Ask Me to Stay (4 page)

Nina wriggled on the spot, grinning, and Rowan slapped his palm to his forehead.

Ethan got his coffee.

Sally clearly didn’t give him any points for child labour – he didn’t get any change – but Ethan was too amused to care.

His eyes were once again drawn to the garage as they crossed the street and walked to the supermarket, and it was a struggle not to let the place spoil his mood.

In the supermarket behind the pet food aisle was a liquor section, and beyond that a hardware store. Tucked into the far corner, between the handsaws and levelling planes, was a tiny cubicle fit for one. The bank teller waved at the children as they passed.

Ethan found what they needed then indulged the kids in a treat at the checkout. Rowan asked for a chocolate bar. Nina had wanted one of the rotating charcoal chickens, but at length she settled on a small packet of jelly snakes.

It was tempting to linger, to explore the main street further, but he wanted to get back and roll up his sleeves.

They bumped into Ben O’Hara on the street. He was limping.

Before Ethan could enquire, Ben pushed a finger against Ethan’s chest. There was fire in his eyes and a mad turn to his mouth. ‘What’s my daughter doin’ workin’ at your house, then, ey? She’s got a payin’ job here, she’s got responsibilities. What, are you bloody useless or somethin’? Clean up your own mess! Who do you think you are? You should be —’

Ben’s rant was interrupted by the quietest of sniffs. He looked down, trembling with unspent rage.

Nina had taken Ethan’s hand. Tears were spilling down tiny cheeks flushed with emotion. ‘Don’t —’ She swallowed and took a shaky breath. ‘Don’t yell at my Ethan!’ Frightened by her own daring, she ducked behind Ethan’s leg. ‘You’re a mean old man!’ She began to cry in earnest.

Rowan hurried to put an arm around her. He put the other around Ethan’s waist. He glared up at Samantha’s father and said, quite simply, ‘Go away.’

Ethan had just been publicly shamed, but he still felt sorry for the old guy. Ben looked devastated and embarrassed. He stumbled back, opened his mouth, closed it. Then hurried away, shuffling awkwardly on his bad leg.

Ethan walked the kids to a nearby bench and lifted Nina onto it. She was still trembling and her nose was running. He had no tissue to offer her. He slipped off his shoe and peeled off his sock. When he offered it to her, her nose crinkled.

He pointed to the elastic part. ‘Use that bit.’ She blew her nose. ‘You guys are amazing,’ he said, floored by their behaviour and touched to the core.

Rowan perched beside his sister and rubbed her back. He shrugged. ‘Family.’

As simple as that, Ethan thought. As simple, as complex and as beautiful as that.

Kneeling beneath the shower in the tub of the upstairs bathroom, Ethan gripped the new metal bar and surrendered his entire body weight to its mercy. Rowan and Nina watched from the sink counter, their feet bumping against the cupboard doors.

No one fell. Nothing broke.

Rowan and Nina each took a turn holding it. Rowan was more thorough in his testing than his sister, who attempted to use it as a monkey bar.

‘It’s not for playing on,’ Ethan warned. His stern tone made her pause. ‘It’s only for if you need help, do you understand?’

She nodded soberly.

He crossed to the countertop and removed something palm-sized from a supermarket bag. ‘I also got you guys this.’ He held it out to them. ‘Soap on a rope. You hook it around your wrist.’ He demonstrated on a wide-eyed Rowan. ‘You can’t drop it. See?’

Rowan uncurled his fingers and the soap bounced on its rope in the air. He did it again and again before he allowed Ethan to hook the soap over the shower tap.

‘When it gets skinny just ask your dad for a new one, okay?’

The kids returned to their perch and Ethan set about neatening up the wall tiling grout. His audience was silent and patient. When Ethan was done, Rowan handed him a piece of paper. Ethan thumbed the sticky tape against the new shower rail. Rowan’s
WET
sign was back at work.

He stood back and admired the job. His heart fluttered when tiny fingers hooked around his elbow.

‘I wish you’d come before.’ Nina rubbed her nose as she stared at the shower.

Rowan nodded.

Never in her life did Sam think she’d be going to Ethan for answers. The man was a walking puzzle, a breathing enigma, yet here she was driving to him like he were the solution to her baffling afternoon.

