The Soulmate, page 13
There had been a DNA test, of course, but when I finally saw her I realised that we needn’t have bothered. Her mother was of Indian descent, and Asha’s eyes were brown and her skin too. But she had Freya’s mouth, her chin, her smile. She was Gabe’s daughter. Anyone with eyes could have told you that.
I considered leaving him. I considered slapping him. I cycled through every emotion, once and then again. There was a rhythm to it, the way they spiked and settled, spiked, settled. Anger, I realised, was the least painful, so I concentrated my efforts there for a time but eventually my rage dissipated. Because, unlike the other times Gabe had disappointed me, this time there was another person to consider. A little girl who had just lost her mother. A girl who was currently being cared for in a foster home. Whether or not she stayed there was up to me, Gabe said.
‘All right,’ I said, a week after I’d found out about Asha’s existence. ‘I’ll meet her.’
The foster home was a modest brick bungalow in a quiet street. There was a swing set in the front yard and a boy who looked to be around three or four played in a sandpit.
Asha sat between an older woman’s legs. She was wearing a yellow polka dot dress and yellow leggings, and she held a blue plastic shovel and ball. When we walked into the garden, Asha looked up at me and smiled. Was it strange that I immediately felt a connection with her? I put it down to the fact that she bore such a strong resemblance to my own child. I didn’t look at Gabe. In that moment, perhaps oddly, he’d never felt more irrelevant.
I kneeled, collected the ball that had rolled away from her and handed it back. She held up her shovel as if to show me.
I’d already decided we were taking her home, but if I hadn’t, I would have decided then. Of course she was coming home with us. It was as if she was always destined to be part of our ragtag crew. After we’d played with the ball and shovel for a bit longer, Asha reached for me with her chubby little arms. It was so typical. Gabe created beautiful things, and I took care of them.
37
AMANDA
AFTER
Max is in the back seat of the Mercedes, his driver Arnold up front. For once, he’s not looking at his phone. He hasn’t opened his computer. A couple of times on the journey he wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. That’s the funny thing about Max. He is capable of bad but also good. I forgave him for all of it, loved him for all of it. There was only one thing I couldn’t forgive. He knew that. But he did it anyway.
On the seat beside him is the article about Gabe Gerard. It’s the only thing he looks at on the whole two-hour drive.
What are you going to do, Max? I wonder, as the car pulls up in the Gerards’ street.
He picks up the article, tucks it under his arm and gets out of the vehicle.
38
AMANDA
BEFORE
Max was always a self-confessed security freak. It took some getting used to. The deadlocks, the security systems, the CCTV cameras. The alarms that went back to base. Every time I got used to a new system, he’d install something newer and more high-tech. I thought of it as a ‘man fetish’. Some men had car fetishes. For others it was grass or tools or golf. Max lusted after security systems. It never occurred to me that his obsession with security might spring from a fear for our safety. Until the day that it did.
It was a Tuesday. Max had left for work an hour or so before and I was in the house alone, doing some stretches before my 9.30 am Body Pump class. The first hint that something wasn’t right came with the knock on the door. Not the most ominous thing in the world, but this was not how people signalled their arrival at our house. Usually, visitors pressed the intercom at the gate. I would examine their face on a screen while they told me what they wanted, and then I would decide whether or not to open the gates to let them in.
I’ll admit, the knock unnerved me, but I was a nervy type. I froze right there on my yoga mat and listened.
There was another knock, this time louder. As I made my way to the door, I remembered that the intercom hadn’t been working and Max had said someone was coming to fix it.
I walked through the living room to the foyer. ‘Who is it?’ I said through the door.
‘Mrs Cameron? Sorry to bother you – it’s Adam. I work for Max’s security team. We’re installing a new intercom system today. I just need access to your unit so I can connect it, and then I’d like to run some tests, if that’s okay?’
I’d started to open the door even before he finished talking. By the time I saw the two giant men, it was too late to close it again. A boot thudded into the door. It flew backwards, taking me with it. My head hit the wall. I was still seeing stars when the door closed again, and the men were inside.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
The men wore black jeans, T-shirts, stockings over their faces. One was tall and muscular. The other was shorter but wider, like a body builder, with veins bulging from his biceps. They had hands like baseball mitts, with fingers covered in gold rings.
‘Don’t be scared,’ the shorter one said. But his unsmiling face and dull gaze did nothing to reassure me.
‘I have money. Or jewellery. Whatever you want – you can have it.’
The taller man said, ‘We don’t want money.’ He sounded amused.
‘We have some business with your husband that we need to sort out,’ the shorter one said just as the phone in my hand started to ring. I glanced at the screen. Max.
‘Speak of the devil,’ the shorter man said. His tone told me that this was expected. ‘Answer it.’
I lifted the phone to my ear.
‘Amanda?’ Max said, before I could speak. His voice was strained. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. But there are two men here.’
‘Inside the house?’
‘Yes.’
I heard him exhale slowly. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. They just said . . . they have some business with you that needs sorting out?’ My voice rose in desperation. Sort out the business, it said. For God’s sake, sort out the business.
