When I held out the phone, neither man looked surprised. The shorter man took it.
‘Max? . . . Glad to hear it . . . She’s fine, not a scratch on her. Just a minute.’
He handed the phone back to me. I lifted it to my ear.
‘The men are going to leave now,’ Max said. ‘When they’re gone, lock the door and don’t answer it for anyone. Don’t call the police. I’m on my way home, but I want you to wait on the phone with me until they are gone, all right?’
The men were already gone.
‘All right.’
When Max arrived home ten minutes later with two security guards in tow, I was still sitting on the floor in the foyer with my back against the wall. It was as though my limbs had frozen into position. Max had to put both arms around me and pull me to my feet to get me to move to the living room. There, he helped me onto the couch, even though I was entirely uninjured apart from the bump to my head.
‘I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am, Amanda.’
Max looked worse than I did. His skin was grey. I worried he might be having a stroke or a heart attack. He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. ‘When they said they had you . . . I went out of my mind . . . The idea that they might hurt you . . .’
We sat there for a long time, just holding each other, while Max apologised. In the end, I was the one comforting him.
I’ll never forget those moments, sitting together on the couch like that. I remember thinking: I didn’t realise how much you cared. That’s another funny thing about marriage. Sometimes, when you look back on it, the worst moments are in fact the best.
39
PIPPA
NOW
The streets are busy as we make our way home after dinner. As usual, the girls are on their scooters and Gabe and I on foot. It’s a mild night and it takes forever to get home because people are out and about, riding bikes, scooting and walking. Freya and Asha see half their preschool class. Gabe and I wave at the parents, but we keep our heads down and don’t engage further. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to make small talk with strangers again.
‘Interesting that Asha brought up her mother,’ I say to Gabe.
‘I know.’
We’ve always been honest with Asha about the way she came into our family. We talk about it in positive, age-appropriate ways, saying things like, ‘Freya, you came out of my tummy, but Asha, you had another mummy, and you came out of her tummy before you came to live with us.’ We read books to the girls about adoption, stepfamilies and the different ways people become a family. We framed a picture of Asha’s mother and hung it in their room. We told her it was sad that her mother had died, and that her mother had loved her very much. Asha had been completely uninterested, but of course we’d always expected that one day she’d want to know more. It was only a matter of time.
‘She pays closer attention than we think,’ Gabe says. ‘We need to be more careful about what we say in front of her.’
‘I agree.’
We turn onto our street. Mr Hegarty is mowing his nature strip. He gives each of the girls a high five as they scoot past. When Gabe and I get close, he stops the mower. The setting sun shines into his eyes, and he lifts a hand to shield them.
‘Nice evening for a walk,’ he says.
We both smile, nod, agree, but my mind is elsewhere and I think Gabe’s is too.
‘There was a man here earlier asking after you.’ He squints at us. ‘Well, technically he asked after Gabe. He pulled up in a fancy black car with a driver. He was probably sixty-odd. Sandy-grey hair. Smart trousers. Collared shirt.’
I feel my smile freeze in place.
‘Did he say what he wanted?’ Gabe asks.
‘No. Just asked if I knew Gabriel Gerard and asked which house was yours. I told him I couldn’t give out that information, of course. Not that he looked shifty or anything, but you can’t be too careful these days, can you?’
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. My mouth is dry.
‘Thank you, Mr Hegarty,’ Gabe says, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. ‘We appreciate your discretion. Especially with our little girls around.’
Mr Hegarty gives us a wave and starts up his mower again. But above the noise of it, Gabe’s voice remains in my head. Our little girls. Dear God. We have just endangered our little girls.
*
‘It must have been Max,’ I say to Gabe when we are inside.
He’s sitting on the edge of the tub, I’m pacing. The girls, already naked, are streaking up and down the hall, oblivious to the storm brewing around them.
I am both shocked and totally unsurprised. Also, irate with myself. For goodness sake . . . what did I think was going to happen? Of course Max had found out. Of course he was going to come here. All we’ve done is make things worse for ourselves by not telling the police. Worse for Gabe.
‘It might not have been Max,’ Gabe says.
‘Who else would it be?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gabe looks stressed, even though he’s keeping his voice calm. ‘It could have been a police officer. A plainclothes detective, maybe?’
I stop pacing and look at him. ‘Would that be better?’
He sighs. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do we do? What is the plan now?’
I feel like I’m in a Hollywood movie. We’re a nice normal couple who find themselves embroiled in something involving the Mob or the government or an underworld gang. The bath, with its floating rubber duckie, is a sickening, bizarre backdrop.
‘We do nothing,’ he says. ‘Just wait. If anyone knows anything, we’ll hear about it soon enough.’
As if on cue, his phone rings. He pulls it from his pocket and shows me the screen. The number is withheld. My adrenaline spikes. Is this what it’s going to be like every time the phone rings? Every time someone turns up at the house looking for us?
Gabe turns off the tap and lifts the phone to his ear. ‘Hello?’ We lock eyes. ‘Yes, speaking.’
I watch him, my heart rate climbing.
Gabe scrunches his face up tight, then lets it go. ‘Damn. Yes. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.’
‘What is it?’ I mouth. I am already steeling myself.
‘Yes. Yes, that works for me. I’ll be there. Thank you. My apologies again.’
He hangs up. ‘I forgot to take the girls to get their vaccinations.’
The flash of rage I feel doesn’t completely make sense, even to me. It’s wild and furious.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ I scream. ‘I made the bloody appointment for you! All you had to do was show up!’
It feels amazing to scream at Gabe. It’s not something I do. We speak respectfully to each other; we tiptoe around each other’s feelings. But there’s something about screaming that feels good, particularly given the banality of the subject. This is normal marital irritation. I focus on it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gabe says. ‘I had things on my mind.’
Like trying not to be imprisoned because of you.
And there it is: the reason I can never yell at him again.
Gabe’s gaze flickers to the bathroom doorway. I turn around. Two naked girls stand there, eyes wide. Their parents fighting is something new to them. They appear more curious than frightened.