Her father had been acting strangely. She couldn’t believe it was because she’d taken the morning off to help the Fosters – she’d told her mother ahead of time, as had Cal, that they were going to descend on the house to polish the place up. Do what needed doing. Yet her dad had become irritable and bashful whenever the Fosters had been mentioned today.

He wouldn’t look her in the eye – a clear sign of shame. She was flummoxed.

All Samantha could think was that Ethan might have had something to do with it. She’d been wrapping up the last of her gardening this morning, tossing Dean’s tools into the wheelbarrow, when Nina had danced out the front door and scrambled into the front seat of Ethan’s ute. Ro had followed, bumping and shoving his uncle, grinning and laughing at a joke Sam hadn’t heard. They’d driven off happy, which was truly a delight to see.

Shortly after Sam had arrived at work her father had come back from smoko limping and grizzling. Her mum had said he’d knocked his shin loading a whipper snipper into a hatchback, but she hadn’t been able to explain why he’d merely grunted at his daughter and shuffled past.

Sam had put in a long day. Not a lot of customer loadings, but the yard had needed a clean-up and the new forklift driver had misunderstood her unloading directions, so things had been double-handled a lot.

The yard was big until two people were at odds with each other, so she’d be damned if she was going to suffer through that awkwardness again tomorrow.

That’s why she found herself bumping along the Foster driveway shortly after dinner that night.

Cal’s ute was parked by the farmhouse. She rapped her fingers against its hood as she passed.

The door to the house was unlocked as always, and she let herself in.

There was a crowd in the kitchen. Dean sat at the round table, paperwork spread out before him, Rowan in a seat to his right. Nina was facing the room, standing on Ethan’s feet; he was leaning against the counter. He kept glancing between a mug of coffee on the counter nearby and the tiny person beneath him. Wishing for one but loving the other.

Cal sat to Dean’s left, elbows on the table, a broad smile on his handsome face. He was looking at the woman whose back was to Sam, sitting straight-backed in a chair designed for comfort. Anna.

Damn Samantha’s luck.

‘Sammy!’ Nina leapt from Ethan’s feet and charged through the kitchen to reach her. Everyone looked up or turned. Sam accepted the enthusiastic hug then straightened. ‘Looks like a party.’

Caleb stood, offering her his seat. ‘I’m introducing Ethan to Anna.’

Why? Sam wondered. He would likely be gone by morning.

She glanced around the room. Anna was fingering a knot in the grain of the kitchen table and Ethan was now drinking his coffee, his eyes unfocused. Sam barely withheld a smile. Things didn’t appear to be going so well.

‘Thanks, Cal. Hi, Anna.’ She dropped into the seat and opened her arms, welcoming Nina into them.

‘Samantha. How was work?’ Anna asked.

‘Odd.’

Sam was unsurprised when Anna didn’t enquire further. But Ethan did. ‘Odd?’

‘Dad was in a mood. Know anything about that?’

He rubbed the back of his neck and his smile was rueful. ‘We had a run-in on Tynes Street.’

Nina turned in Sam’s lap to face her. ‘Your daddy’s a mean old man!’

‘Did you tell him that?’

Nina nodded furiously.

Amused, Sam looked at Ethan. ‘Ah. Chastised by a six-year-old. That’ll do it every time.’

Caleb rounded Anna’s chair and rested his hands on her shoulders. Although his fingers flexed and pressed, doubtlessly soothing, Anna did not lean into him. She accepted the affection without thanks and made no move to return it. Sam looked away, unable to hold her smile in place.

She caught Ethan’s eye and they seemed to understand one another.

‘You look good,’ she said to Rowan.

He beamed at her. Dean glanced at his son, glanced at Ethan then returned to his papers. Sam sensed more conflict between the brothers and wished she could lift it from their hearts. No two people deserved one another more that Dean and Ethan. Their relationship had been the envy of every sibling in school. It had unravelled in the weeks following Ray and Kelly Foster’s deaths, but it had fractured – broken – the day Ethan had left town. They’d never been able to find their rhythm again. Ethan had never stuck around long enough.

But this time was different. Something was happening here that Sam couldn’t quite get her head around yet. It was dangerous: she was getting used to seeing him, and relying on Ethan for anything – even something as simple as sticking around – could only ever end in bitter tears and sharp disappointment.

