my mother to bail me out of trouble every second day.’
‘I live with my father,’ she countered.
‘Cooper sleeps in my bed most nights.’
‘The dog sleeps in mine.’
‘I’m forty-five and I have a mortgage I can’t afford and no savings.’
‘I’m forty-one and I’m in debt to a business loan, for which my parents were guarantors.’
‘Then between us, we’d better make sure The Tin Man is a raging success,’ he said.
Gabby wanted to keep protesting. The prospect of their being together was futile, wasn’t it? But a much bigger part of her wanted to take this lifebuoy he was throwing her. ‘So, what you’re saying is that you’re a complete mess too.’
‘Mess? I’m a bloody natural disaster! Someone should call the Red Cross to come and oversee the rebuilding of my life.’ He reached over and took her hand in between his two big, strong ones. ‘So, this is what I think we should do. Ignore it. All of it.’
‘Ignore it? That’s your plan.’
‘I think it’s a valid life choice. We’ll thoroughly ignore how messy we are and just, you know, jump in.’
‘Jump in,’ she repeated, feeling the stirrings of a giggle rising in her chest.
‘We might need a lifeguard to come and rescue us every now and then, but I think we’ll learn to swim eventually.’
She looked at her hand in his, safe and warm, and felt a sense of peace spread through her chest. Maybe all hearts, even the bruised and battered ones, were here simply to be given away to others, because that’s when they were the most powerful.
‘I’ll probably be on dialysis tomorrow,’ she said, throwing out her final objection.
‘Gabby, you could have one less leg, be wearing a sack and covered in cow manure and I would still want you.’ He seemed to genuinely mean it. What an amazing turn her life had taken recently, which just went to show you really could never know what was coming next.
She raised her coffee cup. ‘To us and our mess.’
He tapped his cup to hers. ‘To our beautiful mess.’ Then he kissed her, and it was delightful.
36
It took weeks for Krystal to locate the safe deposit box, which was held at a major bank in the centre of Melbourne. Trentino had advised her to do some forensic accounting, looking for regular automatic withdrawals from one of Evan’s accounts or their joint account. When she tracked it down, Trentino filed a motion to the court for Krystal to obtain access to the box.
The woman in the red suit swiped her pass at the door and pressed down the silver handle. Krystal was sweating in her summer dress, despite the air conditioning being a couple of degrees too cool for her liking. The three of them stepped inside.
‘Take your time,’ the woman said, and left Krystal and Trentino alone. The door latched shut behind them and a whir and clunk let them know it was locked once more. She stepped further into the room. In front of her were rows of grey metal boxes, each numbered and with key locks, lined up like tombstones. The lighting was harsh. A small black table and chair sat in one corner.
‘I feel like I’m in a movie,’ Krystal said, so jittery she thought she might faint.
‘This is a first for me, too,’ Trentino said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his cool grey suit pants. He moved to the rows of identical boxes, scanning the numbers. Krystal followed, glad for his company. She was nervous, afraid even, though she couldn’t have said why exactly. But it felt spooky in here. Dead silent. Cold.
‘Here it is,’ Trentino said, his fingers resting on the four-digit number. The door was just above their heads.
Krystal lifted the small key – such a plain, boring-looking key for what might become such an important moment in Australian legal history – and slid it into the lock. It turned. She’d half expected it not to. The door exhaled open, as if it had been holding its breath for too long.
Krystal paused, clutching the key in her hands, studying her wedding ring, the simple gold band Evan had given her when they married.
I give you my heart.
And she had given him hers.
‘Would you like me to …’ Trentino asked, his eyes bright, hungry to get into the box, hungry for answers.
‘No, it’s okay.’ She eased the door back as far as it would go, slid her hand inside, took hold of the metal handle and dragged the security box forward, pulling it all the way out, surprised at its weight as she lifted it down.
They both stared at it.
Trentino reached out a finger and touched the box, as though he couldn’t believe it was real. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
Was she ready to uncover her husband’s secrets, his final legacy, the thing he died for? Was she ready, perhaps, to discover that the Arthur family had blood on its hands – and therefore that any involvement they might have had in her boys’ future would be destroyed? Was she ready to ensure that Cordelia-Aurora was held accountable for taking away Krystal’s husband and her children’s father, if that was what turned out to have happened?
She was strong enough to face the future, whatever was coming next, she knew that now. She carried it to the table and placed it down.
‘I’m ready.’
37
‘Test, two, three, four.’
A man’s low voice rumbled through the cafe and the patrons turned their heads towards the green wall, where a three-piece jazz band had set up. Gabby had been using her long hours in hospital to think of more creative things she could be doing in The Tin Man – in no small part because Summer had inspired her so much that she felt she needed to keep up – and had made the first Tuesday of the month a live music day between ten and twelve. If it went well, she’d look at expanding it to every Tuesday. This was the first one. Luciano had found the group for her; they were friends of his and only too happy to come along for free food and coffee, and the chance to show off their talents.
