Ask Me for Tomorrow (17 page)

She prickled at the old nickname, the long-ago endearment that used to be whispered in her ear or cried against her throat. She looked up and smiled, and made sure the welcome extended to her eyes.

‘Hi, Ethan.’ She didn’t trust herself to say more. Just standing this close to him made her heart feel heavy. It was foolish to miss a man who had left so long ago and stupid to let his occasional returns unbalance her so much, but she’d never been able to control that.

‘You look good. Your hair’s got long.’

Sam continued to scrape, unsure how to respond. He didn’t look good and she wouldn’t pretend he did.

‘Cal tells me you work at the yard.’

‘Yep.’

He paused, slowed by her monosyllabic answer. ‘It’s good to see you.’

Her hand stilled. She looked up, measured her tone and removed the sting from the words before she said, ‘One day you’ll say that on a normal day. But it’s good to see you too. How’ve you been spending your time?’

‘Poorly,’ was his unsatisfying answer. He reached for a near-empty serving tray of satay chicken and carried it into the kitchen behind her. It wasn’t worth salvaging and was scraped into the bin. He turned on the tap at the sink, preparing to wash the tray – then Dean walked in.

Dean was about four inches shy of Ethan’s extraordinary six foot seven, but he was equally solid. They shared their late mother’s brown hair and brown eyes. Ethan’s hair was longer and the curls less defined, but the pair were close in appearance otherwise. Unmistakably brothers; and right now, undeniably at odds.

‘Hey, Dean,’ Sam said, breaking the frosty silence that had stalked in with him.

His eyes softened. ‘Thanks for all your help, Sam.’

‘What else do you need?’

He opened his arms and she crossed to him. She squeezed tightly then eased away. He smiled down at her and lightly bumped her jaw with his knuckles.

‘Thanks,’ he murmured.

She glanced back at Ethan, stood rigidly by the sink, washing anything within reach. To Dean she said, ‘I’ll check on the kids.’

As she left the kitchen she imagined the temperature dropped behind her.

Nina was sitting on the back verandah steps, watching her brother kick a football with Cal. She shuffled against Sam’s hip the moment Sam sat down.

‘Hiya, Neenz.’

‘Hi, Sammy.’

The girls watched Cal shout and leap, attempting to animate Rowan and engage him in the moment. The afternoon sun was kind, warm and golden, and separated them from the black and grey of late.

‘I have questions,’ Nina said to her knees.

Sam’s insides jarred unpleasantly. Fear crowded alongside her sense of responsibility. As soon as she’d lost Bree, Sam had told herself that she’d help Dean raise his kids. She’d been in their lives from the start, they were as good as family to her. But she didn’t want to get it wrong. This was an important moment. A defining one. Nina had to know that she could always turn to Sam. She had to know that Sam had the answers, or that she’d try her hardest to get them for her.

‘Of course you do,’ Sam said. ‘Ask away.’

Nina sat in thoughtful silence for five kicks of the football. At last she said, ‘Everyone says Mummy’s gone.’

‘That’s right, darling, she is.’

‘But she’s down the road,’ she said, referring to the cemetery on the other side of town.

Six years old, Sam thought. Too young to need to understand death. ‘Her body’s down the road, Neenz. What they mean is that she’s not in her body any more.’

Nina considered this. ‘Daddy told me about souls. I said goodbye to her body, but. Cos her body has ears. Was that wrong?’

Sam hooked her arm around Nina’s slight shoulders and pulled the child against her. Tiny arms encircled her and held on tightly. ‘No, little one. That was good thinking.’

The football landed at Rowan’s feet and rolled. He watched it until it became still in the grass, then walked away.

‘She came back telling anyone who’d listen that you’d tricked her away from Bree’s wake!’ Dean said.

Ethan finished loading the glassware in the dishwasher and returned to the sink. ‘I said what I had to, to get her to leave. The woman was going to cause a scene.’ He dragged the bottom shelf out and began loading plates.

‘You made a scene
for
her! It was all anyone could talk about!’

‘Really? Never mind that she turned up looking like a one-night stand.’

‘We expect nothing less of her. But no one expected you to take her up on the offer!’

‘Because I’m clearly shagging her right now.’

‘This isn’t about you, Ethan!’

‘Damned if I thought it was!’

Ethan carried his bad temper into the living room. His hands shook as he reached for more plates to clear away. Dean followed, impatient to continue their row.

‘I’m getting goddamn fed up with that suit, let me tell you.’

Ethan swallowed the comeback that threatened and returned to the kitchen, his arms overloaded. He rinsed and stacked in silence, content to be Dean’s whipping boy only because the man was grieving.

‘What’ll it be next, huh? Ro’s graduation?’ The boy was eight. It was a well-aimed jab. ‘How long are you sticking around for this time? Where do you go when you disappear for years on end?’

‘I thought this wasn’t about me?’

‘You made it about you when you came home.’

‘I came back, I didn’t come home.’

‘Christ, Ethan, I can’t deal with this. Go back to wherever it is that you came from. And next time there’s a suit occasion just bloody stay away. Do us all a favour.’

Ethan threw cutlery into the sink. The noise was like a scream. He wiped his hands on the dishcloth then held them over his head. Although it near choked him to do it, he left the room without a word.

He passed Sammy in the hallway. Her pink cheeks and rounded eyes suggested she’d heard more than she’d meant to. She clutched napkins and tablecloths to her chest. Sometime in the last half-hour she’d kicked off her shoes. He clapped her on the back and moved upstairs.

The hallway was bathed in the fading light of day. Long shadows stretched along the beige carpet, in other places it burned gold. The western-facing window in his childhood bedroom also opened the space up to the sun. Light saturated the bedspread, the desk chair and the faded rug between.

He ignored it all as he strode to his suitcase and threw open the lid. Wrapped within a hooded jacket was a bottle of whisky. He uncapped it and drank from the neck. It burned. After a number of mouthfuls it began to warm. After a number more, it began to dull everything.

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