To Be a Family (Harlequin Superromance) (2 page)

Wayan nodded his thanks and slipped the envelope into a fold of
his sarong. Then he gestured at the array of food. “Please, have something to
eat.”

John spent the hours until sundown among Nena’s family and
friends. He spoke with the adults but his gaze frequently drifted to Tuti. Now
that the formal ceremony was over she and the other children ran around and
played. She was a tomboy, climbing barefoot up a palm tree with her sarong hiked
up, revealing pink shorts underneath. He smiled to himself. As a boy he’d spent
half his life up in trees. Somehow he’d always imagined his son—when he had
one—would be a tree climber. He’d never thought of a daughter that way. Yet here
was Tuti, just like him in that respect.

One of Tuti’s aunts spoke to her in Balinese with what sounded
like a gentle reprimand. Tuti shook her head and giggled, showing her dimples.
The aunt smiled and gestured for her to come down. Tuti just tilted her head and
laughed again.

John blinked. Until this moment, he hadn’t thought Tuti bore
any physical resemblance to him or his family. In appearance she looked much
like her mother’s side—brown skin, dark hair, almond-shaped eyes. But the way
she’d tilted her head just then…she reminded him of his mother.

The realization rocked him. All through Tuti’s short life he’d
been able to hold himself apart from her. Yes, he’d had the DNA test to prove
she was his and he did the right thing with support payments. But he’d done that
as though sending money to a sponsor child, as if he had no personal ties to
Tuti. Even when he’d first seen her it was easy to feel separate because
superficially she looked nothing like him.

Witnessing their connection in the small mannerism was living
proof they were connected, that Tuti wasn’t just a distant responsibility. She
was his daughter. His parents’ granddaughter. His brother and sisters’ niece. It
was a bizarre thing to realize here and now—surrounded by Nena’s family—but the
foreignness just made the recognition sharper.

Tuti belonged to him. She was part of his family, too. He
simply couldn’t walk away from that.

* * *

“T
HE
CROWD
IS
BIG
,” Katie said to Melissa, the woman running the
mini writer’s festival at the Summerside Library. She peeked through the doorway
at rows of chairs filled with children and their parents. “I thought I’d just be
speaking to kids.”

“You’ll be fine.” Melissa touched her arm and smiled. “You’ve
got a warm personality. Just be yourself. Let your positivity shine
through.”

“But what can I talk about that will interest the adults?”
Katie leafed through her notes. “I was planning on telling a story about an
adventure Lizzy and Monkey had that didn’t make it into the book.”

“The children will love that. Most authors also talk about how
they came to be a writer, what inspires them, their journey to publication, et
cetera. The adults will feel they can connect with you as a person.”

“At least I won’t need notes for that.”

Katie followed Melissa into the room and waited to one side of
the lectern while the librarian introduced her. A brief round of applause and
then a sea of faces—fifty, sixty?—gazed up at her expectantly. She spotted some
of her students. Paula Drummond and her son Jamie were also in the audience.
Paula, a police detective who would soon be Katie’s sister-in-law, winked at
her.

“Good morning, everyone.” Katie tilted her head, waiting.

Her students in the audience chanted, “Good morning, Miss
Henning.” A ripple of laughter broke Katie’s tension.

“Thanks for coming. Shortly I’ll talk about how I came to be a
writer but first…” She detached the microphone from the lectern, pinned it to
the lapel of her blouse and walked onto the dais. “I want to tell you a story
about the time Lizzy and Monkey were walking on the beach and found a pirate’s
treasure chest....”

For fifteen minutes, the audience listened, rapt. At the end of
her story, Katie concluded, “Monkey was sorry to see the pirate ship sail away,
but Lizzy was ready to go home for supper. She knew there would be more
adventures the next time she and Monkey went for a walk.”

Applause greeted the end of her story, allowing Katie time to
take a drink of water. She was buzzing on the energy in the room and grinning
inside at the response of the children to her storytelling. The reworked version
of this particular adventure had gone down well. For her next book she might
test the stories on her class, even pass out a simple questionnaire to better
refine the story.

“I always wanted to be a writer, from the time I was a little
girl,” Katie said to begin the second half of her talk. “But I didn’t think an
author was something that ordinary people like myself became. So because I loved
children, I went into teaching.” She paced the dais, thinking about her next
words. “I would have been happy doing that for the rest of my life. Then when I
was twenty-five I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though it’s so rare at
that age, there I was, getting chemo and radiation treatments.” She stopped
moving and gazed out at the rows of mostly women and children. “It was pretty
bad. The doctors, my family, everyone—including me—thought I was going to
die.”

