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He’d been there. Losing the person you love the most and knowing deep down that there must have been something you could have done to stop it.
‘Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that,’ he said, reaching for her hand, but she pulled it away.
‘I know. It’s okay. Really.’
The microwave pinged, telling them the sausages were cooked. James got off his seat and rapped on the window to tell Matt food was on. Matt waved him outside.
‘I won’t be a sec,’ he told Siena, hesitating before leaving her with her thoughts.
The moment James left the room, Siena let her head fall until it hit the kitchen bench. Oversensitive, much? While seated thus, she heard a shuffle of sneakers on tile as Kane skulked in.
Excellent. Now, after their awkward meeting at the school, she had no idea what to say to the kid.
Should she laugh along with him that he’d got out of school early? Heck, she’d done so enough times to know a pro when she saw one. Or ought she lean down on her knees like Mandy until she was at his eye level and ask if he was feeling better? Well, that just gave her the heebie-jeebies. If anyone had baby-talked to her at Kane’s age she would have thought them imbeciles.
Kids were little people. They were no more stupid or ignorant than many adults she knew. So the only thing she could do with Kane was be herself.
‘So, do you want a sausage on bread or are you still feeling too rotten?’ she asked.
Kane watched her from beneath long dark lashes, his mouth twisting as he thought about it. She wasn’t sweet like Mandy. She wasn’t laid-back like Matt. And she wasn’t blinded by love like his dad. She shot him two raised eyebrows to show she was not one to be messed with.
‘So, what’s it to be, Kane-o? Tea or sympathy? As I see it, you’ve worked yourself into a corner so you can’t have both.’
He blinked, surprised at having been spoken to like that. Then he squared his small shoulders and moved around her to the bread box. He pulled out a loaf and a breadboard and set to plying a heap with tomato sauce and butter.
Well, there you go, Siena thought, more shocked that her bluff had worked than Kane had been at being bluffed. A glimmer of hope sprang from deep within her, like a ray of light at the bottom of a well.
‘Do you like mayonnaise?’ Kane asked without looking at her. ‘I hate it but Dad always has mayonnaise on his sausages.’
‘No, thanks,’ Siena said, moving to stand by Kane, bringing a spare knife from the cutlery drawer for use in the mayo jar. ‘Bread, butter and tomato sauce only for me. Anything else is just not Australian.’
Kane looked up at her with a small smile. He still looked tired, his eyes were still pink, but there was definite attitude behind that smile. The attitude was definitely not James and she wondered if he had inherited that along with his brown eyes from his mother.
‘Do you want to see my room now?’ Kane asked and, buoyed by the hope radiating from within her, Siena actually said yes.
Kane grabbed a rolled up sausage in bread for himself, took a hold of her right hand in his sticky one and dragged her upstairs.
Halfway up the stairs Siena’s confidence failed her as memories swarmed in. Okay, so the demon she’d thought she’d kicked had been bruised, but it was still alive and kicking. She paid close attention to the differences since the last time she had been upstairs several years before.
The stairs had been carpeted in her time; now they were polished wood. The stair rail had been replaced, the polish and grain reminding her of the work in James’s workshop. She let her left hand
trail along the wood, feeling the craftsmanship, imagining James putting long hours into the piece to make sure the quality was up to his exacting standards.
But, even with James’s stamp all over it, it was still the same staircase. She could have traversed the walk with her eyes closed.
The hairs on the back of Siena’s neck stood on end as she prepared herself to face the whisper of old ghosts she had been running from for years. The fights with her brother after her many teenage tantrums, the accusations that her behaviour was putting undue stress on her father’s poor heart, the day her father died.
Kane turned left at the top of the stairs. Some of the anxiety subsided as she saw that Rick’s room had been turned into a kind of games area for Kane. She’d have to tell him that, to be sure.
Kane continued dragging her into what had once been her old room. Her pink floral wallpaper, white lace curtains and posters of Nirvana and Pearl Jam had been replaced by plain yellow walls, heavy white curtains and Kane’s favourite toys, including a football signed by the North Queensland Cowboys. But even as Kane pointed out his computer, his stereo and other prized possessions, Siena’s eyes kept flickering to the half-open door at the other end of the hall.
The master bedroom.
No doubt now James’s bedroom.
Her dad’s old bedroom …
She hadn’t meant to be home.
