Unsuitable

“What do you want us to do, Aud?”

She wanted her mother gone and Reece back. She wanted to be home in her own house, her own bed. There was sandpaper under her eyelids and it rasped over her eyeballs every time she blinked. She was so tired. She didn’t know what to do. Merry saw it and gathered Mia.

“Mum needs to have a sleep. We’ll come again later.”

“No. Mum comes too.”

“Go with Merry, Mia. I’ll come home soon.”

Mia started crying. “I want Reece.”

Audrey wanted him too. So very badly, even with a fuzzy brain, with uneven emotions, she knew it had to be the illness because she was almost convinced all the medicine she needed would be having him hold her hand.

15: Hesitant

Reece had reached a white flag truce with Audrey’s mother. If he didn’t speak to her, if he kept Mia out of her sight, she tolerated his presence to do his job. He didn’t much care what she thought about him, about anything, and he couldn’t believe Esther and Audrey shared any hardwiring. They didn’t share looks. Esther had the look of someone who enjoyed sour, salty flavours and ingested so much of them she’d started drying up from the inside.

Audrey must have favoured her father, one of those guys who thought they were Kings, Gods, who should determine how everyone else behaved. Guys who deserved to go down in a fight. Reece had fantasies about going back in time and taking on Audrey’s father, both of them in their primes. Reece would put Bates on the mat so he was hurt bad and couldn’t get up, so he thought about what it was like to be beaten and discarded, learned fear and humility, so later he’d think twice about abandoning his family.

If Bates so much as threatened to disturb Audrey’s peace of mind, Reece might still do it, without the time machine, without mercy, and they could sell tickets to the event.

He smoothed the coverlet over Mia’s bed. He shouldn’t be thinking about pleasure from violence when Audrey was due home any minute. Merry and Esther were bringing her. Two long weeks she’d been in hospital. Two long weeks during which she’d struggled to overcome the lingering effects of the meningitis and he’d shared Mia’s care with Merry and Joe and suffered through Esther’s pointed disdain. She’d seemed disappointed when it was clear he had no symptoms.

Turns out, Joe was all right. He copped to freaking out, to being heavy-handed. He and Merry were trying to get pregnant and it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t an excuse for how he behaved, but it was an insight. Joe ran flack with Esther. He flattered her with courtesy, listened to her rigid opinions without starting an argument, chauffeured her around, and got her out of the way without a single complaint. That alone made him a hero.

Reece did a last minute tidy while Mia played in her lounge chair treehouse. He set flowers in a vase and gave Esther’s suitcase a kick as he passed it in the hall. She wasn’t waiting to see if Audrey could manage on her own before moving out. He went back and kicked the bag again, then wanted to kick himself. He was nervous about seeing Audrey.

He’d seen her regularly in hospital once she woke and asked for him, but never alone, always with Mia, and Esther or Merry, and that’d stopped him doing what he’d wanted to do most, but didn’t know if she’d welcome. He’d held her hand, while Esther made tsk sounds, but he’d wanted to clim

b in the bed with her and hold on to her, knowing she was growing stronger despite being so thin and drained and brittle looking he was scared anew for her.

All he’d had those visits were her eyes; yellow, bloodshot and sunken, guarded by wary dark thumb prints but searching for his. He didn’t know how to read those looks, Audrey’s eyes on him down the length of the bed, across the shoulders of others. But he drank them down.

He didn’t know if she remembered kissing him. None of the others had mentioned it, either out of respect for Audrey or because it was the definition of awkward, especially as it became clear they needed him. Merry could only take a week’s paid leave and Esther had no interest in caring for Mia. He wasn’t going to mention it either. Audrey had enough to worry about.

He had no good reason to be nervous. Audrey was his boss. The kiss was distant and minor in the scheme of things and even if she did remember it, she’d been clear it wasn’t a defining moment. He was back to doing his job. Mia was healthy and happy. It’d taken him a few days to get her out of her fairy dress again, but swimming goggles worn around her neck were her new favourite accessory now.

But shit, shit, shit. He was nervous. When he heard Merry’s car, he went to the kitchen and put the kettle on, heard them enter the house. Then he stood in the doorway between the lounge room and the kitchen and watched Audrey crouch at the entrance to Mia’s treehouse. The action seemed to cause her discomfort, she braced her hands on her thighs and bent gingerly.

Mia barely looked up. “Oh, you’re home.”

“Can I have a kiss?”

“No.”

Audrey grimaced. “I can see you really missed me.”

Mia poked her head out from under the sheet. She was surrounded by every stuffed animal, doll and bright thing she owned. “I’m busy, Mum.”

Audrey struggled upright and Reece stepped forward. Merry and Esther were behind him in the kitchen. This was as close to being alone with Audrey he’d been since the night before he’d had to break the door down. He held his hand out to steady her and she grasped it. He wanted to use her words and ask for a kiss.

“Welcome home.”

She stepped towards him and then she was in his arms, her head pressed into his chest. He wrapped around her. The way her shoulders moved, she might be crying. She smelled like antiseptic, chemical and stale, her hair was limp and dull, her clothes hung off her, she was all bone and sprung tension.

“It’s so good to have you home.”

She lifted her head. Her eyes were wet.