Page 43 of Special Delivery
‘So you want me to come?’
Poppy felt a familiar twinge of frustration in her rib cage. Did hepractisethis reverse psychology?
‘I can grab Eileen and be back here in half an hour,’ said James, his inflection halfway between statement and question.
Poppy dropped the play mat in front of the couch and lowered Maeve onto her back. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sure.’ This wasn’t entrapment; she had implied he could come, and now he’d offered to come. She just wasn’t sure she wanted him to—or if she’d purposefully made him think that she did. Had she? She stared at the garish colours underneath her daughter. She had to remember not to be so ambiguous around this guy. Somehow, he had the power to make her second-guess her every word.
CHAPTER 20
Thirty-five minutes later Maeve was dressed and strapped in the BabyBjörn wearing a tiny hat and they were ready to go.
She could see James walking down the road from his cabin. His broad chest stretched out his t-shirt and his calves were still tanned from summer. He looked like a guy who should run up these hills, not walk them.
He arrived at the foot of her verandah stairs with Eileen. ‘You okay if I take her off the leash once we get going?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ replied Poppy. ‘She seems much less skittish now.’
‘Only around you and Maeve. My last dog was a good judge of character too, and I should have paid more attention to that.’
Poppy raised her eyebrow but it seemed James was done with that conversation.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
‘Ready,’ she confirmed.
They set off up the bitumen road, following it past the cabins further up the hill before turning onto a gravel track that veered back to the dam. Poppy had spent the last half-hour worrying about how they’d cope without his conversation starters but somehow the chat flowed easily. With all those walks around the golf course, they’d developed a companionable rhythm and she hadn’t even realised. Something inside her flared with irritation—he’d forced her into that; she’d never wanted to hang out with him!—but then she remembered eating Cornflakes on the verandah with the sun casting its glow over the dusty furniture and she felt her frustration dissolve like motes of dust in the autumn air. She’d needed help post-yoghurt explosion and he’d offered. That didn’t seem sinister. It seemed kind of decent.
As they crested the hill, James said, ‘So I have to warn you, my whole family will be at lunch. Aunties, uncles, cousins, everyone.’
‘But not Mary,’ said Poppy.
‘Yes,’ conceded James. ‘And … not my dad.’
Poppy nodded. ‘I remember you mentioned something about that.’
‘Yeah.’ James tugged the collar of his t-shirt. ‘We never see him.’
Down at the dam, a trailer reversed a boat to the water’s edge and gleeful cheers from wetsuited kids rang up the valley.
‘What happened?’ asked Poppy. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m just interested.’
James glanced at her quickly then back at the gravel path. ‘He and Mum broke up when I was in high school,’ he said.‘He didn’t treat her very well. He wasn’t a good guy, to be honest. We were living in Forbes, but as soon as we’d all graduated from high school Mum moved to Orange. My siblings and I followed fairly soon after. We’re pretty close like that. None of us speak to Dad.’
He said it matter-of-factly, as though reading from the dictionary: succinct, without caveats and unnecessary detail. In the distance, the boat puttered to the centre of the dam, its wake rippling wider until it was absorbed into the stillness. She’d never noticed before but he seemed so sure of himself. The way he spoke about his father. Even the way he announced he was going back to uni, like it wasn’t a big deal to reverse your life into quasi-adolescence. Poppy couldn’t imagine doing either so confidently or so freely, but as James loped along beside her, she doubted he’d spare the brain power worrying about what other people thought. Maybe that was why he came across as such a douchebag.
‘What about Maeve’s dad?’ asked James. ‘He’s still in Sydney?’
Poppy felt a reflexive pinch in the pit of her stomach but she tried to ignore it. There was no point lying. James had been in the delivery room. He already knew too much.
‘Yep, he’s in Sydney,’ she replied. She kicked at a pebble in their path. ‘He’s still stuck in his inner-city, work-hard-party-hard lifestyle. We’d been together nine years, but when I fell pregnant I realised I’d grown up and I didn’t want that life anymore. I mean, Maeve was very much a surprise, but when I saw those two lines on the stick, I felt a sense of “Yes, okay, this is what I’m doing now.” I was ready, you know? When Patrickcouldn’t get on board, I finally understood how unsuited we were. He hardly cared when I said we should break up, so it was very mutual, which is worse than it sounds.’
On her chest, Maeve dozed peacefully in the carrier, her fingers curled into the fabric of her onesie. Poppy hadn’t talked about the break-up like this with anyone. Dani and her parents had witnessed it happening in real time, so hadn’t received the condensed version stripped of the adrenaline and hormones and swearing and tears. Telling the story like this made it sound kind of simple. A guy and girl who’d fail any Instagram quiz on compatibility. They’d been a big Jenga tower with blocks sliding out all over the place, and they hadn’t realised until it all came tumbling down.
Poppy sighed. ‘I never wanted to be a single parent. Like, I would love someone to help me with Maeve so I could rest sometimes, but I don’t regret the decision to have Maeve for a second, and I have to keep telling myself it won’t always be like this. And Patrick wouldn’t have helped anyway. He would have worked too late or been too hungover to do anything. It’s probably easier this way, knowing I only have myself to rely on rather than being constantly disappointed. That would drive me insane.’
James was silent, his eyes on the path. It was easy to talk when no eye contact was required. ‘Will he be involved in Maeve’s life?’ he asked.
‘I’m open to it,’ said Poppy. ‘It would be easier if I could cut him out properly and move on, but you know, a kid needs a dad.’