She had to steel herself against him. Or he’d break her again.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked Dean, keen for conversation and distraction.

‘Selling the business.’

‘The garage?’ Sam straightened. Her eyes found Ethan’s, which were void and flat.

‘No, not the garage. The – the craft shop.’

‘Oh.’

‘I can’t afford to keep them both. I don’t have the time or the passion for the shop.’

Sam nodded, understanding. ‘Sure.’

He lifted a page closer, scrutinised it then put it down. He looked exhausted. Burdened by a process that followed too soon after loss.

‘I reckon that about does it for the night.’ He bundled the pages together and slipped them into a buff folder. This he carried to the filing rack beside the fridge. ‘Listen, Ethan,’ he said, turning back, ‘while I’ve got money on my mind —’

‘No,’ Ethan said, cutting across him. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘It’s your money, it’s just sitting there —’

‘So use it. I don’t want it. Spend it on your kids, buy a space flight – I don’t care. It’s yours.’

‘Mum and Dad left it for —’

Ethan set his coffee down and pushed away from the counter. ‘Don’t. Just don’t. I’ll never take it.’ He closed his eyes, only opening them after a long, steadying breath. ‘I don’t want to talk about this again.’

He left the room and bounded up the stairs. A moment later, everyone could hear him banging about in his room. If he was packing, that was it. If he was leaving, Sam would fall into darkness. But he charged back down the stairs without his belongings. Just his keys. He pushed through the front door, allowing it to slam behind him.

A moment later his engine turned over, roared then dulled with distance.

A little over an hour later, Sam found Dean upstairs, standing in the doorway of Ethan’s bedroom. Cal and Anna had gone home and the kids had been put to bed. There had been some tears – apparently it was the first night in their own beds since Bree died – but after a while fatigue had overpowered them.

She moved to stand alongside him in the doorway. He took up most of the space, but she was petite enough to fit.

‘Where did I go wrong?’ he said to her. He was looking at the old football posters and school books, things Ethan hadn’t been here to grow out of and discard, and she knew he was talking about the years when Dean had been responsible for raising him.

‘You didn’t “go wrong”. Ethan just never quite figured out how to be an orphan.’

‘I don’t want them to turn out like him, you know?’

Sam pressed her eyes shut, sorry that Dean felt that he and his brother were both failures. ‘He didn’t turn out too bad.’

‘You don’t know how he turned out, Sam. None of us do. But these little snapshots he gives us?’ He gestured vaguely. ‘They don’t fill me with hope. He’s selfish and argumentative. Secretive. He’s got no respect for our parents. He’s ignored their will and refused his inheritance. It’s like he blames them for dying – he’s so mad at them, even after all this time.’

Sam had no answer to that. But she could set him straight on a few personality misconceptions. She took his hand and led him to the bathroom. He stood in the centre of the room, at a loss as to why she had brought him there, then he saw the new shower rail and the cake of soap.

He swallowed.

Hands on hips, Sam watched him struggle to reassess. She saw the conflict in his eyes; the confusion and the hurt, the questions and the gratitude.

He bumped his toe over a newly laid tile. His mouth pressed into a thin line.

‘Can’t you see?’ she said, needing the words to be out there, between them, undeniable. ‘He’s trying to fix your life. He’s hurting for you. You won’t let him talk to you so he’s patching up the edges in his own, quiet way. Rowan had a shower tonight. He’s helping that boy, Dean. He got him talking again. Christ, he threw him in the creek to do it, but it worked.

‘I’ve missed that kid. That little shadow who’s been ghosting around this house these last few days? He’s gone now. Ethan brought Ro back. He can’t be all bad if he can bring a little boy back from the edge.’

Dean considered this. He flattened his palms against the sink cupboard and eased his weight onto his hands. ‘He threw him in the creek?’

Sam nodded. ‘The kid never saw it coming.’

The smile this earned was a gift. Sam imagined that if she could hold it against her heart, it would warm her whole body.

‘Don’t be so hard on him,’ she begged. ‘He’s got his faults. His feet can’t keep still. But has he ever let you down when it really, truly mattered?’

