Ask Me for Tomorrow (4 page)

They hadn’t grieved the same way. Fiona had fallen apart while Dean had needed to keep it together for the sake of his family. He’d fractured; he was sure she knew that. There had been days when he’d wished he’d had no responsibilities, but he’d mourned on his feet. And he suspected Fiona compared their grief.

She stepped under the tarp, scowled at it, and chose to keep her umbrella up. There were hugs all around as Dean called the kids over so they could get started. He wanted to sit – he was already tired – but more than anything, he wanted to keep things casual.

Dean cleared his throat, only to realise he didn’t know where to begin.

It was Sam who filled the silence. ‘I remember when Bree turned thirty.’ She looked down at the kids and grinned. ‘Your mum tried to stay in bed and sleep through it.’ A few people laughed softly, and the tone was set.

‘I remember her fifteenth birthday party,’ Ethan volunteered next. ‘Dean must’ve lost a litre of spit, drooling all over her that day.’

‘We were at Bean Ramblin’,’ Fiona murmured, referring to the fun, eclectic little coffee shop which had since closed down. Her focus was distant, and looking at her, Dean knew she’d fallen through time.

More people shared their memories. Even Liv, who only knew Bree through Sam’s stories, offered a few words. The kids took their turn, recalling half a dozen moments between them, then all eyes were on Dean.

He cleared his throat again and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked off into the middle distance. ‘I remember . . . a different life.’

Dean didn’t hurry into work following Bree’s birthday gathering. He got the kids ready for school and dropped them off, but then he went for a long drive. He used the time to clear his head and reflect, and arrived at the garage in time to do a scheduled service after lunch.

It had been an indulgent morning, and one that could probably have been better spent inducting his new employee, but he’d needed a bit of space.

When he’d first gone in to speak with Alice she’d been out getting food. Then she’d been with a customer, then on the phone. Now it was almost the end of the day and he’d yet to see how she was faring and gauge the mood between them. He wanted to assure her that her job did not depend on whether or not their kids got along, but he was still waiting for the chance.

A short time later, Dean was up to his elbows in kerosene when he realised he had a shadow. He straightened and looked over his shoulder. A boy stood a metre away, hands in the pockets of his school pants, the heels of his black shoes in the only puddle of grease Dean had yet to cover with sawdust. He looked like Alice in the nose and mouth. The eyes were somebody else’s, brown and fringed with long lashes, but Benjamin Jaye had his mother’s colouring. His dark blond hair was a few weeks past needing a cut and his school jumper had a pull in the left sleeve. The bruise around his eye had paled.

‘Ben, right?’

The boy nodded.

Dean debated for a moment about how to introduce himself, but he’d never been one for too much formality. ‘Dean. Nice to meet you properly.’

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Washing dirty tools in a kero bath.’

‘Why?’

‘Kerosene gets the grease off.’

When Ben’s eyes stayed on the thread-chasing tap in Dean’s hand, Dean supposed it wouldn’t be rude to keep going with his task. He held the tap under the steady amber stream of kerosene and rubbed his thumb along the grooves which had removed grime and thread sealer from the bolt holes of an engine block. A moment later, he turned the kero pump off, rested the tool on the edge of the sink and washed his hands.

‘How was school?’ he asked his audience.

Ben blinked and met Dean’s eye. ‘Okay.’

‘You’re hanging around here until your mum finishes for the day, are you?’

‘Yeah. What’re you doing?’ The boy glanced around the shop, his eyes touching on the various cars, hoists, barrels and tools cluttering up the space. ‘Can I watch?’

Dean lifted his chin a fraction. ‘Sure.’ He was probably doing Alice a favour, watching Ben as she wrapped up for the day, and it was always fun to show someone around the shop. A kid especially, because not enough of them were interested in trades nowadays. He also couldn’t deny himself the opportunity to speak with the kid who’d been involved in Rowan’s first – and hopefully last – fistfight.

He crossed the workshop floor to the open hood of a Ford Focus, and Ben followed. Standing at Dean’s elbow, closer than he had before, Ben looked at the various parts of the engine with interest. ‘What’re you doing?’ he asked again.

‘Replacing a head gasket. It’s an easy enough job – takes time and care, though. So listen, how’s that eye going?’

‘It’s okay. What’s that?’

