Page 63 of Down the Track
Bracing herself for whatever might be coming, she went for the doorbell. Within seconds the door had flung open but it wasn’t Craig standing there looking like a statue of pissed-off ice—it was Luke. And he was looking at her with … surprise? Suspicion? Surely not …anticipation?
‘Mum!’
‘Hey, honey,’ she said, leaning in for a hug that was over so quick it was like it hadn’t happened other than the waft of chlorine and Vegemite toast that shot up her nose. Food and swimming: her son had been indulged with his two favourite things already and it was barely eight am. Would it kill Craig to try a little bit harder to be a crap parent?
‘It’s great to see you.’
He held up his phone. ‘Did I read this right? Your message? You’ve been in Yindi Creek?’
She blinked. ‘Uh … yeah.’ She’d only been talking about it for the last three months. The Dirt Girls, her hopes for a dig that would uncover more dinosaur fossils with teeth marks in them to prove her crocodylomorph predator theory, her need to give her career a boost …
‘Are you going back?’
Wow. This must be one of those moments she’d read about in her parenting manuals. Her son wasn’t really asking her if she was going back to some outback town; he was asking her if she was leaving him.
Her message.The words finally sank in. Her son had read her message—her apology—and now, for the first time in as long as she could remember, he was looking at her as though hewantedto be looking at her.
She closed her eyes.Thank you, Dot and Ethel.This was existential stuff and she needed to be ready for it. Receptive. Warm. Honest. Sure, she’d imagined she and Luke would be somewhere more conducive to her laying her heart on the line than on her ex-husband’s doorstep, but carpe diem and all that stuff. Kids lived in the moment. Apparently. And so could she.
‘I’m so pleased you read it.’
‘Me too! Wow! I just can’t believe it!’
She blinked. Had she been worried about nothing all this time? But no, just because he had forgiven her didn’t mean she didn’t have more to apologise for, to make clear. She took a breath and launched in. ‘Luke, every now and then my work does need me to be away from home, but that doesn’t mean I want to be away from you. I’m here. I want to be in your life as much as you’ll let me. I know it’s been rocky, and I’m sorry for that. I’m so sorry I missed the message about water polo camp finishing early and you feeling like you’d been abandoned. That’s so rough, and—’
‘Geez, Mum, I don’t care about that. I mean, is Yindi Creek the place you were telling me about that we might go camping?’
A suggestion to which he’d replied with a grunt. She’d given him a monologue on how great sausages smelled when they were being cooked over a campfire under the stars and he’d rolled his eyes and mouthed the ‘whatever’ word that was currently banned from being uttered in her house. A rule which Dot and Ethel would probably say she should abandon, now that she was working on her honest-talk skills.
‘That was just a maybe, Luke. Not set in stone. We don’t need to go back at all. We can spend the holidays here, doing some fun stuff. Together.’
‘Oh. Bummer.’
Wait a minute. Was hedisappointed?
‘Did you … want to go camping with me out at Yindi Creek?’ This was not what she’d been expecting. What had changed? Was this some puberty thing that came with armpit hair or something? A desire to be with his mother? Surely ten was too young for armpit hair.
‘Yeah.’
‘It’ll be … hot.’
‘No worries.’
‘No pool. No friends. No aircon.’
Why was she listing negatives like she didn’t want him to go? What had the Dirt Girls said?Just say the words.
She took a breath. ‘I’m so excited to go camping with you,’ she said. ‘Let’s get home, back to my place, and we can start looking at airline tickets.’
‘Awesome. We won’t be stuck out digging somewhere all the time, will we? We’ll be in town, too?’
‘Er, sure. To get supplies.’ Like sausages to eat under the stars.
‘Could we go to the library?’
He’d infused the word ‘library’ with the same joy he once infused into the word ‘Mummy’ when he saw her after a busy day at kindy. A baffling request and, yep, it tore at her ragged heartstrings a little.
‘Have you found a new book series you love, Luke? We can go to the library here before we go if you’re worried about running out of books to read.’ Did Yindi Creek evenhavea library?