There was a rustling in the audience, a few low murmurs. She
hoped the parents wouldn’t think her subject matter was inappropriate for the
kids. From her experience children were matter-of-fact about life and death. As
long as you were honest and didn’t try to sugarcoat the facts, they could handle
almost anything.

She glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows, past the street
and the parked cars to a row of gum trees stretching silver limbs into a blue
sky. She still recalled how she’d felt after enduring the long months of surgery
and debilitating treatments and finding herself still alive.

“Life is a gift.” She returned her gaze to her audience, now
utterly silent. She smiled, wanting them to see how well and happy she was. “A
gift to be treasured more than a pirate’s chest of gold and jewels. I didn’t
die. I got better. The sun seemed to shine more brightly, the colors of the
flowers were more vivid. Friends and family were more precious. Even now, years
later, every day I wake up is a blessing.”

Katie walked back to the lectern and took another sip of water.
This was a roundabout way of talking about her writing journey, but she couldn’t
see how she could take a shortcut and still be authentic. Children and writing
demanded honesty.

“From my illness I learned life was too short not to be true to
yourself. I loved teaching but I still had a dream of being a writer. How would
I feel if I’d been given this second chance at life and at the end of it, I had
regrets for what I
hadn’t
done?” Her voice vibrated
and she held out her hands, inviting a response from the audience. A few heads
nodded.

“After I recovered I vowed I’d never again put anything on
hold. As soon as I felt well enough, I started to write. Soon I was hooked.
Storytelling became my passion. After I went back to teaching, I wrote in my
spare time. It was as if all my life I’d been waiting to discover what I really
wanted to do—tell my own stories.”

A young girl, about seven years old, put up her hand. “Are you
Lizzy? Is that what you mean by your own stories?”

“That’s a good question. I am like Lizzy in some ways.” Katie
walked slowly across the dais as she thought out her answer. “When I was younger
I had a friend who reminded me of a cheeky, mischievous monkey. He made me
challenge myself. To climb trees and cliffs, to swim over my head in the ocean,
to be brave enough to take risks.”

But when she’d taken a life-and-death risk he didn’t approve
of—not getting a double mastectomy—well, he couldn’t handle that. Which was
really unfair considering he regularly risked his life with surf and sharks.

“When this boy and I ventured out together I never knew how the
day was going to pan out. As we got older we went rock climbing, paragliding,
even bodysurfing at Gunnamatta Beach. It was always something a bit
dangerous.”

“Weren’t you scared?” a boy called out.

“Often I was frightened out of my wits. But I did it, anyway.
Que sera sera
.” She spread her hands wide.
“Whatever will be, will be. We can’t plan our lives completely. Sometimes we
have to trust that things will work out.”

Take her writing, for example. She’d thrown herself into it,
not worrying whether or not she got published. Lo and behold, after years and a
lot of hard work, she’d sold her first book. Before her cancer she’d been a
planner and a rule follower. A perfectionist, she liked being in control of her
life. It had taken facing her own mortality to know that control wasn’t possible
all the time. She’d given herself permission to break free, to be more
spontaneous. Because you never knew what was coming around the next bend.

“Even with that belief, I don’t take chances with my health,”
she added. “I’m very careful with my diet, only eating organic, whole foods,
mostly vegetarian. I see my naturopath regularly and I take special dietary
supplements.” Some blank faces stared at her. Laughing, she waved a hand. “But
you don’t want to know all that.”

“Do you still have adventures with your Monkey man?” a brunette
woman asked, a small smile playing over her lips.

O-kay. That was striking too close to the bone. Some of these
people might know that she and John Forster had grown up together and been
engaged and put two and two together.

“I have my own adventures nowadays. I’ve been in remission for
six years but my gratitude for being alive hasn’t faded. I regularly take what I
call Adventure Days. I get in my car and tootle off down the coast road, heading
south on the peninsula. I take my camera and notebook, my hiking shoes and
rugged clothing. I’m ready for anything but with no plans whatsoever.”

Mostly, though, she found a quiet spot to walk, read and take
photos. Maybe write a little. Pretty tame, really. “Any more questions?”

“Where do you get your ideas?”

From memories of her times with John. They’d had so many
wonderful experiences together. She didn’t know what she would do when they ran
out. Her own adventures were all solitary ones.

