My grandmother continues. ‘As I was saying, hopefully when you’re my age, some new remarkable skin technology will exist.’ She pats her cheek. ‘I think she looks a little like me, don’t you, Adam?’
‘We have the same nose,’ he says. ‘And I have yours, Mom, so yes.’
‘Well, yours is a little larger,’ she says, her brows furrowing.
Adam, Miriam and Mike stare at my nose while I stare at my grandmother’s. It’s true.
‘And my eye is just like his.’ I point to the brown one. ‘I always wondered where this colour came from since Mum’s were green.’
‘Perfect match.’ Miriam looks from Adam’s face to mine. ‘Like father like daughter.’
Father–daughter. I thought that too not long ago, but not so much anymore, I want to say, but don’t.
‘If only I had known you before, Sky—so many wasted years. It’s ridiculous that we’re meeting for the first time. Just ridiculous.’ Miriam looks at Adam pointedly.
I look between them, trying to work out what’s going on. She knew about me? Did Adam not want to find me? But he did—the cards prove it. Then why is she angry with him? Did she think he could have tried harder? Maybe she wanted to find me herself and he said no.
‘Although two different eye colours is called heterochromia,’ Mike says, bringing the conversation back to the previous point. ‘A friend in college had it. It’s usually genetic, so maybe one of your grandparents on your mother’s side had the condition. It’s not from our side.’
‘Oh,’ I say, feeling a bit stupid and disappointed too. I’d had the wrong idea my entire life—my eye didn’t link me to my father, but apparently my nose did. I can’t ask my mum where it came from, obviously, and her parents aren’t alive either. Maybe Paula would know.
‘For the millionth time, I do wish you’d shave off that beard,’ Miriam says to my father, sighing dramatically.
‘And I’ve told you a billion times, Mom. It’s part of Alaskan culture, going all the way back to the pioneering days, even before it was a state. Men didn’t have time to shave in those days; it was a subsistence lifestyle.’
‘Well, I’m not subsisting with this racoon on your face—get rid of it, dear.’
Maybe my optimism was misplaced.
‘Sky, do you like classical music as well?’ she asks.
I’m still digesting the eye-colour news. Why had no one told me that before? ‘I don’t really know much about it,’ I answer.
‘But, the Sydney Opera House? You must have been to see the symphony orchestra? Ballet? Opera? I hear the acoustics are just fabulous.’
‘I’ve never been to a concert there, actually. We went there on a school trip once, though.’
‘Never?’ She looks at Mike. ‘Well, you must come to Chicago then.’ Miriam claps her hands. ‘We’ll show you everything. A tour of the conservatorium where I still work a little; we’ll go to the ballet—oh, and my new favourite restaurant. Have you ever been to a hyper-local restaurant? Talk about saving the planet; they grow everything on their roof. Fabulous. The food in Alaska, well …’ She looks around the restaurant, frowning. ‘Let’s just say it’s not noted in Gourmet magazine.’
‘Life isn’t all fancy restaurants and tickets to the opera.’ My father sighs, like they’ve had this conversation before. Now I get why he said ‘snobby’. ‘Alaska is alive with—’
She chuckles. ‘Snakes? Rednecks?’
‘Very funny. I was going to say, nature. Wilderness where you can walk for days and not see a single soul. Walking on earth that, just maybe, no single other living human being has ever trodden on before you. And that’s what I showed Sky when we went snow camping.’
‘In the actual ice?’ Miriam asks. ‘Was it alive and beautiful, Sky?’
I feel the table vibrate as my father’s phone rings again silently.
‘I don’t know about alive,’ I say, putting the image of an orphaned deer out of my head. ‘But it was definitely beautiful.’
We finish lunch and return to Adam’s place. Oliver’s sent me a message with a sad-face emoji. Why don’t you want to talk to me? I miss you.
I open the clip he sent earlier. He has Bella and Tiger running laps around the park while he’s jogging alongside, panting as hard as they are—and they’re all smiling. Oliver with a huge grin and Bella doing her crazy tail-wag that looks like a helicopter. I almost expect to see her take off. Halfway through, Oliver falls to the grass, the camera goes haywire, and I see the dogs pounce on him with licks. Too cute.