Gabby’s eyes drifted over to the counter, where Ed and Kyle were whipping through a long chain of orders to supply the packed cafe, along with a host of takeaway orders for patrons milling around.
Pippa arrived, pushing her way through the crowd. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, kissing Gabby on the cheek, and pulled up a chair beside her sister. ‘Have I missed much?’
‘Nope, they’re just getting organised.’
‘Excellent. I lost track of time out in the paddock. Hercules was being so good I just didn’t want to get off.’
Gabby reached over and plucked a piece of hay from Pippa’s hair. Despite the chaff, she still looked fresh as a daisy in a lovely scoop-neck cotton dress in pale grey splashed with crimson flowers, cinched at the waist with a wide belt, and elegant shoes with a flared heel. Gabby had no idea how she’d managed it while getting dressed in a stable, but that was Pippa to a tee, really.
‘Does your horse ever put a foot wrong?’
Pippa grinned. ‘Nope. He’s the perfect man.’ She reached for Gabby’s arm. ‘Show me your tracks.’ Gabby did as instructed and rolled up her floral chiffon bell sleeves. She was back in large, loose, flowing tops and dresses to accommodate the fluid retention from all the medication. ‘Ugh.’
Gabby wrinkled her nose. The seeping blue, purple and red bruising definitely wasn’t pretty. ‘At least I’m still alive,’ she said, and meant it. She’d been on dialysis for weeks now. She’d have to go to the hospital three times a week till her kidneys recovered. Hopefully it wouldn’t be forever, because she wanted forever to be a long time yet.
‘What are your numbers?’ Pippa asked.
Gabby gave her all the stats from her tests and Pippa made general murmurs of sadness that things had gone downhill, then relief that it wasn’t worse, before a hearty round of spirit-boosting positivity.
‘Have you heard from Krystal yet? Wasn’t she going to the bank today?’ Pippa asked, eager for news.
Gabby felt lightheaded with anxiety. ‘Not yet. I’m so nervous. This has all come about because of the visions. What if they were wrong?’
‘Imagine how Krystal feels.’ Pippa looked sympathetic.
‘I can’t even.’ They sat in silence for a moment, absorbing the import of the visit to the bank, Gabby imagining Krystal opening the box to find evidence that would help bring the Arthur family to justice, or perhaps something completely boring, like an old will, or perhaps nothing at all.
‘Anyway, how are you? How’d things go with Harvey this morning?’
‘Good, actually. First mediation session done and we both managed to keep our cool. I’m staying in the house with the kids for now. He’s staying with his parents. We’ll reassess in six months. But after that, we might have to sell the house, and the kids and I might have to come back and live with Dad too.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Gabby said.
‘Maybe not actually kidding, though.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to be a single mum with four kids,’ Pippa said, resignedly. ‘Besides, I reckon Dad would love to have us all under the one roof.’
‘I don’t think there’s enough room for us all,’ Gabby said, trying to imagine them all packed in like sardines.
Pippa picked up a piece of lavender teacake from Gabby’s plate and popped it in her mouth. ‘You and I could share your room, couldn’t we?’
‘We didn’t even share a room when we were kids!’ Gabby said.
Pippa sighed as if Gabby was being terribly difficult. ‘Well, let’s not worry about it now. Anyway, you and that hunky man over there might move in together.’ She nodded over to the counter, where Luciano had just come through the swing door. He threw a tea towel over his shoulder, smiling at his friends getting ready to play. The bass player caught his eye and they lifted their chins at each other in a manly greeting. He even looked good with a tea towel slung over his shoulder. Gabby tried to imagine them and their kids in the one house, doing the dishes.
‘Isn’t there some saying about counting eggs before chickens?’ Gabby said.
‘Not quite.’
‘Huh?’
‘Chickens before hatching. No eggs.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘But it’s only a matter of time,’ Pippa said. ‘I choose to believe you and your kids are just keeping the beds warm for me and my kids till you move into Luc’s place and we move in with Dad.’
Just then Ed brought over a soy chai latte and a piece of pie for Pippa, thankfully, because Gabby was nowhere near ready to wrap her head around plans of the magnitude that Pippa was suggesting. All she wanted to do right now was focus on getting better and enjoying this new feeling of being in love once again, though this time with no sweeping romantic visions of happily-ever-afters. This time everything was different, which wasn’t a bad thing, as Luciano had reminded her.
‘We’re different people now that we’ve experienced great loss,’ he’d said one night, sliding a metal paddle into the woodfired pizza oven in his backyard. Their six kids had been inside his house, watching a movie, while she and Luciano sat in the candlelight, the dancing flames from the oven casting them in a golden glow. ‘We know the realities of the world. We know that anything and everything can change in a single moment, because we’ve seen it firsthand. We know that the only way to live is right here, right now. What other choice is there?’