Dean was quiet a moment, thinking hard. She remembered Ethan’s suit and found comfort in the fact that it always hung in his wardrobe.

‘He never packed up,’ she said, thinking aloud, shocking herself with the truth. ‘He never closed the door on us. He just found another room where he could breathe.’ She pushed her hands through her hair, feeling suddenly bone-weary. ‘The day you’ve lost him is the day that suit’s gone.’

Dean stared at her, altered. She felt it within herself and saw it in his lovely brown eyes – they’d reached an understanding, and in some small way, they had both begun to forgive.

‘I have questions.’

It was the next morning and Dean was sitting with Nina at the kitchen table. He was unrolling a towel between them, readying the surface for many small items.

‘Let’s hear ‘em,’ he said.

Dean was tired and wired. He had a million things to do today, he was stretched thin and fraying at the edges, but he would find time to settle things with Ethan. Despite all the grief and heartache, he’d missed the idiot.

Nina propped her elbows on the table and dropped her head to one side. ‘How did Grandma and Granddad die?’

Dean fingers stilled on the towel. There was little purpose in lying to her. At six she’d already known her share of loss and tragedy. And he wondered if now wasn’t the perfect time. She was so like her mother – strong, resilient and endlessly kind.

She could handle it. But he still gave her the watered down version.

‘It was a long time ago. I was nineteen —’

‘Wow, that was
ages
ago!’

‘Quiet, cheeky.’

She giggled.

He said, ‘Your grandfather used to own the garage. And he went into work late one night with your grandmother. One of the cars, well, it was really sick. It was leaking fumes and they didn’t realise. It made them really sleepy and no one found them in time to wake them up.’

Nina stared, wide-eyed. She paused, arranging her thoughts. ‘So it didn’t hurt?’

‘Not at all. They never even knew.’

‘That’s so sad. I’m sad.’

Dean touched her cheek. After a bolstering smile he said, ‘Don’t be sad, honey. It was a long time ago. In a funny way, it’s kind of nice, don’t you think? They loved each other so much and they got to go to sleep together forever. It’s like a great, tragic romance.’

‘But you and Mummy loved each other so much . . .’

Christ, it was hard talking to kids.

‘I know we did. But I get to stay here with you and Ro.’ Even though there were times, in the stillness of the night, that he almost died from heartache.

‘And Ethan.’

He hesitated. Nodded tentatively. ‘And Ethan.’

This man was going to break his kids’ hearts.

‘But listen.’ He leaned back and spoke with enthusiasm. ‘I have some presents for you.’

Her eyes sparkled. ‘Ooh!’

‘Ooh’s right. Your mummy asked me to give you these. They’re yours now.’ He opened the lid of a gunmetal-grey jewellery box and began to lay necklaces alongside one another on the towel. He’d stayed up late, siphoning the more valuable pieces out for Nina’s later years. What remained was a colourful selection of beaded necklaces, bracelets, chunky chains and pretty pendants. ‘I’ll give you more every birthday. What do you think?’

‘They’re pretty,’ was her whispered answer.

She lifted one from the towel and eased it around her neck. The pendant had sat just below Bree’s breasts, Dean remembered. On his little girl it dropped to the level of her waist. Amused, he watched her put them all on. When she was the equivalent of a glittering, clunking jewellery holder, she sashayed out of the room to boast to her brother.

Noises outside made Dean move to the window. Beyond the back verandah a flatbed truck was reversing towards Ethan, who had stationed himself alongside the modest toolshed near the back fence. Ethan called out to the driver and waved and the truck stopped. He jogged to the back and began unhooking the loading straps. The driver, a man Dean recognised from the lumber yard just out of town, stepped from the truck and began unhooking straps on the other side. They called to one another then began rolling fence posts onto the ground. Over two dozen, Dean estimated, each the width of a man’s thigh.

Minutes later the driver shook Ethan’s hand, climbed behind the wheel and drove off. Ethan surveyed the work ahead of him with his hands on his hips.

Dean turned from the window. He crossed to the telephone mounted on the wall by the fridge and dialled the number for Foster’s Garage. Geoff answered on the seventh ring.

‘It’s Dean.’

‘Hey, man.’

‘I’m not coming in today.’

‘No worries, no worries. Take all the time you need.’