Sam woke properly when they pulled the car into Ella’s driveway. The way she appeared on the porch, you would have thought she’d been standing there since he drove away.
Maybe she had.
‘Be good to your mum, Sam. She loves you, and whatever you’re thinking right now, she thought she was doing the right thing.’
‘How can the right thing for me be not to have a real dad?’
‘We’ve all got a real dad. Yours is just somewhere else.’
‘Far away. I know.’ Sam smashed his seatbelt button with his thumb and finger and threw the strap off hard enough to make the silver buckle thud into the frame.
‘Steady on a bit, Sam. Don’t want to break the other arm. Or a leg.’
But Sam was out of the car.
‘What did the doctor say?’ Ella asked Sam as the boy neared the steps.
‘Nothing.’
Ella looked at Jake.
‘It’s a green stick fracture. Coulda been worse. Six weeks in the cast. No sport at school. No riding his bike. No wrestling tigers.’ Jake smooshed Sam’s hair with one hand, and Sam ducked around Ella’s hip and into the house.
‘You don’t have to come in,’ Ella said, and Jake got the sense she was blocking the way.
Fair enough. Maybe it was best to give her and Sam some time alone.
‘I rang Erik this morning. He’s on his way down.’
Jake couldn’t tell from her tone whether Erik’s visit was a good thing or not, so he said, ‘Okay.’
‘I rang Harvey this morning, too,’ she said.
‘Righto.’
‘Gina Scarponi is pregnant, and she wants to cut down her hours. I asked Harvey if I could get some training into Gina’s admin job and reception.’
Jake scratched his chin. ‘How will that work with selling houses?’
‘It won’t. I’m not doing it anymore. I’m going to hang around in Chalk Hill till they get this town pool finished, because I committed to that. A few days admin work will at least pay the rent. Then Sam and I will move back to Perth. It will be easier for me to work this out with Marshall if I’m in the city. Too hard from down here.’
Jake’s stomach hit his knees. ‘Perth?’
Ella nodded.
He wasn’t following. ‘You’ve been doing too much thinking when you’re too upset to think. Sleep on it for a while. Don’t rush into something like that. You’ve loved it here. Sam is just settling in—’
‘Does Sam really look like he’s settling in, Jake? I don’t think so.’
He tried again. ‘You’re letting last night skew everything, Ella. Don’t rush into these decisions now—’
‘What’s the point in sleeping on it? I won’t change my mind. Sam hates Chalk Hill, and he’s more important—’
Jake interrupted. ‘He doesn’t hate Chalk Hill, not anymore, and he’s met Ollie. He’s starting to make friends. You’ve got to give it more time.’
‘I need to put money on the table and real estate is not paying the bills. Bob and Harvey have the real estate needs of this town covered anyway. I’m just a fifth wheel. It was a dumb idea to think I could make this work. I’ve sold one house in six months. It’s time to stop dreaming.’
‘What about Tynan Kennedy at the dance last night? His wife specifically asked if you’d come appraise their place.’
She jolted, and Jake knew that with everything else that had happened last night, she’d forgotten all about it. ‘It’s not enough. They won’t want to sell it anyway. They’ll just want to show me their place and get some idea what it’s worth.’
‘So it’s too bad for them, hey?’
Ella crossed her arms. ‘I’ll tell Harvey about it. He’ll flick the lead to Bob.’
‘You’re giving up, Ella. Don’t do that just because of what happened last night. You gave up swimming and you’ve regretted it—’
‘I haven’t regretted it,’ Ella threw at him. ‘Don’t you dare say I regretted it! If I regret giving up swimming that’s like saying I wish I’d never had Sam, and I don’t wish that. I’d never wish that.’
The pair of them hesitated, out there on the tiny piece of cement porch under the brick archway, their only audience a pot plant at their feet.
Ella took a deep breath, and tried to ease her shoulders down.
‘Maybe if I’m lucky I can learn a bit about reception and admin work, and how to work a photocopier and make the boss coffee before I leave. Maybe it will make me more employable back in Perth if I know a bit more than how to follow a swim coach up and down the side of the pool, making notes about split times. And maybe I can teach a few kids how to tread water long enough to keep their heads above water if they get in trouble. That’s about all I’m good for.’
It was stupid to argue. Ella wasn’t thinking straight and he’d be better off having this conversation when she’d had a chance to calm down, but it was so hard to bite his tongue. Couldn’t she see she was blowing Sam’s accident out of proportion? Kids broke bones. Boys ran away from home. It happened.
Sam wouldn’t hold this against her forever.
It wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place. But he couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let Ella go without putting it out there. So he said, ‘What about you and me?’
She laughed.
It wasn’t the same kind of belly laugh as Cassidy’s that day at the top of Mount Snowdon, and it wasn’t as if he’d asked Ella to marry him, but the impact was every bit as meteor-like as it crashed through his ears.
‘I see,’ he said, stepping back off Ella’s porch. ‘There is no you and me?’
‘I have to do what’s best for Sam, Jake. I have to contact his dad.’ Her eyes were huge pools, deep and wet. ‘I have to call Marshall and tell him he’s
