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She had gone AWOL from school. It had been swimming that day and she had forgotten her togs, so rather than get in trouble she had forged a sick note from her dad and had played truant.
After a day spent at the local video game arcade, she had bought herself an ice-block with her bus money and had spent an hour walking home.
She’d let herself in just before one o’clock, She’d clomped up the stairs and headed into her dad’s room looking for any spare change he might have left on his chest of drawers.
And she had found him there, on his bed, not breathing.
Her mouth suddenly went dry. And it was only when Kane called out to her that she realised she was at the end of the hall with her hand on the doorknob.
‘Siena!’ James called out when he and Matt made it back into the kitchen. His voice grew more insistent when there was no response, ‘Kane?’
‘You check upstairs and I’ll check out front,’ Matt suggested.
James took the stairs two at a time, hoping against hope he would find both of them there, though considering the way Siena had looked upon Kane like an alien the last time they had been together he wasn’t all that hopeful.
Buying a new toy for Kane or teaching him a new trick each time she came over wouldn’t endear Kane to her for ever. And he wasn’t entirely sure she had a clue of any other way to make a connection with him. But he wanted her to know he was more than willing to help her if she was willing to learn.
But was he only being selfish? Following his own desires with such blind abandon and not thinking through Kane’s wishes and welfare?
Or did Kane long for a new mother as James longed for Siena? With a blind reaching hope that one day it would all work out for him?
Please don’t be gone, he thought, please don’t be gone. If she’d done a runner … He didn’t even want to go there.
He slowed when he heard a murmur of voices coming from inside his bedroom of all places.
‘My dad made this one before I was born,’ he heard Kane say.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he heard Siena say, and his knees all but collapsed beneath him. He was overwhelmed by the relief flowing through his veins.
‘Dad didn’t make this one. It was Mum’s. She liked things a little flashier than Dad and I like. We like the classics.’
James leant back against the hallway wall and bit back a smile. What a funny kid.
‘What’s your mum like?’ Kane asked, out of the blue, and James’s smile slipped.
He almost decided to burst in to save Siena from answering that question but he knew he had to let this play itself out. Kane had brought it up. Kane was the one asking questions and talking about Dinah. And Kane had never once done that off his own bat with anyone bar James in the year since his mother’s death.
‘I never knew my mother,’ Siena said, her voice now a little quieter so James had to strain his ears to hear. He listened so hard his head hurt. ‘She died when I was born.’
‘Bummer,’ Kane whispered in some kind of awe that someone else he knew had lost their mother too.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Siena said.
James was disappointed to think that might be the end of it until she said, ‘I wish I could have known her. Even for just a little while.’
Her voice was even, but he heard a creak of bed-springs and he knew she’d had to sit down. On his bed. Siena Capuletti was right now on his bed. How the heck had they ended up in his bedroom of all places? His mouth twitched as he pictured her snooping and Kane catching her out. If that was how it had happened, maybe he was in luck after all.
‘You’re lucky, Kane-o,’ she said. ‘I am?’ Kane asked. ‘But—’
‘Uh-uh,’ she said cutting him off. ‘No buts about it. You know what your mother looked like outside of photographs. How she laughed. What her favourite food was. What time she liked to get up in the morning. The type of furniture she liked, even. Right?’
Kane sighed and said, ‘Yeah, I do.’
‘And, besides all of that, you have a truly great dad. A dad who loves you so much that he would leave a perfectly nice barbecue lunch with sausages, and steak even, to pick you up early from school.’
‘You think my dad’s great?’ Kane asked, and James held his breath for longer than was probably healthy.
‘I do, Kane.’ She paused, and then said, ‘I think your dad is the greatest man I have ever met.’