‘None,’ she’d agreed. ‘Absolutely no other choice.’
He’d bent to kiss her and he tasted of red wine, and the feel of his chest beneath her hands made her murmur with desire.
Luciano must have felt her eyes on him now, as he turned to smile at her, and she almost couldn’t believe her good fortune to have found him at this stage of her life.
‘You’re a treasure!’ Pippa said, taking the cup from Ed. She ate a mouthful of vegan key lime pie. ‘That’s really good,’ she said, widening her eyes in surprise.
‘I have a new supplier,’ Gabby said, proudly. ‘Believe it or not, these are just her prototypes.’
‘Where’d you find her?’
Gabby laughed. ‘Right under my nose. It’s Summer! I had no idea she could make something like this, but she came up with it after her school project that looked at ways to make the cafe more environmentally sustainable. This –’ she gestured to the green pie with the crumbly toffee-coloured base – ‘is the result. She says vegan food will save the world.’
‘Winner,’ Pippa said, shovelling in another piece.
‘Except now she’s telling me she’s a vegan,’ Gabby said, groaning. ‘I’ve no idea what to feed her.’
‘She’ll tell you, no doubt. She’s talented, isn’t she? I’m nearly finished the logo for her.’
Gabby nodded proudly. Since Monty had quit his job at the RSL, he and Summer had been working on a line of skincare based on recycled coffee grounds. Just body scrubs so far, but they had big plans. In a few weeks’ time when school finished for the year, she and Monty were planning to take their range to markets around the city to conduct customer research.
‘Are the kids still going to Cam’s over the holidays?’ Pippa asked, finishing off her pie in record time.
‘Yes, for a few days here and there. He’s improved a lot. He sounds a lot better, looks better too. He, Meri and Mykahla came over last weekend for lunch with us all.’
‘That’s good news,’ Pippa said, seriously. ‘All our kids need their dads.’
‘They do.’
‘That’s why Harvey and I have to work really hard to keep our egos in check and make this as easy as possible.’
‘You’ll do it. You already are. I’m very proud of you,’ Gabby said. ‘And you should be proud of yourself.’
Pippa looked like she was going to scoff at that but then realised it was true. ‘Thanks.’
Gabby was looking forward to the holidays, eager to have more time with the kids. Charlie was coming in to do a short roasting apprenticeship with Luciano. She wasn’t sure whether she or Charlie was more excited about that. She’d heard Charlie mention a girl a few times now – Mackenzie – and she knew that as he entered these last couple of years of school she would see less and less of him, whether because of a girl or study. She felt like these were the last school holidays she might be able to really enjoy him.
All of her kids would be in the cafe a lot over the break, and Luciano’s probably too. Summer would be making vegan pies in The Tin Man’s kitchen, Charlie would be learning to be a barista and a roaster, and Celia would probably just be lovely, gentle Celia, skipping about like a sprite, her faithful dog at her side, perhaps practising chalkboard art. She and Antonia and Olivia had become good friends and would no doubt enjoy each other’s company. Cooper would be delighted to be anywhere near Sally.
Gabby’s phone vibrated with a message.
‘I
s it her?’ Pippa’s eyes were huge and she leaned across the table to read as Gabby did.
We got them. Trentino is beside
himself. He says there’s more
than enough evidence here
to initiate a case against the
Arthurs. Hold onto your hat,
Gabby. It’s going to be a wild
ride! I’ll pop in to see you
tomorrow to tell you everything.
Thank you, again. None of
this would have been possible
without you. Kx
‘Wow.’ Pippa collapsed back into her chair. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘I’m not sure I can either. But I want to be around to see how this plays out.’
‘You will be,’ Pippa said, completely confident.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s what Evan would want.’
Tick, tick, tick. The drummer tapped the snare drum to get the band in sync and they launched into a rousing big band swing number. People pulled out their phones and took photos. Others smiled and began to tap feet and sway in their seat. Gabby found herself smiling so widely her cheeks hurt.
A few patrons whistled and cheered as the saxophone whizzed up the scales. Gabby clapped and looked over again at Luciano, giving him two thumbs up. He winked at her, and she grinned like a teenager, feeling young, revitalised, taking it all in, taking in life. This life, right here, right now. This amazing gift of life.
Epilogue
Three years later
Gabby stood in Piazza Navona in Rome, licking tiramisu-flavoured gelato in a cone. She listened to the artist as he explained how long it had taken him to paint each of his oil canvases, and watched as each dazzling painting flicked over. Yellow sunflowers. Grey-green olive trees. Blue mountains. Gondolas on the turquoise water in Venice. The partially broken, yet still magnificent, arches of the Colosseum. The Spanish Steps. The Trevi Fountain. The amazing blues and sheer drops of the Amalfi Coast. The ruins of Pompeii. The medieval towns of Tuscany. The statue of David. All sights she had either visited already or was due to see in the coming weeks.
The Gift of Life Page 32