‘Okay.’ Max took a long breath. ‘Put me on the phone to them.’
When I held out the phone, neither man looked surprised. The shorter man took it.
‘Max? . . . Glad to hear it . . . She’s fine, not a scratch on her. Just a minute.’
He handed the phone back to me. I lifted it to my ear.
‘The men are going to leave now,’ Max said. ‘When they’re gone, lock the door and don’t answer it for anyone. Don’t call the police. I’m on my way home, but I want you to wait on the phone with me until they are gone, all right?’
The men were already gone.
‘All right.’
When Max arrived home ten minutes later with two security guards in tow, I was still sitting on the floor in the foyer with my back against the wall. It was as though my limbs had frozen into position. Max had to put both arms around me and pull me to my feet to get me to move to the living room. There, he helped me onto the couch, even though I was entirely uninjured apart from the bump to my head.
‘I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am, Amanda.’
Max looked worse than I did. His skin was grey. I worried he might be having a stroke or a heart attack. He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. ‘When they said they had you . . . I went out of my mind . . . The idea that they might hurt you . . .’
We sat there for a long time, just holding each other, while Max apologised. In the end, I was the one comforting him.
I’ll never forget those moments, sitting together on the couch like that. I remember thinking: I didn’t realise how much you cared. That’s another funny thing about marriage. Sometimes, when you look back on it, the worst moments are in fact the best.
39
PIPPA
NOW
The streets are busy as we make our way home after dinner. As usual, the girls are on their scooters and Gabe and I on foot. It’s a mild night and it takes forever to get home because people are out and about, riding bikes, scooting and walking. Freya and Asha see half their preschool class. Gabe and I wave at the parents, but we keep our heads down and don’t engage further. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make small talk with strangers again.
‘Interesting that Asha brought up her mother,’ I say to Gabe.
‘I know.’
We’ve always been honest with Asha about the way she came into our family. We talk about it in positive, age-appropriate ways, saying things like, ‘Freya, you came out of my tummy, but Asha, you had another mummy, and you came out of her tummy before you came to live with us.’ We read books to the girls about adoption, stepfamilies and the different ways people become a family. We framed a picture of Asha’s mother and hung it in their room. We told her it was sad that her mother had died, and that her mother had loved her very much. Asha had been completely uninterested, but of course we’d always expected that one day she’d want to know more. It was only a matter of time.
‘She pays closer attention than we think,’ Gabe says. ‘We need to be more careful about what we say in front of her.’
‘I agree.’
We turn onto our street. Mr Hegarty is mowing his nature strip. He gives each of the girls a high five as they scoot past. When Gabe and I get close, he stops the mower. The setting sun shines into his eyes, and he lifts a hand to shield them.
‘Nice evening for a walk,’ he says.
We both smile, nod, agree, but my mind is elsewhere and I think Gabe’s is too.
‘There was a man here earlier asking after you.’ He squints at us. ‘Well, technically he asked after Gabe. He pulled up in a fancy black car with a driver. He was probably sixty-odd. Sandy-grey hair. Smart trousers. Collared shirt.’
I feel my smile freeze in place.
‘Did he say what he wanted?’ Gabe asks.
‘No. Just asked if I knew Gabriel Gerard and asked which house was yours. I told him I couldn’t give out that information, of course. Not that he looked shifty or anything, but you can’t be too careful these days, can you?’
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. My mouth is dry.
‘Thank you, Mr Hegarty,’ Gabe says, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. ‘We appreciate your discretion. Especially with our little girls around.’
Mr Hegarty gives us a wave and starts up his mower again. But above the noise of it, Gabe’s voice remains in my head. Our little girls. Dear God. We have just endangered our little girls.
*
‘It must have been Max,’ I say to Gabe when we are inside.
He’s sitting on the edge of the tub, I’m pacing. The girls, already naked, are streaking up and down the hall, oblivious to the storm brewing around them.
I am both shocked and totally unsurprised. Also, irate with myself. For goodness sake . . . what did I think was going to happen? Of course Max had found out. Of course he was going to come here. All we’ve done is make things worse for ourselves by not telling the police. Worse for Gabe.
‘It might not have been Max,’ Gabe says.
‘Who else would it be?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gabe looks stressed, even though he’s keeping his voice calm. ‘It could have been a police officer. A plainclothes detective, maybe?’
I stop pacing and look at him. ‘Would that be better?’
He sighs. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do we do? What is the plan now?’
I feel like I’m in a Hollywood movie. We’re a nice normal couple who find themselves embroiled in something involving the Mob or the government or an underworld gang. The bath, with its floating rubber duckie, is a sickening, bizarre backdrop.
‘We do nothing,’ he says. ‘Just wait. If anyone knows anything, we’ll hear about it soon enough.’
As if on cue, his phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket and shows me the screen. The number is withheld. My adrenaline spikes. Is this what it’s going to be like every time the phone rings? Every time someone turns up at the house looking for us?
Gabe turns off the tap and lifts the phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’ We lock eyes. ‘Yes, speaking.’
