‘Dude,’ Matt called out, walking to James with the phone in his hand. James hadn’t even heard it ring. He was used to being so attuned to it just in case it was Kane or—
‘It’s the school. Kane needs you.’
James was on his feet and running before Matt had finished talking. At the kitchen door he turned to Dave and Cate. ‘Stay if you like. Have a swim. Eat. The school’s not far. We’ll be home soon.’
Dave and Cate waved him away. ‘No, mate,’ Dave said. ‘It’s time we left too.’
He shifted his gaze to find Siena sitting primly on the corner of his old outdoor bench, looking so beautiful, so elegant, so worried, and so real. Despite all the ‘what ifs’ rocketing through his mind, he wasn’t finished with her yet.
‘Come,’ he said, holding out a hand.
And his heart clenched in his chest at the light that shone in her eyes at his simple request.
When she stood and came to him he knew that he had no choice. By the end of that day he would be asking her to stay.
James drove to Kane’s school and, though he kept to the speed limit the whole way, Siena still felt tension behind every gear change.
He looked across at her every moment that he could, and the smile in his eyes made her melt, but the moment he looked ahead his attention was focused on getting to Kane, and it made Siena wish she hadn’t come along for the ride.
His first priority would always be his son and every minute she sat in the car only rubbed it in deeper.
They pulled up in front of the school and James even held the door open for her, taking her hand in his as he loped up the school steps. He moved slowly enough for her to keep up in her pencil skirt and high heels, but he jogged all the same.
Siena passed classrooms filled with kids at multicoloured desks positioned not in alphabetical rows as she had known but in circles, or with no desks at all as kids sat with their teachers on the floor. Again she felt the winds of change that had swept through the place since she’d left.
A woman about James’s age, wearing a neat navy suit, with her long blonde hair pulled into a tight high ponytail, met them in the empty hall. James’s hand slipped out of Siena’s as he rushed to the blonde’s side.
‘James, I’m so sorry to have called you, especially with the school day almost over,’ she said, laying a hand on James’s upper arm.
Siena felt overwhelmingly proprietorial. Nothing that belonged to her gave her such a sense of ownership. Heck, her foreign sky girl friends who crashed at her apartment in Melbourne spent more nights in her bed than she did.
‘Don’t sweat it, Mandy. Really,’ James said. ‘You know the deal. If he needs me I’ll be here. No matter what.’
Naturally Mandy chose that moment to notice Siena standing there looking like a wallflower at a school dance. She felt herself blushing as it slowly dawned on the teacher’s pretty face that she had been James’s ‘no matter what'.
‘Hi. I’m Siena. A friend of the family,’ Siena said when James didn’t.
She held out her hand and Mandy had to let go of James to take it. Siena had to fight back a victorious smile.
‘Nice to meet you, Siena. Kane mentioned you in show and tell today.’
‘Oh, my. What did he show?’ she asked.
‘His scar,’ Mandy said, pinning Siena with that scary teacher stare they learned at university. ‘Pretty impressive. Now, shall I take you to him?’
Mandy looked from James to Siena and back again.
‘Go,’ Siena said before James could tear himself apart any more. ‘I’ll be fine out here.’
She found a row of bright orange plastic chairs against the wall and sat down to wait.
‘Thanks, Siena,’ he said. ‘We won’t be long.’
He turned and walked into the small room with Mandy, their heads bent together as they went to help his son.
Siena spent several minutes in the too small chair, listening to James’s deep voice murmuring through the open door. He spoke to his son, consoled him, and eventually joked with him, no doubt making Kane feel as though no matter what his world was secure.
She’d never felt so secure as a kid. She’d felt as if every day someone important in her life would leave her, as her mother had. And the day her father had died had only proved it to her. And both times it had been all her fault.