Claiming His Family. Barbara Hannay
her yellow silk nightdress higher to cover the tops of her breasts. She hated to think how her hair must look. It would be a fright. She focused on Joey. ‘I give up. What did you have for lunch?’
‘Fish and chips,’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘Dad and me had a picnic down near the water. We had these hot and crunchy pieces of fish with salty French fries and they were all wrapped up in paper.’
‘Wow, that sounds…neat.’
‘It was. It was excellent. And I fed some seagulls with little bits of my fish. And Dad and me had a soda too.’
With one hand holding her nightdress against her chest, Erin looked from her son to Luke. His eyes were bright and a smile lurked. She sensed a light-heartedness about him that she hadn’t seen yesterday and she felt a perverse need to dampen it. ‘You shouldn’t have let me sleep in,’ she accused.
‘You were dead to the world.’
The happy light in his eyes flustered her and she switched her attention back to Joey. ‘So how did all this happen? When did you wake up?’
Joey shrugged. ‘I heard Dad knocking on the door, so I opened it and let him in. And then Dad gave you a shake.’
‘He what?’
Heat suffused her as she pictured what must have happened—Luke approaching her bed, leaning over her, touching her while she slept. Once more she flicked a hasty glance his way. He was still standing in the doorway, one shoulder resting casually against the frame, and she was annoyed to see a hint of amusement lurking in the depths of his smoky eyes.
Joey must have sensed her tension and he frowned. ‘It was just a little shake, Mommy, but you didn’t move. So Dad said we should leave you to sleep. He helped me to find some clothes and he wrote you a note and then we went out for breakfast.’
A note? It was then that Erin saw the page of hotel stationery on her nightstand and a message in Luke’s sharp, spiky handwriting.
‘So the two of you have spent the whole morning together,’ she said. ‘I guess I should thank you, Luke.’
‘Are you going to get up now?’ prompted Joey. ‘Dad said if you want, we can go to Taronga Park zoo.’
‘Only if you’re interested,’ added Luke quickly.
Joey bounced excitedly, making the mattress rock beneath Erin. ‘You want to go, don’t you, Mommy? Dad said the zoo’s on the other side of the harbour and we can get there on a ferry.’
Dad said, Dad said. Clearly Joey’s adoration of Luke wasn’t going to wane any time soon.
‘You’ll have to give me time to take a shower.’
‘And you’ll need coffee and something to eat,’ added Luke, but his words were almost drowned out by Joey’s cheers. ‘Can I order something for you?’
Of course she said yes. She said yes to everything. There was no way she was going to let her dissent spoil this last afternoon with Joey. She even acquiesced when, as they left the hotel, Joey insisted on walking between them, holding her hand and Luke’s as if the three of them were a regular family.
It was a beautiful day. As they boarded the bus bound for Circular Quay, Erin saw that yesterday’s dull, threatening weather had cleared. The air was crisp and sparkling, the sky was a clean, bright blue and the sunshine had turned Sydney Harbour into a dazzling sea of sapphires. Although there was a nip in the air and they needed warm jackets, it was hard to remember that it was winter.
Joey found everything thrilling—even lining up to buy ferry tickets—and his happiness and excitement were catching. By the time the boat pulled away from the dock, Erin felt more at ease than she had in weeks. Perhaps, for one afternoon, she could keep her mind free from anxiety. She could aim to be as innocent and carefree as Joey.
Luke was in a better mood too, so perhaps they could all relax. She decided to try very hard. She would live in the moment and immerse herself in the simple enjoyment of the sunshine, the sparkling harbour and the freshness of the salty breeze skimming across the water.
For just one afternoon, they could all pretend that everything was okay.
It was a nice theory.
It couldn’t work, of course.
The happy-family charade was too fragile to withstand the test of an entire afternoon. Minute by minute—while Erin and Luke laughed at the antics of the monkeys, while they waved to Joey as he rode an elephant on a merry-go-round, while they shared his admiration of the lions and tigers and his amusement over the cute little meerkats—the tension between them mounted.
Whenever Joey let go of their hands and danced ahead of them, Erin walked carefully apart from Luke, taking excessive pains not to touch him or bump him. And they were both excruciatingly careful to pay attention to Joey and to show an intense fascination with the animals on display. They took the same care to pay little or no attention to each other.
And gradually the light-hearted glimmer in Luke’s eyes dimmed and Erin’s smile became more strained.
If Joey noticed their apprehension he didn’t let on. This afternoon was too important to him. For the first time he could remember he had both his parents together. He was living his dream and it was almost as if he were willing Erin and Luke to be on their best behaviour so they couldn’t spoil his happiness.
And Erin and Luke were managing tolerably well. On the surface. Things deteriorated when they reached the kangaroos.
Kangaroos were so bizarre, Erin thought, with their soft, pretty faces, their tiny front paws and then their absurdly long back legs. Bizarre, but very cute. She pointed out a sweet little baby in its mother’s pouch.
Joey was entranced. He clung to the wire with his face pressed against it as he watched the baby kangaroo’s little black eyes, pointed nose and ears peeping out from a furry pocket on its mother’s abdomen.
‘Did you know that baby kangaroos are called joeys?’ Luke asked him.
Joey pulled back from the wire to stare up at them with excited delight. ‘Is that why you guys called me Joey, ’cause I’m your baby?’
‘Well…not exactly,’ Erin began and then she winced. Why had she chosen this moment to become pedantic?
Joey waited expectantly for further explanation.
‘Your name’s short for Joseph,’ she said. ‘You were named after your grandfather.’
‘After Grandpa Reilly?’
‘No, your other grandfather.’ Erin glanced towards Luke and a nervous tremble rippled through her as she watched a muscle twitch near his jaw. ‘His name was Joseph too,’ she said. ‘He was Joseph Manning—just like you.’
‘The first Joseph Manning was my dad,’ Luke explained. ‘We called you Joseph Peter. Joseph after my father and Peter after Peter Reilly, your mother’s father.’
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