I reply, Thank you for taking her out again! And I miss you too! Let’s talk tomorrow! I may have overdone the exclamation marks.
It’s the first time my grandparents have seen my father’s new house. My grandmother doesn’t seem too impressed, commenting on the unfortunate choice of bathroom fittings and carpet colour, and I feel bad for my father. After the grand tour, Miriam bustles about in the kitchen fixing a tray of coffee for everyone and tea for me.
Trent picked up Jaxon for band practice earlier, and my father and grandfather sit together discussing Mike’s latest legal case on the couch. Something about corporate tax evasion—beyond boring. Miriam waves me over to the kitchen and we sit opposite each other at the island.
I’m still nervous about making a good impression. Ask questions, my mother always told me, that’s the best way to win people over.
‘What’s Chicago like?’ I ask. ‘I don’t really know anything about it. I mean, I know New York from all the movies and TV shows, but Chicago … It’s also a big city, right?’
‘Best city in the world.’ Her eyes light up. ‘Lake Michigan. The stunning views from the sky deck of the second tallest building in the whole of the USA, Sears Tower. But it’s not called “the windy city” for nothing; you have to know how to dress for the winter, much like here. Summer, however, is a delight. And the changing of the leaves … a piece of performance art. What trees do you have in Australia?’
‘Eucalyptus and wattles.’ I can almost smell their sweet yellow blossoms. ‘And bottlebrush, grevilleas and tea-tree.’ I’ve learnt a lot about nature since moving in with my aunt and uncle. Paula’s a pharmacist but she spends all her free time gardening—she’s great at it too—and Dave’s a landscaper. Between them, they know every plant and seed imaginable.
‘Wish I had visited when Adam was there, missed that opportunity, but now that I have found you, there’s time. Do you want to see some pictures of Chicago? Or, you know what, let’s do it tomorrow at the spa. I booked online yesterday.’
Wow. The woman can talk. ‘Spa?’ I ask.
‘Manicures and pedicures. You know, girl time. What do you think?’ She takes my hand to inspect my nails.
Hell yeah, is what I think. I have a grandmother and she’s spoiling me already.
‘They’re a bit of a mess,’ I say, looking at my chewed-up nails.
‘They’ll fix them up for you in no time,’ she says, giving me a peck on the cheek.
Chapter 13
‘How’s the water?’ the beautician asks. ‘Not too hot?’
‘Perfect,’ I say.
‘Tell me if it gets cool and I’ll refill it.’
My fingernails look glam in OPI Freedom of Peach and now my feet are soaking in a tub. No one will see my new nails until I’m back home as they’ll be hidden under layers of socks and gloves. I take a short clip of my toes splashing around in the bubbles and then blow a kiss at the camera. I’m trying to make up for neglecting Oliver—he feels so far away.
When I’ve finished soaking, the beautician drains the water, dries my feet, and furrows her eyebrows as she inspects them. I suppose there’s a lot of work to be done. The last time someone took such an intimate interest in my toenails was Mum when she was poised over them with a clipper. It makes me miss her. We never did this together, never had the spare cash, and she deserved it more than most.
From the window, I see the main street of Anchorage, quiet, icy and white, shops packed w
ith souvenirs. There are no tourists and a closed street stall advertises reindeer sausages. Beyond, snowy mountains rise and fall.
My grandmother is in the massage chair beside me and we’ve been chatting about life in West Creek. So far, I’ve told her about Mum, Melody (minus the cheating), Lucy and Oliver. I wonder if Lucy sent the message to Malcolm about seeing a movie. I take out my phone and ask her for an update while telling my grandmother all about Lucy’s cute-boy situation. Then I scroll through my photos and show her a video of Chirp, sitting in Lucy’s backyard under the big tree, just past the pens for the bird sanctuary, eating banana, pieces sticking to and falling from her beak. I’m laughing out loud, but my grandmother clearly doesn’t find her as entertaining. I show Miriam Lucy’s illustrations of birds done in fine felt-tip pen, and we agree she’s beyond talented. And I show her a thousand photos of Oliver—including the most recent dog-park escapade—and she agrees, it’s a no-brainer, he’s super cute and has skin that literally looks Photoshopped. In return, she shows me pictures of her fluffy Tzu named Peanut who loves smoked-salmon treats. He also wears a bow tie on occasion. And she tells me about her first love who she met at ski school in Switzerland. And did I know she and Mike lived in Italy for a year when Adam was a kid? She’s fluent in Italian, and Adam can even speak a little.