I watch him, my heart rate climbing.
Gabe scrunches his face up tight, then lets it go. ‘Damn. Yes. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.’
‘What is it?’ I mouth. I am already steeling myself.
‘Yes. Yes, that works for me. I’ll be there. Thank you. My apologies again.’
He hangs up. ‘I forgot to take the girls to get their vaccinations.’
The flash of rage I feel doesn’t completely make sense, even to me. It’s wild and furious.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ I scream. ‘I made the bloody appointment for you! All you had to do was show up!’
It feels amazing to scream at Gabe. It’s not something I do. We speak respectfully to each other; we tiptoe around each other’s feelings. But there’s something about screaming that feels good, particularly given the banality of the subject. This is normal marital irritation. I focus on it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gabe says. ‘I had things on my mind.’
Like trying not to be imprisoned because of you.
And there it is: the reason I can never yell at him again.
Gabe’s gaze flickers to the bathroom doorway. I turn around. Two naked girls stand there, eyes wide. Their parents fighting is something new to them. They appear more curious than frightened.
‘Bath time!’ I say, in a ridiculously cheerful voice. The stress of the situation has sent me mad.
Asha’s gaze travels to the bath and she shakes her head. ‘More water! And bubbles!’ Then she tears off back down the hallway with Freya at her heels.
Gabe picks up the bubble bath and pours it in, turning the bath a sickly pink colour. He turns the tap back on.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again.
I close the lid of the toilet and sit on it. My anger dissipates as fast as it came on. ‘I don’t care about the vaccinations.’
‘I know.’
My shoulders slump and I hold a palm against my forehead. ‘If Max has been asking around about us, it means he knows you were the one with Amanda before she died. Which means it’s only a matter of time until –’
The doorbell rings. The girls squeal. I hear the thunder of feet as they streak to the door.
Gabe turns off the tap again. ‘Wait!’ he and I shout in unison. We grab a towel each and race after them.
‘Mummy!’ Asha calls, as Gabe and I arrive in the hallway. The front door is wide open and Detective Tamil is standing there. ‘The police are here!’
40
PIPPA
THEN
I‘d just got out of the shower when I heard the thump. It sounded distinctly like a body hitting floorboards.
It was early, just after 6 am. Asha had been with us nearly a week. It hadn’t been a terrible adjustment, considering. Asha had not been overly distressed. She hardly ever cried. She played with the toys we put out and ate the food we offered. She allowed us to care for her. But there was a guardedness. She didn’t smile. I hadn’t once heard her laugh.
We’d fallen into a bit of a routine, the way you did with a new baby. Everything was trial and error. We knew that she liked pasta and strawberries. She’d commandeered one of Freya’s stuffed frogs, which she carried with her everywhere, and we’d already developed a hearty fear of losing Froggie, the way any parent worried about losing that one toy that would soothe their child. We knew that she hated daytime naps but would fall asleep at 6 pm and then sleep right through till the next morning. During the day, I was her primary parent, the one she went to instinctively to have her needs met. But this early hour, this short period of time before Freya woke up, had somehow become Gabe’s.
When I heard the second thud, I grabbed my robe and raced out of the bedroom.
In the living room, I found Asha sitting up in her highchair. Gabe was on the floor, face down, his arms and limbs splayed like the police outline of a murder victim. But I barely registered that because of what else was happening.
Asha was laughing.
Gabe saw me. ‘Watch!’ he said.
He jumped up and took a few steps, acting super casual. Then he pretended to catch his foot on the corner of the rug. ‘Whoa!’
To his credit, it was a good fall. He didn’t brace himself or land lightly. He threw himself across the room and landed on his face. I was certain he’d have a bruise tomorrow.
Asha lost it. She threw her head back, slapped her hands against her tray. I’d never heard a laugh like it. It was a dirty laugh, deep and husky and from the soul. She held her stomach. It was the kind of laughter that ends wars, cracks you open, makes everything okay.
Gabe’s eyes were glistening with tears. I assumed they were tears of mirth, but then his chin quivered. ‘She’s laughing,’ he said. ‘I’m so happy that she’s laughing.’ He pressed his lips to Asha’s mop of dark hair and just stayed there for a moment, breathing her in. I forgave him in that moment, as I always knew I would. It was impossible not to forgive this man. Even though I knew that, eventually, this would probably be my downfall.
Asha’s arrival into our family was complicated in many ways. The love part, though, was simple. We all adored her. We adored the crevices in her belly, the pads of fat on the backs of her hands. We adored the way she nestled against my chest when she was tired.
My family knew how she came to be, of course, and they didn’t miss a beat. If anything, they worked harder to prove their love for her, to make up for the fact that I was afraid it wouldn’t come naturally. They needn’t have worried, just as I needn’t have. The love was fast and fierce.
If there was a book about adoption, I read it. I knew about reactive attachment disorder. I was on the lookout for signs of trauma, behavioural issues and hidden disabilities. We followed the professionals’ advice to the letter. How else did one follow advice?
