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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“WHAT’S THAT NOISE?” Kee lifted her head to study the sky from her spot perched on the edge of a large river rock, curious. The cool of the early morning was already giving way to the coming heat, and she’d bowed to Benni’s wish to take her down to the river for a quick visit to find a pretty green leaf, before they got in the car to continue their journey. Wazza had been crouched down next to Benni, helpfully holding all the green leaves she gave him. He stood and followed her gaze.
“Oh, shit,” Wazza swore and ran toward the car. “Get under cover. Now,” he commanded over his shoulder. Kee startled for a second, before picking Benni up under one arm and heading for the safety of the trees in the same instant a helicopter buzzed over the horizon. It was a mere bright speck in the sky, flying high and fast. Was it looking for them? Kee thanked their lucky stars that Wazza had already dismantled the tent and packed most of their camping gear away. He’d also backed her car in beneath a tight clump of trees last night. At the time, she’d wondered if it was worth going to such lengths to hide themselves; they were so far from anywhere, it was ridiculous. Now she praised his efforts. Wazza was throwing the green tarpaulin he’d been using as a makeshift swag over the roof of her car, probably to hide any telltale glint off the metal.
She reached the relative safety of the tree canopy and ran to where Wazza was already crouched by the rear of the car.
“What’s wrong, Mummy?” Benni asked, a mixture of fear and curiosity in her wide eyes. Then a flash of understanding crossed her face. “Are we hiding from Uncle Bruno?”
Kee grimaced. Why did Benni have to be such a perceptive child? She’d had a quick talk with her last night in the tent before they settled in to read a book before bedtime. Told her she should no longer trust Uncle Bruno. That if Benni ever saw him again, she should run away. She tried to downplay it, not wanting to scare her daughter, but needing her to understand that Bruno could no longer be believed. Thankfully, Benni hadn’t questioned why, and hadn’t asked about her father, either, which surprised her.
Instead, she’d said something equally surprising. “What about baba and dida?” Benni asked. “Do we still trust them? Are we ever going to see them again?” She hadn’t been upset, merely curious, her little face screwed up in a solemn frown, trying to understand the intricacies of the grown-up world.
“I’m not sure, my bunny.”
“I miss them,” Benni had said. “Baba makes good krofne doughnuts, and she gives me good hugs.”
“I know,” Kee had said, smoothing Benni’s hair away from her forehead. Life weaved such a tangled web sometimes. Benni only knew the soft side of her paternal grandparents, the side that loved her with all their heart, and she loved them back unconditionally. She was too young and innocent to understand the twisted motives behind their love, and how they were prepared to use their grandchild as a pawn in their son’s sick games of power and control. Kee wasn’t willing to destroy her daughter’s innate trust in them; not yet, at least, so she said no more.
After Benni had fallen asleep, exhausted by the day’s endeavors, her question had repeated around and around in Kee’s head, making her wonder. Making her think about her own parents and her sister. Her family. Family was important. They were family that Benni hadn’t even met; didn’t even know existed. Perhaps it might be time to try and reconnect with her family. They were all she had left. Her circumstances had changed dramatically from six years ago when she incurred her father’s wrath by marrying Jakov. Would he be prepared to forgive her now? If she extended a plea for help, would he want to get to know his only grandchild, or push her away again?
“I’ll make sure our campsite is better hidden tonight,” Wazza murmured in her ear, drawing her back to their predicament. The buzz of the helicopter was getting louder, and she held her breath as they listened to it pass by. Not directly overhead, but to the north of them.
“Maybe it was lucky we weren’t on the road already,” he said finally, standing up and straining to peer through the canopy above.
“Do you really think they were looking for us?” Kee asked.
Wazza shrugged and said, “Hard to tell. It could’ve been a mustering contractor on his way to a job, or a landowner heading to town for supplies.” He lifted those broad shoulders in another imitation of a dismissal. “Better to be safe than sorry,” he added, face lighting up with a smile. “But maybe we should thank Benni and her leaf collection, after all.” Wazza raised a finger and pointed it at Benni, and she squealed with delight, as he waved his finger in ever decreasing circles until it collided with the exact place on Benni’s side that he’d discovered was her ticklish spot. Benni squirmed so hard in her arms that she had to put her down and she ran behind the car, still giggling. Kee smiled up at Wazza, thanking him with her eyes for keeping their situation light, knowing he didn’t want to scare Benni unnecessarily. She’d meant it last night when she’d told him how good he was with children.