‘Adam hasn’t told me much about anything,’ I can’t help but say. I don’t mean to criticise him in front of her, even though she does it all the time.
‘Yes, he told me how he kept his job from you,’ she says.
I hadn’t wanted to bring up the hunting thing, not sure what and how much he’d told them, and wanting to make a good impression on her. But I’m glad she did. I’m sick of secrets.
‘Silly decision to start off your relationship like that, immature. But not surprising, really,’ she says. ‘In his often-hard-to-understand mind, he was probably trying to protect you.’
‘From what, his personality?’ That came across more harshly than I meant.
The beautician starts nipping my cuticles with tweezers.
‘Sorry, I mean—’ I try again.
‘It’s okay to feel hurt,’ she interrupts. ‘You’ve been through so much, dear. Losing your mother, and I can’t imagine how stressful it has been for you coming here to meet Adam. And in mid-winter to boot, another inappropriate decision on his part.’
‘Well, it’s summer holidays at home, and the best time to—’
‘Yes, yes, I know. Anyway, he didn’t do it maliciously, keeping his job from you. He assumed you’d be dead against it. Excuse the pun. He just wanted a chance for you to get to know each other before you made up your mind about him … He wanted to make a good impression.’
‘I guess.’ I hadn’t thought of it like that exactly.
‘To be honest, I’m not impressed. Ouch!’ She looks down at the beautician with a frown before continuing. ‘I avoid talking about it with my friends at bridge—some of them don’t even know what my own son does for a living. All their children are in respectable careers— lawyers, doctors, bankers, and the like. The whole picture,’ she waves her hands towards the glass doors, fingernails buffed with a French polish, ‘his lifestyle, well, how do I put this? It’s not the way we raised him. At first Mike and I thought it was pure rebellion. But he’s a little old to behave like a teenager at thirty-six, don’t you think?’
The beautician squeezes moisturiser from a tube and starts to massage my feet. I take a breath as I enjoy the sensation.
‘Did you know his ex-wife?’ I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to ask, but finally I have some way to find out more about my father and his past.
‘Yes, we met Stephanie many times. She wouldn’t have been my choice. A real salt-of-the-earth girl, not like anyone we know. But that seems to be a pattern with him. What I’ve done to deserve it,’ she sighs dramatically, ‘I don’t know. Stephanie lived in raggedy jeans and oversized T-shirts, and had a seemingly endless supply of hideous flannels. She drew Adam into this wilderness lifestyle. He was lost after he returned from Australia. But I suppose we have to credit her for getting him out of his depression.’
‘Depression?’ I furrow my brows, trying to imagine my father depressed.
‘Yes. He went really low,’ she says. ‘After he dropped out of Sydney University, and left the fishing job, he enrolled in law school in Chicago and worked with Mike. He hated it. But the real depression began after he received your mother’s letter after you were born, insisting she would raise the baby—you—alone. That he was not wanted or needed. And when he tried to call and write, wanting to return to Sydney and be a part of your life, she had changed numbers and addresses, cut off all contact. To this day, I don’t understand why a woman would do that—I mean, he is the father and a child deserves …’ She stops.
My stomach’s in my throat. She’s angry at my mum. And I have nothing to say in Mum’s defence—I don’t know why she cut him out of our lives like that.
‘Anyway, Sky dear. Sorry, I’m not blaming anyone. I did try to ask Adam, talk to him about finding you over the years, asking what he’d done, making suggestions, but he just shut down, Adam-style. If I’d pressed him anymore, I would have lost not only my granddaughter but my son too.’
In my whole life, I’ve never thought about how my father felt, only focusing on his betrayal of me and my mother, and then Melody’s betrayal of my mother and ultimately me. So much betrayal. I thought my father must not be interested, hadn’t wanted me. Suddenly, I’m seeing things from his eyes. And even though I don’t want to blame Mum, I won’t blame her, just thinking that she also had a part to play, that she wasn’t totally an innocent victim, is helping me understand him more, lessen my anger.