Dean squeezed the trigger of the tool he’d just picked up and it whined noisily. ‘A rattle gun. A hundred times quicker than a ratchet. I used a torque wrench on those bolts, though, because this has too much power and it can stretch them.’

‘That’s the noise you hear in garages on TV.’

Dean considered this. ‘Yeah, I guess it is. It’s a pretty common thing for mechanics to use.’

Ben nodded and Dean sensed he’d gained a bit of ground. Maybe a bit more shop talk and he’d be able to get Ben to open up about yesterday’s big mystery.

‘See these bolts here?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They have to be tightened in order. There’s a sequence involved in securing any engine component. This cylinder head has to torque down flat. I tightened the middle first, then worked out in a star pattern – going here, then here, then here.’ He pointed at various bolts as he explained.

‘Cool.’

Dean began to unscrew the rattle-gun attachment from the air compressor hose. Casually, he said, ‘Rowan’s never hit anybody before, you know. He’s not a bad kid.’ When Ben didn’t answer, Dean filled the silence. ‘I’m not saying what he did is okay. It’s not.’

Dean glanced over when Ben shrugged both shoulders and scuffed his shoe on the concrete.

‘‘S okay,’ Ben mumbled. ‘He should’a done it. I would’ve. If I wasn’t me, you know. If I was him.’

This time Dean looked right at Ben’s round, bruised face. ‘You would have hit you if you were Rowan?’

‘Yeah.’

Dean detached the rattle gun and held out the harmless hose. ‘Hold this for me. Why do you say that?’

Ben’s fingers closed around the hose as a soft blush touched the arc of his cheeks. ‘I hurt Nina. I didn’t mean to.’

Instinct battled common sense as Dean turned away to swap the rattle gun for the blower. His protectiveness was hot, and it burned his insides. The underside of his skin felt as if it was bubbling, and demands were lining up on his tongue, ready to dive from his mouth. But that wouldn’t get him anywhere. He needed to stay calm and he needed to keep the kid talking. He was getting answers. Had he really thought they’d be answers he wanted to hear?

‘She’s got a pretty big bruise,’ Dean said, feigning nonchalance. He took the hose back, pushed on the blower and squeezed the trigger. The nozzle blew fast, noisy air over Ben’s joggers and he jumped.

‘She cried,’ Ben said.

And because Dean was listening closely, he could hear that Ben was close to doing the same.

‘Well, it hurt her.’ Dean didn’t know where in his body he was finding this light, conversational tone, because he felt like roaring.

Perhaps Ben assumed that Dean knew the whole story, or perhaps he was desperate to confess, because suddenly Ben was speaking. Fast. ‘She made fun of me and I pushed her. I didn’t know the tap was there and she started to cry so I ran, and then I let Rowan hit me because I felt so bad, and then Rowan got in trouble and I just feel so bad!’ Fat tears rolled down his eyelashes and splashed onto his red cheeks. They slid down his chin and dropped onto his chest. He took a deep, shuddering breath and slapped his palms to his face, covering his eyes.

Dean blinked at him, lost for words, replaying Ben’s confession over in his mind. Rowan had been protecting his sister. And Nina had been bullying Benjamin. His daughter had teased a boy so badly that the boy felt the need to push her away.

‘Don’t – don’t cry, Ben.’ Dean tried to remain in the moment, but his mind was charging ahead, visualising his evening and the long talk he was going to have with his kids. This all made a strange kind of sense. Nina was clever, but sometimes her social skills were a little . . . Maybe she wasn’t charming at school the way she was at home. And Rowan – well. Puzzle solved. Only loyalty would have brought about such a dramatic course of action, and Rowan still wasn’t talking about it because he was protecting Nina.

Ben stared at the dirty concrete floor between their shoes and sniffed a few times. Dean reached over and patted him on the back.

‘Hey,’ he said, his voice kind, ‘chin up.’ Ben looked up, misery in his tear-filled eyes. ‘Does your mum know this is what happened?’

A silent, slow shake of the head.

‘Okay. I’m going to straighten a few things out before you go home. You’re not going to get in any more trouble and Nina’s going to apologise to you tomorrow, so I want you to think about what you might like to say to her. But it won’t be a chance to get back at her, you understand?’

‘I don’t want to get back at her.’

‘Good. That’s very grown-up of you. Now listen, I need your help with something. Can you do me a favour while I talk to your mum?’

