Page 102 of Kiwi Gold
“Laila.” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stepped forward and took her in my arms. Gently, because she looked fragile.
She said, a hitch in her breath, “I’m probably contagious.”
I didn’t let go of her, because my hand was on her hair, and her head was on my chest. “I had four little sisters, remember? My immune system’s had a pretty fair workout. Anyway, what is it, a twenty-four-hour bot?”
She sighed against me. “Something like that. But so nasty. I need to get back there. Somebody’s probably spewing into a basin right now, or on the toilet. And I thought myperiodwas unappealing.”
I laughed and stood back. “Give me five minutes to change, and I’ll come help you.”
“Lachlan.” She was laughing, too, but it was such a tired sound. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Four little sisters,” I repeated. “Five minutes.”
* * *
Ten o’clock,and Laila was at the other end of the couch. Not the slippery leather one this time, but the old, squashy one in the lounge. She’d put on fuzzy socks and a cardigan over her work clothes, and had fallen asleep halfway through the Disney film playing on the TV. Amira, who was in my arms and wearing blue PJs with rockets on them that had probably been designed for a boy but suited her perfectly, had lasted longer, but that may have been because she’d kept being sick. The coffee table in front of us was a litter of kids’ electrolyte drink bottles and plastic cups, half-empty takeaway containers of the Thai food I’d run out for at eight-thirty, the basins I’d washed about ten times tonight, wipes, hand sanitizer, tissues, and a six-year-old’s black-rimmed specs, and all of it looked like no date ever.
I was just thinking about putting Amira to bed next to her sister when she stirred in my arms. I said, keeping my voice low, “Do you need to be sick again?”
“No.” She yawned, then wrapped an arm around my neck and snuggled closer. “You’re very comfortable.”
“Let’s put you to bed, though,” I said. “Your bed will be even more comfortable.”
“I’m not sleepy,” she said, which, since she’d been asleep for a half hour already after a pretty miserable evening, seemed unlikely.
“Mm,” I said. “We’ll sit here another few minutes, then.”
“You’re nice,” she said, sounding, yes, sleepy. “Do you have any kids?”
“No,” I said. “No kids. You’ve seen my flat, remember?”
“Dads don’t always live with their kids, though. If they don’t like them.”
I couldn’t think what to say to that, so I said, “I have nieces. You’ll meet them this weekend.” If Laila and I didn’t catch this bot, that is. We hadn’t managed nearly enough romance in this relationship, between one thing and another.
“How come you don’t have any kids?” she asked. “Most people have kids when they’re old. Don’t you like kids?”
Once again, I couldn’t come up with an answer, except, “I do like kids. At least, I like some kids very much. I like you, for example, and I like your sister.”
She said, “I don’t think so. Uncle Matiu likes kids, and my Grandad likes kids, but I don’t think other grown-up men do. Only ladies really like kids. That’s who mostly asks my mum things about us at the grocery store, like, ‘Oh, are they twins? How adorable are they?’ Grown-up men never say things about kids. If they come talk to my mum, they don’t talk about us.” Which I was sure was true. She finished up with, “My dad didn’t like kids, I don’t think.”
I said the thing adults always say, the thing they’d said to me after Peter left. “I’m sure he loved you very much.”
“No.” Her head was against my shoulder again, her skinny arms still twined around my neck like Yasmin’s terrible monkey, which Yasmin had stuffed in her PJ top tonight. “He told Mum so one time.”
“You may have got it wrong,” I said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what people mean. Or sometimes they’re frustrated, and they say things they wish they hadn’t.”
“I didn’t get it wrong,” she said. “I never get it wrong. I listen so I know things. He said, ‘If I knew how it would change you, I’d never have let you have a baby. You didn’t even just have one. You had two, and now you want to change my life, just because you popped out two kids! I never agreed to that.’ And then he said some other things, but I don’t remember, and my mum cried. She always cries really quietly, but I saw her. I told Yasmin, but thenshecried, so I couldn’t tell her anymore. How do you pop out kids? Yasmin says they probably come out of your belly button, because the mum’s tummy gets very big, so maybe it pops.”
I was surprised Yasmin hadn’t looked it up already. Didn’t know the right words, probably. I was thinking about that so I wouldn’t think about Kegan bloody Ashford, who’d done everything wrong while everybody thought he was a god. Everybody but his wife and kids. I said, “Ask your mum tomorrow about popping out kids, and she’ll explain. But I don’t think your dad meant that, not really.”
She said, “He did, because he told her another time, ‘If it’s that bad, maybe you should just get a divorce.’ That’s when your parents live in two houses, and you live in two houses, too. Olivia’s mum and dad got a divorce. He said the thing about the divorce when Mummy was driving him to the airport for his trip. I think he wanted to live in another house because he didn’t like us.”
“That would be pretty sad,” I said, treading carefully. “Your parents getting a divorce.”
“No,” she said. “But it would probably make Yasmin sad. She loves people all the time. She loved ourteacher,and our babysitter before Priya, even though she talked on the phone and we had to wait for her, and she spewed and wasn’t nice like Priya and Oriana.I only love some people. I think it’s better if you only love people who love you, like Grandad or Long John Silver, except he’s a dog. You should let them love you first, and then you don’t have to be sad because they don’t love you.”
My heart. It hurt. I said, “Your mum loves you heaps. I know that. And so does your sister.”
