she’d refused to have contact with him.
She was afraid of that smile.
Was she still? Tomorrow, would she...?
No. Tomorrow was for tomorrow. For now she needed to watch Danny help Luka open a multi-wrapped gift that finally revealed a packet of biscuits scarily past their use-by date. Oatmeal gingernuts. ‘They’ll be the closest thing Santa could find to dog biscuits,’ Rob told Danny.
‘Doesn’t Santa have dog biscuits at the North Pole?’
‘I reckon he does,’ Rob said gravely. ‘But I think he’ll have also seen all this burned bush and thought of all the animals out here who don’t have much to eat. So he might have dropped his supply of dog biscuits out of his sleigh to help.’
‘He’s clever,’ Danny said and Rob nodded.
‘And kind.’
He’s not the only one, Julie thought, and her heart twisted. Once upon a time this man had been her husband. If she could go back...
Turn back time? As if that was going to happen.
‘Is it time to put the turkey on?’ Rob asked and Julie glanced at him and thought he’s as tense as I am. Making love didn’t count, she thought, or it did, but all it showed was the same attraction was there that had always been there. And with it came the same propensity for heartbreak.
He was still wearing his jacket. He liked it. You could always tell with Rob. If he loved something, he loved it for ever. And she realised that might just count for her too.
Whether she wanted that love or not.
Switch to practical. ‘We still need to use the barbecue,’ she said. ‘We don’t have enough electricity to use the oven.’
‘That’s us then,’ Rob said, puffing his chest. ‘Me and Danny. Barbecuing’s men’s work, hey, Dan?’
‘Can my wombat help?’
‘Sure he can.’
‘I’m not sure what we can have with it,’ Julie said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be a lot of salad in the fridge.’
‘Let me look at what you have,’ Amina said. ‘I can cook.’
‘Don’t you need to rest?’
‘I’ve had enough rest,’ Amina declared. ‘And I can’t sleep. I need to know my husband’s safe. I can’t rest until we’re all together.’
That’s us shot then, Julie thought bleakly. For her family, together was never going to happen.
* * *
They ate a surprisingly delicious dinner—turkey with the burned-from-the-freezer bits chopped off, gravy made from a packet mix and couscous with nuts and dried fruit and dried herbs.
They had pudding, slices fried in the butter she’d bought with the bread, served with custard made from evaporated milk.
They pulled bon-bons. They wore silly hats. They told jokes.
But even Danny kept glancing out of the window. He was waiting for his father to appear.
So much could have happened. If he’d tried to reach them last night... All sorts of scenarios were flitting through Julie’s mind and she didn’t like any of them.
Once catastrophe struck, did you spend the rest of your life expecting it to happen again? Of course you did.
‘He’ll be fine.’ Astonishingly, the reassurance came from Amina. Had she sensed how tense Julie was? ‘What you said made sense. He’ll be at the road block. And, as for the house... We’ve seen worse than this before. We’ll survive.’
‘Of course you will.’
‘No, you have to believe it,’ Amina said. ‘Don’t just say it. Believe it or you go mad.’
What had this woman gone through? She had no idea. She didn’t want to even imagine.
‘I’d like to do something for you,’ Amina said shyly. ‘If you permit... In the bathroom I noticed a hair colour kit. Crimson. Is it yours?’
‘Julie doesn’t colour her hair,’ Rob said, but Julie was remembering a day long ago, a momentary impulse.
She’d be a redhead for Christmas, she’d thought. Her boys would love it, or she thought they might. But of course she hadn’t had time to go to a salon. On impulse she’d bought a do-it-yourself kit, then chickened out at the last minute—of course—and the kit had sat in the second bathroom since.
‘I’m a hairdresser,’ Amina said, even more shyly. ‘In my country, that’s what I do. Or did. My husband has to retrain here for engineering but there are no such requirements for hairdressing, and I know this product.’ She gazed at Julie’s hair with professional interest. ‘Colour would look good, but I don’t think all over. If you permit, I could give you highlights.’
‘I don’t think...’
‘Jules,’ Rob said, and she heard an undercurrent of steel, ‘you’d look great with red highlights.’
She’d hardly touched her ash-blonde curls for four years. She tugged them into a knot for work; when they became too unruly to control she’d gone to the cheap walk-in hairdresser near work and she’d thought no more about it.
Even before the boys died... When had she last had time to think about what her hair looked like?
When she’d met Rob she’d had auburn highlights. He’d loved them. He’d played with her curls, running his long, strong fingers through them, massaging her scalp, kissing her as the touch of his fingers through her hair sent her wild...
Even then she hadn’t arranged it herself. Her mother had organised it as a gift.
‘I bought this voucher for you, pet. I know you don’t have time for the salon but you need to make a little time for yourself.’
Her parents were overseas now, having the holiday of a lifetime. They wouldn’t be worried about her. They knew she’d be buried in her work.
They’d never imagine she’d be here. With time...
‘I don’t think...’
‘Do it, Jules,’ Rob said and she caught a note of steel in his voice. She looked at him uncertainly, and then at Amina, and she understood.
This wasn’t about her. Rob wasn’t pushing her because he wanted a wife...an ex-wife...with crimson highlights. He was pushing her because Amina needed to do something to keep her mind off her burned house and her missing husband. And she also needed to give something back.
She thought suddenly of the sympathy and kindness she’d received during the months after the boys’ deaths and she remembered thinking, more than once: I want to be the one giving sympathy. I want to give rather than take.
Amina