“Let’s get going,” he said, humor leaching from his face as he leaned down to grab the last remaining items still waiting to be packed, as well as the tarp covering the car, shoving them in the back and slamming the door.
Soon they were back on the road, a dust trail rising for miles behind them. The track was the same as yesterday, red gravel with wide edges, stretching straight and true on toward the horizon. The surrounding country was also much the same, short, brown grass, bleached almost red by the dust and heat, spread across flat plains dotted with patches of scrubby eucalyptus trees and acacia shrubs. The occasional conical-shaped large ant hill, often as tall as she was, breaking up the monotony.
Kee set up the Wiggles on the kiddie music player she’d found amongst the bag of toys Daniella had given her. It came with a stack of tiny square tapes that slotted into the machine, filled with different children’s music from the nineties. It was old and clunky, but it did the job, and Kee helped her put her earphones on. Benni’s face took on a faraway look and her head bobbed from side to side as the music filled her ears. Without Benni’s constant chatter, it was quiet in the car.
Now was as good a time as any. Kee cleared her throat. Why was this so hard? Wazza had bared his soul to her last night, surely she could do the same in return. Their talk last night had disclosed things about Wazza that even she hadn’t begun to guess. Such a big, strong, stoic man. No one would predict the depths to which his emotions ran. Losing his unborn baby had really affected him. Her heart felt it might break wide open when he’d spoken his dead daughter’s name aloud. She couldn’t help but offer him comfort, she was only human, after all. It had been the key that unlocked one more of the seals around her heart. She realized he was pulling down her wall of defenses, one brick at a time. She might be falling for this man. What a pickle she was in.
She cleared her throat a second time. “Wazza, I was wondering, can you call anywhere in Australia on that satellite phone?” Her eyes drifted to the phone in the console between them, avoiding his gaze.
“Sure you can. Who do you want to call?” he asked in a lazy drawl.
“My parents,” she half-whispered. Wazza knew the bare bones of her estrangement with her parents. He didn’t realize how deep the wounds ran, or how her father’s pride had ruined everything. She was terrified he wouldn’t even take her call. And what if he didn’t? Would it even matter?
“Okay,” he prompted, but when she didn’t respond, he asked gently, “How long since you’ve talked to them?”
“Six years,” she answered dully.
Wazza’s mouth formed a straight line. “So, you haven’t seen them since you got married? Did they even come to your wedding?”
“No. And they’ve never even met Benita.” She stared out the window at the passing trees.
“Oh, wow.” He made a small noise in the back of his throat that Kee couldn’t interpret, but she didn’t dare look at him. What must he think of her? “Well, at least now my family doesn’t seem so screwed up anymore,” he joked.
His attempt to lighten the mood eased her misery a little. “They don’t know about any of what’s going on with me and Benni,” she confessed. “They know that Jakov is in jail. Pooja, my sister, called me after it was splashed all over the newspapers.” Kee could just imagine her father, Vijay, sitting in his brown, corduroy armchair, feet up on the footrest, a knowing twist to his mouth, thinking I told you so, daughter of mine, over and over when he heard the news. “But even then, my parents refused to talk to me, running all their communication through Pooja.” It rankled Kee that not even once had they reached out to offer her any kind of help, either financially or emotionally. Vijay would’ve seen it as a form of penance for Kee, letting her find out the hard way how her bad decisions affected her.
“So, why didn’t you tell them about the grandparents trying to take Benni away?”
“I don’t know.” It was Kee’s turn to shrug. “It all happened fairly quickly, and I guess I didn’t want to hear any more of their negativity. I just wanted Benni back.” They certainly wouldn’t have condoned her methods of stealing her daughter right from under the grandparent’s noses.
