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“Don’t make me shout this so the whole street can hear it.”
Thing is he would. Reece went back to the corner and stood by Polly, facing the old pile of rubble and busted glass. What was left of the original greenhouse was held together by graffiti.
“That,” Polly gestured to the heap of shit. “Is our future.”
“I’m still drunk, but if I was sober you’d still be making zip sense.”
“Dad bought that building off the original owner. He got it for a good price because it’s got awkward zoning. Too many restrictions on what you can build there because of the park.”
“And he’s given it to us? Did I hear that right?”
“It’s ours.”
“Your dad can’t give me half a property. And I’m not going back to building.”
“He used our money.”
“Jesus Christ, Neeva makes more sense than you do. Flip has the smarts not to annoy me with a hangover.”
“I don’t remember it exactly so you won’t either, but you know how he was always ragging on us about the drink, suspicious about everything else we were doing?”
Reece nodded. They’d been a disappointment to Gino Pollidore
“He borrowed a thousand bucks off each of us. Told you not to tell me. Told me not to tell you. Crafty bastard. He bet on you on that final fight, the whole two g. Then he collected big and bought that. He thought we’d end up with nothing, broke or in jail. He wanted us to have something and not easy money we could mess up with. He told me about it yesterday. There’s a mortgage on it to pay, but the deeds are in our names.”
“This is real?” It was insane, how could it be real? He had no recollection of lending Gino money, but then that period was a haze of abused senses and lost time.
“It’s real. We could buy each other out. Or we could develop it, or sell it. I thought you might know what you wanted to do with it.”
He’d never ditched a hangover so quickly. He walked around the structure. Bewildered, excited. He put his foot against an architrave and it gave, taking half a wall of wooden palings and the leftover glass of a broken window with it. “We need to get the site cleaned up before some kid gets hurt here.”
Polly had gone the other way and didn’t hear him. He needed to go see Gino and thank him. It was humbling to understand the depth of his consideration for the fucked up friend of his son. Any other parent would’ve wanted them separated, tried to drive a wedge between them. He had no idea what to do with this, but it needed to be something worthy of that generosity and foresight.
He turned back to follow Polly, repeating himself about not wanting kids to get hurt here and it hit him, like a wrecking ball and he knew exactly what to do.
24: Contingency
It took home delivered Thai food and four well-intentioned adults ninety minutes to work out a plan to care for Mia in the event of Audrey being unable to. Audrey found it a macabre relief that if she gave dying a fatal nudge, Mia would be cared for in a way that wouldn’t make her want to cosmically reconstitute and parent in corporeal form.
She looked across the dining table at Barrett and he nodded. What they’d done was good, sensible, responsible provisioning for Mia’s welfare they should’ve thought to do when she was born.
“I can die happy now,” she said. Though if she had the misfortune to die tonight she would be sticky with unwashed regret, the kind that went layers deep like the ink of a tattoo that needed to be blasted out.
It wasn’t clever, but everything they’d just nutted out between Merrill, Joe herself and Barrett was less than perfect because Reece wasn’t part of it.
Les would document it and they’d all sign it and in each of their homes there’d be a disaster management plan that Audrey was sure would be the best thing for Mia in the event of the worst thing happening. But it reinforced like nothing else had that Mia growing up without Reece in her life was like never making a snowman, building a sandcastle or climbing a mountain to see a mandarin sunset.
And she wanted all that and more for Mia. Damn Reece for making her feel inadequate for packing snow and chasing the sun, and making the world wonderful for Mia on her own.
She’d had her share of single parent doubts; they’d left her feeling panicked or selfish, or simply lacking in the essential nutrients for bringing up a child successfully. But every parent worried about getting it right, it was part of the job description, and Audrey knew she was worse at it than some and better at it than others. She knew that would be the case before she selected Barrett as her donor. What she needed to shake off was feeling inadequate now, because as long as she was still functioning, she was capable of doing right by Mia.
Missing Reece was a devious ache that crept up on her and settled over her whole body like humidity. It was sapping and irritating and wouldn’t be shifted, but she’d have to do it because Barrett would be gone soon and she wouldn’t have him to lean on.
He was hopeless with Mia, more often than not scaring her, easily put out and lacking the aptitude to appreciate the bizarre humour and warped logic of a nearly four year old. He tried to reason with her, which might have been funny except he was continually outraged by Mia’s devious lies and calculating ways. But he was here and he tried and she was grateful because her days were long and full as she got on top of the new job.
She eyed the last of the Crying Tiger. “If no one else wants that?” She waved her fork in the general direction of the beef dish. It was cold but it would still be delicious.
“Yours,” said Barrett, and Joe echoed him.