“Don’t tell anyone, but…” She cupped a hand around her mouth
and spoke in a stage whisper. “I have an idea tree in my backyard. When I need a
new one I go outside and pick it.”

An appreciative chuckle ran through the audience. Katie used
that to springboard into talking about her writing habits, the way she organized
her office, the books she’d loved in childhood. It was a relief to move on to
less personal topics.

She worried she may have inadvertently given a wrong impression
that she still took part in dangerous activities. Truth was, she hadn’t done
anything risky in years, not since John. Why was that? Had she gotten scared or
just lazy? Or was she simply not the adventurous person she liked to think she
was? Maybe she’d only done those things because he’d pushed her and without him
she was a wuss.

She didn’t like that thought. John didn’t rule her life. She’d
proved that when she’d had cancer and they’d disagreed on her treatment. She’d
stuck to her guns on no mastectomy. He couldn’t handle that and had abandoned
her. That’s when she’d realized she had to rely on herself.

She wanted to be strong. She didn’t want to be sedentary and
soft. She needed to push herself. And she would. As soon as she thought of
something exciting to do.

CHAPTER TWO

A
ROOSTER
CROWED
. John sat up and stretched, his back sore from the thin mat
in the unmarried men’s quarters of the family compound. He’d booked a hotel room
down the road then decided he wanted a closer look at how Tuti was living and
make sure she was okay. In the bigger towns Balinese life approximated a Western
lifestyle. Here in this remote fishing village time seemed to have stood still
for the past fifty years.

Nena’s two teenage nephews, with whom he shared the small hut,
had already risen and left. Their mats were rolled and stacked against the wall.
Just inside the open door was a tray with a teapot and a plate of fresh tropical
fruits. He was being treated like an honored guest.

He pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, poured himself a cup of
fragrant, fresh ginger tea, and stood in the doorway looking onto the courtyard
of the walled compound. Grouped around the outer wall were separate rooms for
sleeping, cooking and storage. Judging by the grunts he’d heard from next door,
accommodation for pigs, as well.

Ketut, Wayan’s wife, was sweeping the ground clean of leaves
and bits of palm frond and flowers left over from the funeral offerings. She
glanced over and smiled at him but made no move to talk. That suited him just
fine. After yesterday’s exotic festival of people, color, noise—and yes, too
much rice wine—he needed time to himself.

He carried the plate of fruit and his copy of
Lizzy And Monkey
out to the
bale
shaded by a thatched roof in the center of the courtyard. He
sat, crossing his legs on the woven mat that covered the raised platform, and
reached for a slice of papaya. The compound was peaceful, with a pleasant smell
of wood smoke from the cooking fire. A slender young woman in a sarong lit
incense sticks on a small shrine in a shady corner. Chickens scratched in the
dust at her feet.

Wayan was a fisherman, but from what John could see, the women
did most of the work. The men saved their energy for religious rituals and
chatting over a glass of rice wine in the evening.

Tuti came through the ornate stone gate that guarded the
entrance to the compound. Her hair was again in pigtails and she wore a pink
T-shirt and pink shorts. The toddler was once again glued to her hip, which
couldn’t be good for Tuti’s back. But these people were strong, used to doing
manual labor from an early age.

She was halfway across the courtyard when she saw him sitting
in the
bale
. She paused, uncertain. He motioned to
her. Obediently she walked over, adjusting the baby, a little girl with wisps of
black hair and a drooly smile.

John held the baby while Tuti climbed onto the
bale
. She took the child back and nestled her between
her crossed legs. When he offered her a piece of mango she gave it to the
toddler.

“How are you this morning?” he asked.

Tuti smiled shyly, leaving him unsure whether she’d understood
him or not.

From his wallet he took out a photo of himself and Nena, a shot
of them perched on stools at an outdoor bar on Kuta Beach. He wore a T-shirt and
board shorts and had his arm around her. Her black hair was cut short,
Western-style, and she wore a yellow dress.

He showed Tuti the photo, watching her face to see if she
recognized her mother. And him. She glanced up, her eyes speaking a
question.

“Yes, that’s your mother—
Meme
.”
Tuti nodded. He pointed to his photo and then at himself. He started to say,
bapa
—father—then changed it to,
“Nama saya John.”
My name is John.

