Unsuitable (34 page)

At
11.30am she thought about how Cameron would be ready to come home from the park
to get Mia’s lunch. This was the old Wiggle time. She went to her desktop, she
could disable the nanny cam software now. She opened it up and glanced at the
file listing, the visual icons showing her a still from what’d been recorded. There
was one of Etta, Flip and Mia. She played the file and smiled. Mia was having
fun, calling Etta and Flip, sister. There was one of Reece and she hovered over
it. Playing it was a stupid idea. She was fragile enough without beating
herself up.

She
played it. Of course she played it.

Reece
stood in front of the hidden camera in the TV, deliberately facing it down. It
was the day he’d discovered the nanny cam had been recording him. He was
furious. He had the gear he’d ripped out of its housing in the kitchen in his
hand. She could almost see steam rising from his shoulders. She half expected
him to attack the TV to find that camera too, though she knew he’d done no such
thing. What he had done was recognise his anger and try to keep it out of her
way.

“You
could’ve told me about this,” the Reece on her screen said. “About why you
needed it. About not trusting me. You could’ve stopped it.”

Well,
she didn’t trust him, and she had stopped it. And that should’ve made her feel
safe in the face of his capacity for anger, in the aftermath of letting him go.
But all she felt was numb and a rising sense of dread about having to answer
Mia’s questions, having to answer her own.

When
Les came to her office later that day, Audrey intended to fob her off. She
wasn’t ready to talk about this yet, and not in the office. “No.”

“No,
what? I’m here to talk the River Expressway contract.”

“Oh,
sorry.”

“What
did you think I wanted to talk about?”

“Things
I don’t want to talk about.”

“All
business. Except.” Les fished in her jacket pocket and put a key ring on the
desk. Reece’s keys.

“Right,
thanks.”

“Sure
you don’t want to talk?”

Audrey
nodded. She’d missed lunch and she felt light-headed.

“You
know you owe him a face to face discussion.”

“We
had that discussion this morning. He showed up out of nowhere and Mia treated
him like her private treehouse and he—I can’t talk about it. I really can’t
talk about it.”

“Okay.”
Les’ eyes went to her notes. “I’ve got an issue with part two, clause four, c,
plus the payment terms pegged on the US dollar.” She looked up, reached across
the desk and put her hand over Audrey’s.

That’s
all it took to break her resolve. “Tell me something good. Tell me I’ve done
the right thing. I fell in love with a man who has a violent past and I don’t
want that in my life or my daughter’s. He was a drug taker and a heavy drinker
and he enjoyed hitting people in an illegal betting ring, he almost killed a
man, took his eye, and he lied by keeping that past a secret.”

“Hooh.”
Les sat back. “I like your not talking about it style.” She pushed her notes to
the side and put her elbow on the desk, her chin in her hand. “I think you fell
in love with a man who got lost and made a mistake and has spent years being
someone different. I think he was a little wild, a lot wild for a short time,
and it was partly substance abuse and partly the result of his childhood, or
lack of childhood. But he might have continued down that path and he hasn’t. He’d
not a violent man, Audrey, and I know you know that in your heart.”

Audrey
closed her eyes. It was hard to look at Les’ truth. “I can’t trust that.”

“You
trusted him every day for almost a year.”

She
glared at Les and tapped the desk for emphasis. “But it was a lie.”

Les
continued to slouch, continued to be the one in the right. “Apart from that one
event, what did he do to make you think he wasn’t worthy of trust?”

“He’s
an enormous hulk of guy who wants to work with children.”

“And
you know as well as I do that’s a big dumb stereotype that makes every good dad
suspect.” Les dropped her casual pose and straightened her spine. “Reece is a
more natural father than you are a mother. I know you know all this, Aud.”

Yes,
she knew it, but people you knew well could surprise you, they could do
something you never expected from them. They could deny a daughter, leave her
for dead. They could suddenly take an interest in the welfare of a child they
fathered, or turn out to be capable of beating a man till he lost an eye. “He
ripped a spy camera from my kitchen ceiling and he was so angry.”

“Well,
yeah. Don’t you think that was reasonable? It was a violation of his privacy,
even without you knowing about his hot button for being recorded.”

Audrey
frowned. “You know about that too?”

“Polly
told me. I saw Reece that night, remember. He wasn’t being a pumped up dickhead.
He was worried about you. He was calm about the whole movie action man thing. I
drilled Polly till he told me the whole story.”

Audrey
turned her head to look out her window. There was no sun and it was blowing a
gale and she felt hot and chilled at the same time.

“Reece
isn’t anything like your dad, Aud.”

Audrey
shook her head as she turned back to look at Les.

“He
was young. He made bad choices. He recognised it, made amends and moved on.”

“I
didn’t—”

Les
didn’t want to hear her protests. “Your dad treated you like a nuisance, an
interruption to his life. Then he closed a door in your face and refused to
meet his granddaughter even when you might have died. That’s abuse and violence
to me. Reece would sooner drive his precious Monaro off a cliff than do
anything like that.”

She
looked away again. She didn’t want Les to see how those words made her feel,
vulnerable and resolved at the same time. Her parents failed any standard of
care measure you could apply. They were the reason she’d designed her own
single parent, absent father family, knowing the only person she could thoroughly
rely on was herself.

“Mia
and I are better off without Reece. He’s too young and he wants a family and
I’m done with that. I’m lucky. I’ve already got what I wanted. And I can bring
Mia up with love and the best opportunities I can buy.” She turned her head to
catch Les fiddling with a button on the sleeve of her jacket.

“All
right, that’s different.” Les left the button alone. “I can accept that. I
think it’s sad you’d choose to be without Reece, knowing he loves you and Mia
and he’s not a violent man, but I understand it.”