Miriam reaches across the massage chair to give my hand a pat. I can see she’s feeling pulled between loyalty to her son and not wanting to offend me by criticising my mum. Although that snow has fallen already.
She inspects the colour being applied to her toenails and takes a purposeful breath. ‘He made his mistakes. He should have stayed in Australia until you were born, of course, or just flown back there anyway, and tried harder to be a part of your life. He gave up too easily. But he was immature at twenty. Really, men do take much longer than women to get their acts together, don’t you think?’
I nod, staring at the beautician carefully applying the colour to my pinkie toe, too full of emotions to talk.
‘Those were the days,’ Miriam continues, ‘before all this Twittering and smartphone nonsense. You had to pick up a real telephone to call someone. And, if they didn’t answer—well, that was that. Adam dropped out of law school, left Mike’s firm and the prosperous career ahead of him, and holed himself up like some hibernating, beer-guzzling bear. Grew his hair and beard. We were mortified. Mike introduced him to colleagues to get career advice, even went out of his way to find one of those so-called life coaches. Heavens, there was one blind date with my hairdresser’s niece that was truly a disaster, and I couldn’t go back to my salon after that! Of course, we thought of serious help, pills and so forth. My dearest friend is a psychoanalyst and …’ She trails off. ‘I’m babbling. The point is, he didn’t want us interfering. Then he met a young man in a bar who had just returned from Alaska. It obviously triggered Adam’s adventurous spirit once again and he just picked up and left; he called us from the airport. We thought it would be the same story—he’d clear his head and come back to Chicago—but he met Stephanie and fell head over heels. But I suppose we were relieved he’d found something, someone, to bring back his smile. Didn’t imagine he’d marry her or live here so long.’
I’m letting all this new information settle as the massage chair beats a rhythm on my lower back. Just as I start formulating more questions, my grandmother asks the beautician to check if her fingernails are dry and then takes an iPad from her handbag.
‘I was going to show you Chicago, wasn’t I?’ She turns on her tablet and trawls through lots of folders. ‘I finally got al
l my photographs organised. What a project that was. Here.’ She hands me the iPad and I start scrolling. Picture after picture shows soaring skyscrapers and stunning architecture. Unusual angles and closeups reveal shafts of light piercing the space between buildings and weird details, like an old shoe caught in the branch of an enormous tree, leaves burnt orange by the season—things that no one would normally notice but somehow look like art.
‘These are beautiful!’ I say.
‘Adam’s the photographer.’
‘Adam?’ I’m in shock.
‘Do you call him Adam all the time? Not Dad?’
I shrug. Now it feels awkward.
But my grandmother doesn’t seem to notice. ‘He doesn’t even know I kept them, let alone uploaded them. When he was supposed to be working at the law firm, he spent all his evenings at a photography course, lunchtimes wandering around the city, camera in hand, and all his earnings on fancy equipment. Mike wasn’t impressed, of course. But I can’t believe he didn’t continue with his photography. Isn’t he talented? All my friends think so.’
‘Super talented,’ I say. ‘So he’s not just a hunter, he’s a photographer, too.’
Chapter 14
‘How are the house payments going?’ I hear my grandfather ask. ‘Are you in the red?’
‘I’m fine,’ my father replies.
I’m padding downstairs in a fresh pair of thermal socks, rubbing my eyes after a twelve-hour sleep. I so needed that. The knots in my shoulders unravelled into the pillow, and I feel ready for the day. There’s a shower going upstairs, which must be Jaxon.
From the stairs, I can hear my father and grandfather talking as dishes clink in the kitchen sink. I stop on the third-last stair, out of sight once again, curious if they will talk about me.
‘If you need a low-interest loan, it’s still on the table.’
‘No, Dad. I’m handling it.’
‘Don’t get huffy. I’m just worried about the debt, that’s all, and the rising rates. The number of foreclosures my firm’s been dealing with lately, it’s a tough time in property. Lots of clients at the moment?’
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