“More than that.” Kerry paused for thought and thumped away at the elastic ball of dough, flinging it with some violence onto a floured wooden board. The nearest store was several hours away, so if you wanted fresh bread out here, you made it yourself. When Jac smelled it baking, every second day, she practically drooled.
“Josh is like Callan, I think,” Kerry said after a moment. “He works hard to get his life just the way he wants it, and then he doesn’t like it to change.”
“That’s Callan?”
“It’s a part of Callan.” Kerry paused in her thumping and began to knead, pushing the dough away from herself so that it stretched into an oval, then folding it toward herself again and rotating it ninety degrees. The fluid efficiency of the movement said that she’d done this thousands of times before. “Which makes him sound too rigid, doesn’t it?” she added, shooting a sharp look at Jac.
“I wouldn’t say he was rigid, from what I’ve seen of him,” she answered carefully.
“No, he’s not. I’m glad you can see that. He just … needs time with some things.”
They were both silent for a moment, and the air felt a little too heavy, too full of meaning. Kerry seemed extra alert to nuances today, watchful somehow.
Watchful of me. Watchful of Callan and me, and the way I react to his name.
Jac didn’t know if that was a good thing, or not. What had Kerry thought about the two of them taking so long to retrieve Lockie’s Game Boy last night? What had she sensed in the air between them?
“Want to have a go at this, then?” the older woman said eventually.
“Can I? Will I ruin it? I’ve never made bread before. Should I thump, or knead?”
“I’ve done enough thumping. It releases the gluten in the flour, makes the bread lighter and more elastic. And it’s good for working out your aggression.”
On cue, they heard Carly’s voice rise in an angry scream. “You did that on purpose!”
“Somebody else is working out some aggression, I think,” Kerry drawled. She strode out to the children, the firm rhythm of her feet signaling a no-nonsense approach. “Joshie, we need to work this out,” Jacinda heard.
She began tentatively kneading, thinking that Kerry was probably the best equipped to handle the situation, in this instance. Kneading bread dough was tougher than it looked, however.
Push, fold, quarter turn. Push, fold, quarter turn. Tougher than it looked, but it felt good. The dough was like a baby’s skin, satiny smooth and warm from its first rising. The dusting of flour slipped across it like talcum powder on that same baby’s tush. Push, fold, quarter turn. Physical, creative, satisfying. Human beings had been doing it for thousands of years.
Kerry and Josh discussed LEGO towers in the next room—the possibility of two towers, of coordinated efforts to make a whole village of towers, square ones as well as curved, of Carly being the assistant and Josh helping her with bits that were too fiddly for her fingers. Eventually hurt feelings were soothed and territorial impulses reined in.
“We’ll see how long it lasts,” Kerry drawled again when she returned.
“And that’s what Callan was like?” She couldn’t help talking about him, despite what Kerry might think.
“Actually, no, he was pretty good at sharing,” the older woman answered. “They’re close in age, him and his sister. Nicky’s only fifteen months younger, so he never had to adjust to her as something new. As far as he was concerned, she was always there.”
“And she lives in Adelaide, now? Is that right?”
“A couple of hours north of there, the Clare Valley. She studied agriculture and married a farmer, but he has vineyards, not cattle.”
“You must have found it hard when she moved so far away.”
“To be honest, Clare was better than I’d hoped. I was afraid she might end up in Sydney or Perth!”
“Still, is it hard to keep in close touch?”
“Not with a bit of effort. We e-mail a lot, and take turns to phone each other every week. Sundays usually. Tonight it’s my turn. I send her drawings from the boys and she sends me magazine articles and newspaper clippings and we gossip about those. Silly things like celebrity marriages. We’re big fans of Prince Frederik and Princess Mary! But I’d communicate with Nicky by carrier pigeon if I had to. I don’t think it really matters what you talk about, either, if it helps you stay close. And I’m getting my first granddaughter in two months! I’ll be going down to stay with them, then.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Except that Jacinda was a little regretful that she’d nudged the conversation away from Callan. She had an itchy, secret urge to talk about him that she couldn’t remember feeling since her teens, when telling her friends, “I don’t even like Matt Walker,” had given her the delectable excuse to say a certain male classmate’s name out loud.
“If Callan doesn’t like change, we’re probably imposing on you even more than I’d realized, with our visit,” she said after another moment of silence.
“I shouldn’t have said it. I’m not putting it the right way.” Another pause. “I’m thinking about Liz, not about you and Carly.” The words came out in a rush, as if Kerry might regret anything she said too slowly.
“Oh, okay.”
Kerry divided the ball of dough in two and began shaping each piece into a log, ready for the greased loaf tins she had waiting on the countertop. “You see, thinking about the future, about the boys, about how lonely Callan must sometimes feel—how lonely I know he feels—I worry that any woman who’s not Liz is going to scare him too much. He’s never been any good at asking for help. Which means he’s going to have to get past the fear on his own, and I’m not sure how he’ll do it. Or if he can.”
She opened the oven door and it squeaked. After putting the tins on a lower shelf, she spread a damp dish towel on the top shelf. Jacinda knew that in the moist, tepid space of the oven, the loaves would rise to a high dome shape over the next hour. Squeak went the oven door as Kerry closed it again. Neither she nor Jacinda had spoken.
It’s my turn, though.
Talking like this, in the middle of routine household chores, made it easier to tackle tough subjects, she decided. When you were silent as you gathered the right words, other activity was still going on and the silence didn’t seem so difficult.
“I think … I wonder if …” she tried after a moment. “I think he’s stronger than that, Kerry.” She thought about what he’d said yesterday about yelling and jumping to get rid of the fear. He had his own strategies. They might not be the ones suggested in the hospital leaflets—he didn’t want them to be the ones in the hospital leaflets—but they were strategies, all the same.
Kerry looked eager, as if she itched to talk about Callan, too. “Has he said something to you? Has he talked much about Liz?”
“Not much. A little. He’s said—”
“No, please!” She warded off Jac’s words with her hands. “Don’t tell me what he said. I’m not asking for that. But I do worry.”
“Of course you do.” Jacinda was a mother, just as Kerry was. She knew. “But I think Callan at least does know what he’s fighting in himself.” He’d talked about the fear, and this made more sense now. The fear of change. The fear, if Kerry was right, of there being no one in the whole world to match Liz. “And you know, Kerry, when you understand the enemy, that’s always an advantage.”
“True. He is a fighter. In his own way. Always in his own way!” She laughed, and ran water into the electric jug, which she then placed on the countertop and plugged in.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, too.”
“The boys do him a lot of good. Lockie, now that he’s getting older.”
“It’s funny,” Jac said. “Before I had Carly, I always assumed I’d be the big influence on her. That I’d make her who she was. And of course I am doing that. But I think she’s changed me more than I’ve changed her. I never realized that would happen, that kids had such, oh, influence. Kerry, does that make sense?”
“It does.”
They talked about it a little more—kids and change, Callan and Liz. Nothing earth-shattering. Some of it a little tentative, still. But nice.
“Are you having coffee?” Kerry asked. “It’ll only be instant.” The electric jug was about to boil.
“Instant is fine. I’d love a cup.” Jac got the coffee down from the shelf while Kerry found two mugs and poured the boiling water in, leaving plenty of room for Jacinda’s big dollop of milk. Kerry had filled the jug just an inch or two higher than she needed, and rather than waste the precious water, she poured it in to soak the mixing bowl she’d used for the bread dough. Jac made a mental note to take more care with saving water from now on. Her shower, this morning, for example …
“Is it a pain in the butt, doing that?” she asked suddenly.
Kerry looked surprised. “Doing what?”