Audrey
took a deeper breath. Her head was spinning, she needed to eat. “Can we work?”

It
took an hour to fix the contract. She slammed down a sandwich and was still
hungry. She attended four more meetings. At six pm she was shattered. Her first
week back at work was over. Every bit of it as engrossing, engaging and
exciting as she’d known it would be.

She
drove home to find Mia fractious, Cameron eager to go home and Barrett missing.
There was no food in the fridge, no milk for the morning and no one to blame
except herself. Barrett wouldn’t think to get milk, and it wasn’t the nanny’s
job though Reece had never left her without basic provisions. Cameron took off
for the weekend, but would be back Monday.

Not
fifteen minutes later, Audrey lost her temper with Mia and made her cry over
nothing important, and the switch that lit the huge red neon sign that sat
above her head and flashed
world’s worst mum
was flicked on. And under
its illumination it was impossible to behave differently, so when Mia was out
of bed before the hour was up because her toenails were too long, after being
out of bed ten minutes before that because her ears couldn’t sleep, Audrey went
rogue again.

Mia
stood in the lounge room and insisted on having a pedicure. Audrey gave her the
kind of look that made people at work doubt they weren’t drooling. “If you come
out here again tonight there will be no park tomorrow.”

Mia
produced tears immediately, and before they hit her cheeks she produced near
incoherent fury. “I hate you. I want, Reece.”

“You
can’t have him.”

Mia
stamped her feet, her face red with outrage. “I want him now.”

She
bent to get close to Mia. “Neither of us can have him. He is no good for us. He’s
not coming back.”

She
straightened up, covering her face with her hands. What was wrong with her,
shouting at her child, saying horrid things?

Mia
stopped crying, she held her breath then she threw herself on the floor and
screamed and screamed and screamed and all Audrey could do was try to stop her
hurting herself as she thrashed about. That’s how Barrett found them, both of
them on the floor twisting in anger and grief; Mia vocalising her misery, and
Audrey trying to simply breathe through lungs encased in the barbed wire trap
of being a responsible grown-up, whose own needs came last.

“Goodness
me, what’s going on?”

The
tone of his voice, the severe part of Barrett’s presence that wasn’t kid
friendly, stopped Mia’s carry-on instantly. “You should be in bed, Marvellous. Go
right now and no more of this nonsense.”

Mia
ran to her room as if she was being chased by dragons. Barrett followed her in
and all was quiet. Audrey was right where he left her when he came back. She’d
had no energy to move, no motivation to pretend to be anything other than an
inadequate mother.

Barrett
held out a hand and she took it, and he heaved her off the floor. “Does that
happen often?” He wore a pained expression, as if he was cultivating a tumour.

“No.
Yes. Sometimes.” The very best thing about Barrett is that he wouldn’t judge
her for something he was equally mystified about. “It’s what they do when
they’re upset and they don’t understand. I’m an awful mother. I yelled at her because
I’m upset and I don’t understand, so maybe you should put me to bed.”

He
steered her to the lounge and they sat together. He put his arm around her
shoulder and drew her into his lean body and said nothing until she’d begun to
relax.

“She’s
amazing, that child. She’s an alien implant from planet impossibly batty, but I
can’t believe we made her and I let you convince me not to be part of her
life.”

Audrey
lifted her face to look in his eyes. “You didn’t take much convincing.”

“I
am seldom wrong.” The rest was implication.

She
put her hand in his. This morning he’d openly described himself as Mia’s father
in front of Reece and Cameron. “We have a deal.” She didn’t think for a second
he wanted to insert himself full-time in their lives, but she’d also never
contemplated dying and leaving Mia alone either. “What are you thinking?”

“No
touch parenting is what we agreed, but how would you feel about upping that to
low touch? I wouldn’t interfere, I’m not moving back here, but Mia is part
Barrett Baker-Brennan and I find that is more important to me now.”

“I
freaked you out by nearly dying, didn’t I?”

He
squeezed her hand. “And then some. I can’t treat that little bundle of bad
smells and foul humour as a loose end anymore though. I can’t treat you that
way either.” He smacked his head on the lounge back and blinked at the ceiling.
“I’m going decidedly soft in my old age.”

“We
have to talk about Mia’s guardianship. You know I’m good for financial support,
but raising a child, you’d be an imbecile to pick me. I’ve always liked Merrill
and Joe, if they agree to formalise the arrangement you already have, that
would be fine by me. As long as it’s not your parents in the mix and we make
that clear in a legal sense.”

The
last tension in her body from the work week, from Mia’s tantrum, from missing
Reece and being unsure about Barrett’s intensions, dissolved like sugar in hot
water. “I agree. We’ll talk to them while you’re here.”

Barrett’s
fingers played up and down her arm. “When Mia’s older I’ll be the one for field
trips and extravagant useless gifts. And she’ll prefer me to you, which will annoy
you no end. But I don’t know how to make her into a good person and you do. So
our original deal stands, with two amendments: I want a low touch, remote care,
as guided by you, relationship with my daughter, and I will make funds
available for her welfare. She gets the best we can provide. Can you live with
that?”

She
nodded. She’d ask Les to write them an agreement to sign so it was official. “Now,”
he released the hand she held. “This morning, that was a prime time episode of Dysfunctional
Families part one. Is there going to be a part two? Will Reece be back?”

“No.”
Her body might be melted but her voice was strong. “He walked away because I told
him too.”

Barrett
grunted. “How very obedient for a violent thug.”

“He’s
not a violent thug.” That was the first time she’d said that aloud. She could
at least be honest with herself. Les was right. There had been more threat in
her father every day of her childhood than Reece had ever shown, and more care
of her welfare.