Across the lawn, Ronnie saw the moment Rainbow decided to sit in the audience. Helpful neighbors pointed her toward the last empty seat.
Ronnie sat frozen as Rainbow squeezed between rows of knees to take the seat next to Brad Collins.
Carefully, Ronnie sipped from her water bottle and rose to her feet. Everyone else was still seated. The tacit cue to rise hadnot been given because Nev was still singing, but it would only be a few more bars now, and then everyone would make a run for the reception and the open bar.
Nev glanced at her, seemed to notice her standing there motionless and caught her eye. Ronnie stared back, clutching her water bottle. Nev turned to see what she had been looking at, while continuing the last verse.
Nev’s voice faltered. She stopped picking the guitar. She had seen what Ronnie had seen. It was impossible not to notice the resemblance between ten-year-old Rainbow and the man seated next to her.
Nev laughed. It was not a pleasant sound, like a branch breaking.
Nev played a closing chord on the guitar with a flourish. The crowd exhaled, released from the spell. A hundred warm bodies stood at the same time, stretched, turned to their neighbor and resumed chit-chatting.
Ronnie jogged over to Nev halfway up the aisle and put her arm around her. “It’s cool, babe. Be cool.”
Nev’s eyes were blank and her face was flushed. Ronnie swallowed. Nev handed her the guitar, then the straw hat. “Take Rainbow,” Nev ordered.
“Leave him alone,” Ronnie said.
“Like he left you alone?”
Ronnie had no response to that. “He’s a cop.”
“I didn’t hear that. Scram.”
This was spiraling out of control faster than Ronnie could think. She had to fix this before Nev did something she would regret, but her brain wasn’t working. Magic words to calm Nev down...
Rainbow appeared, clutching pink backpack straps. Her converse trainers and lilac T-shirt with snapping turtles on it looked jarringly out of place. “Hi,” Rainbow said. She blew abubble with her gum, brown hair shiny on either side of a severe part made with the tip of a comb. Ronnie used to wear her hair like that when she was ten. Long curly pigtails.
What would Rainbow think about herself if she knew Brad was her dad? Would she be ashamed? Would she feel less-than his ‘real’ daughters? He wasn’t her dad in any meaningful sense of the word.
“Run and jump in the ute.” Ronnie tossed her keys to Rainbow.
Rainbow caught them. “What’s wrong? Did someone die?”
Nev walked across the lawn in the direction of the pub where the reception was.
Ronnie handed Rainbow both guitars. “Put these in the ute, please. I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
She caught up with Nev behind the white tent at the back of the building. “Don’t make the mistake I did.”
Nev checked her phone. “This isn’t about you. I should have done this years ago.”
“Violence is never the answer. Believe me. Do I have to pick you up and throw you over my?—"
“Go home, Dain’y!” Nev roared, red-faced. Guests in pastel sundresses turned to stare. Nev raised her hands. “You left the oven on!” Concerned onlookers relaxed, smiling, turned away.
Ronnie drew a shaky breath. Right. Nev needed to break something. This wasn’t about her. “Rings count as a weapon. In sentencing.”
Nev tucked her rings in her vest. Maybe that’s all life was, a series of small gestures of care or neglect. The worst sins were unassuming, forms of negligence.
“Neighbors will call about hay.” They called Nev because she would cut them a deal and Ronnie wouldn’t. “Don’t be a hard-arse.”
Nev had calmed down, as if someone had flipped a switch. Ronnie suspected her friend was doing that on purpose to reassure her. It was working.
“See you back at the farm.” Nev said.
Ronnie jogged to the carpark.