Ben wiped his nose on his arm and nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Take this blower here, that’s right, and squeeze the trigger.’ A loud burst of air shot out of the nozzle. ‘Compressed air,’ he explained. ‘It’s excellent for cleaning out hard-to-reach spots. See where I’ve been working here? I need you to spray air all over the area to get any grit out. Can you do that?’

Ben seemed to be forgetting his tears. He squeezed the nozzle again, testing the tool’s power, then smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘Okay.’

‘Good man.’ Dean pushed away from the car and walked to the next work bay. As he touched Marty’s forearm to get his attention there was a whoosh of air. The men nodded at each other, and Dean left the garage confident that Marty would keep an eye on young Ben.

Alice was wrapping up a phone call when he stepped into the reception area.

‘I don’t know, Beverley, I didn’t ask. Your car’s ready, and you can pick it up before five o’clock or after eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Okay, cheers, bye.’ Alice returned the phone to its cradle and picked up a pen. She took her time looking up at Dean.

‘What did Bev want to know?’ he asked, easing into the conversation carefully.

‘If you’d found anything embarrassing in her car.’

‘You mean, apart from the dirty magazine and the pair of knickers?’

Alice smiled with one side of her mouth, just like her son.

He moved further into the room. ‘I find a lot of underwear, you know. It’s actually pretty common. But I don’t like to think too much about why.’ He paused. ‘So listen, I owe you an apology.’ He dragged one of the customer seats over to the shiny new desk Ethan had installed yesterday, and sat opposite her. ‘I haven’t been around much today, I’m sorry about that.’

‘Okay.’

Wow. This woman could bottle brevity and make a fortune. He pressed on. ‘I’ve just been having a little chat with Ben. Things are about to become a whole lot clearer, so take the phone off the hook and disarm your laser eyes.’

Chapter Four

Home now after twenty minutes of emotional conversation in the car with her son, Alice was readying herself to change roles. She was still thinking about what Dean had told her, but she didn’t have any more time to deal with it. She liked his idea of bringing the kids together early tomorrow morning before school, but she wasn’t looking forward to losing an hour of sleep for it.

Standing in her bedroom, Alice unzipped her caramel-coloured pants and stepped out of them, straight into a pair of nondescript black ones. She pulled the zip up, dragged a plain white shirt from its hanger then buttoned it up over her singlet. Her earrings went in the small crystal bowl that had belonged to her mother, and her hair was kept up and out of her face. The last of her concealer went over the shadows under her eyes. She stared at the empty bottle for a long moment before dropping it into the bin. There wasn’t the money to buy more until Thursday.

Stepping out of her room, she found Ben sitting at the small table in the kitchen, his arms crossed on the wood and his expression glum. It twisted her heart every time she had to go to work when there was something bothering him, but she only ever called in sick for emergencies, because when she didn’t go in she didn’t get paid. Tonight’s money was going to get Ben a couple of pairs of bigger shoes.

‘Okay, kiddo, chin up. There’s leftover spag bol in the fridge – microwave it for about three minutes when you’re hungry. Stir it after a little while so it heats evenly.’

Ben sighed and dropped his forehead onto his arms. ‘Dean says “chin up”.’ His voice bounced strangely on the tabletop.

‘Well, Mr Foster’s a clever man. And I’m your mother.’ She raised her brows when Ben lifted his head to look at her. ‘So when a clever man and your mother tell you the same thing, it’s probably excellent advice.’

He shook his head and rolled his eyes, but she saw his smile before he buried it in his arms.

If only things were simpler, she thought, regret and guilt heavy on her heart. If his father gave half a damn about Ben, if Ben had more school friends, hell, if she could afford after-hours care, she wouldn’t have to leave him alone each night that work dragged her away from him.

He was a resilient kid. Independent. But Alice wished things were different.

‘Did you want to come to work with me?’ He’d sat out the back a few times, kept himself busy. Slept in the sick bay when he’d run out of steam.

He shook his head without looking up.

‘Okay. I’ve got to go.’ She stepped around the table and kissed his mess of hair. His hand shot up and seized her wrist as she straightened, then he was standing up and moving into the circle of her arms.

They hugged for a moment that was both long and too short, then she kissed his forehead and stepped away. ‘Double-check everything’s locked. Go see Claire next door if there’s a problem and she’ll call me. If it’s life or death – and no less – ask her to call your grandfather. The pony needs to be fed, I’ll be home before midnight and I love you.’