The feeling of connection with her was persisting—growing
even—but he hadn’t come here intending to claim her. And if he wasn’t claiming
her there was no point in telling her he was her father. He’d talked to Wayan
about this when he’d first arrived and Tuti’s uncle had agreed.

It felt surreal even having such talks. He and Wayan had also
discussed setting up a bank account for Tuti’s support payments so Wayan and
Ketut could continue to care for her. Was that enough? It didn’t feel like
enough. He was Tuti’s only living parent. But what was the alternative? Move
here and look after Tuti? That wasn’t going to happen. Bring her back to
Australia to live with him? How could he rip her away from her home and the only
family she knew to bring her to a foreign country?

Yet it felt wrong to just go away and leave her behind. Tuti
was his family. Family was a big part of who he was. He was close to his parents
and his sisters and he loved spending time with his nieces and nephews, teaching
them to swim, playing cricket with them on the beach.... They would all adore
Tuti.

Tuti stared at the photo of her mother for a long time.
Reluctantly she held it out to him. John shook his head and gently pushed it
back. “You keep.”

She smiled again, her eyes shining. She understood the meaning
of his gesture if not the words. John couldn’t help but grin back. With her
jaunty pigtails and dimpled smile she was cute as a button. He set his teacup on
the platform and brought out Katie’s book. Tuti edged closer, to peer over his
arm. Not wanting to hand it to her while she was holding the sticky baby, he
opened to the title page and showed her the inscription Katie had written.

“
Bukuh
for Tuti,” he said in pidgin
Balinese, pointing to her name. She have him a half smile, half frown, clearly
not understanding. Later he would get Wayan or Ketut to explain.

He read the story aloud, letting her look at the illustrations
as long as she liked before he turned each page. He wasn’t sure how much she
understood but she listened attentively and more than once laughed, whether at
the story or the pictures, he couldn’t tell.

“Do you go to school?” he asked.

Clearly recognizing the word “school,” she nodded vigorously,
her face lit. In a flurry of movement she handed him the toddler and scrambled
off the
bale
. John held the tot in one arm, keeping
the book away from her sticky, grasping fingers with the other.

On the ground, Tuti reached for the baby. “Come. School.”

John slid off the
bale
and, with
the book tucked beneath his arm, he followed Tuti out of the courtyard and down
the stone steps to the narrow potholed street.

High on the hillside, set among lush vegetation, a hotel looked
out on the ocean. Across the road was an open-air restaurant with just a few
rickety tables and a languid ceiling fan stirring the hot air. The village
straggled along a mile or so of coastal road, small houses interspersed with
homestays for tourists and a few small shops selling dry goods, fresh produce
and, outside, liters of gasoline in glass bottles.

Tuti hurried down the road, glancing over her shoulder to make
sure John was following. Between buildings, through banana trees and
bougainvillea and coconut palms, he glimpsed the curving sweep of a black sand
beach. A ragged fleet of outrigger fishing boats with their triangular sails was
returning with the morning’s catch. At a cleared lot John paused to watch as one
boat landed. The fishermen hopped out and, joined by other men waiting on the
beach, dragged the wooden hull up the sand.

Tuti tugged on his hand, impatient with his interest in what to
her was everyday life. Her destination was nearby, a squat cement building
covered in chipped green paint. She walked up to the doorless opening. “School,”
she said proudly.

John kicked off his flip-flops and ducked his head to step over
the threshold. A table and a chair for the teacher were at the front of the room
next to a blackboard on an easel. A woven mat covered the floor, presumably for
the children to sit on. An old tin can held stubs of pencils and a plastic
basket contained perhaps a dozen dog-eared notebooks. There weren’t any desks,
or books, or posters depicting the alphabet or the multiplication table, much
less anything as expensive as a computer.

He was surprised at how small and ill-equipped the school was.
In Bali, elementary school, at least, was compulsory and free. And he’d seen
large, modern schools in some of the bigger towns. But Tuti’s village was tiny
and remote and no doubt couldn’t attract the government funding needed for a
bigger school.

Tuti bounced on her bare feet, wanting his approval.

John forced a smile. “Good. Very nice. Tuti go to school
here?”

She nodded, her grin widening, and held up a finger.
“One…year.” She sifted through the notebooks and found hers, showing him rows of
wobbly Balinese script.

His stomach hollowed. Tuti was so eager to learn, so proud of
her tiny school with its acute lack of facilities. How much learning could she
do here? Read and write, add and subtract, that seemed to be about it. When he
got back to Summerside he would see about sending books, stationery, laptops,
whatever he could afford to improve the situation.

Tuti quickly ran out of things to show him. A few minutes later
he emerged from the school to see Wayan coming up the path from the beach. He
wore a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts wet around the cuffs, and carried a woven
fishing basket on his shoulder.

“Morning,” John called to Wayan. “Did you have a good
catch?”

Tuti, seeing the grown-ups were going to talk, ran back up the
road to the compound.

“Yes. Good.” Wayan’s wide grin showed a gap where a tooth was
missing. He lowered the basket and lifted the lid. Half a dozen fish, not much
longer than his hand, flopped feebly against a wet palm frond.

John didn’t know what to say. If this was a good catch he’d
hate to see a bad one. He’d surfed in Bali for years, taking advantage of cheap
holidays without giving much thought to the locals who were doing it tough. Nena
must have hidden how little money she had, out of pride or embarrassment. It
saddened and shamed him that he didn’t even know which.

“Tuti showed me where she goes to school,” he said, to avoid
talking about the fish. “It seems…” he paused, trying to be diplomatic “…small.
Is there a larger school in a nearby town, somewhere with more facilities? I’ll
pay for her fees and transportation. Books, whatever she needs.”

Wayan spit in the dust at the side of the road. “Tuti not go to
school now. Not important. She stay home and help with the children.”

“What?” John was stunned. “But…she has to go to school. To
learn to read and write.”

“Nena give us money from her job. Now she is gone, Ketut must
get a job in the hotel. Tuti look after the baby.” Wayan hoisted the basket on
his shoulder and trudged off.

John stared after him. And that was that? No discussion? No
exploration of Tuti’s options? Just shut down her life at the age of six so she
could be a babysitter? What would happen to that smart little girl with a thirst
to learn, who would never have an opportunity to improve her lot in life? Nena,
he knew, would never have allowed that to happen. In their brief, irregular
email exchanges over the years she’d been full of hope and plans for Tuti to go
to high school, maybe college.

He couldn’t let her stay here. But how could he take her away?
Wayan and Ketut were good people who would love and care for Tuti as if she was
their own. They had little of material value to offer her but they would
surround her all day, every day, with loving familiar faces and a home that held
a million memories of her mother. Uncle Wayan and Auntie Ketut would be able to
tell Tuti stories about her mother as she grew, keeping Nena’s memory alive.

What could he give Tuti besides the advantages of an education,
good health care and a high standard of living? Okay, that sounded pretty good.
But was it enough? He had no wife to soften the edges of his bachelor existence.
And there was no one on the horizon. Would material advantages make up for the
family life Tuti would have to give up in Bali?

He couldn’t imagine not being geographically close to his
parents and his sisters. To him, the close-knit family life he’d grown up with
was as solid an advantage as school. These days the traditional family with mum,
dad and two-point-two kids was more of an ideal than a reality but what was the
point of ideals unless you aspired to them? Despite the steady stream of women
through his life, he did aspire to the dream of a white picket fence. Whether he
would find it in time to benefit Tuti was another matter entirely.

But he had his own family to offer her. He knew they would love
her and accept her. She might be sad at leaving Bali in the short term, but now
that he knew her future here was so limited he had no choice.

Tuti was coming home with him.

He was acting on instinct, but the immediate relief he felt
told him he’d made the right decision.

That evening he spoke to Wayan and Ketut about his plan.

Ketut gazed at the ground unhappily.

Wayan said, “Tuti is all we have left of Nena, my sister.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But she’s my daughter.” He paused and added
delicately, “I will continue the support payments in Nena’s honor.”

Wayan shrugged as if to say that was beside the point. Then he
and Ketut talked between themselves in Balinese. They seemed to be disagreeing.
John held his breath. Which side would win out?

Finally, Wayan held up a hand. “Tuti go to Australia. Get an
education like Nena wanted.”

“She will visit us?” Ketut added hopefully.

“Yes, every year,” John said, ready to promise anything. He had
the right to take her but he wanted their blessing. After further discussion,
Wayan and Ketut decided that a cousin from another village would be brought in
to help with the baby.

John didn’t say anything to Tuti at first, either about being
her father or about taking her to Australia. He wanted her to get to know and
trust him.

He contacted the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, filled out a
bunch of forms and paid extra for expeditious processing of Tuti’s immigration
documents. Luckily he had holiday time saved, a sympathetic district
superintendent and reliable deputies in Riley and Paula.