the end. It’s that article in a magazine, that glimpse of a different life. It’s the older woman on the street on the way to the dentist’s office, the one who’s cut her hair short and wears makeup, but who looks beyond your ugly dress and cap and cludgy white trainers and terrible otherness to smile at you and say, “It’s lovely to see the sun again, isn’t it, after all the rain?” She’s the one who makes you wonder. She’s the one who makes you hope, and hope is what gives you the strength to push past your fear and take that leap.
This time, I could actually see the houses get posher as Gray drove up the hill, and when he pulled up the drive again and I saw the glass-and-steel rectangle of a house that was his, I wondered how I could ever have thought it belonged to anyone else. He was gray leather and shining bare floors. The comfortable woman I’d met? She’d have had a flowered couch and window boxes. I couldn’t be that wrong about Outside. It was where I lived now. It was my home.
I wanted to say something comforting to the girls. I couldn’t think of a thing. Instead, I told Gray, “I need something to wear. Another blanket, maybe. Could you bring something out?”
He stripped off his flannel jacket, revealing a red T-shirt beneath that was doing some work to cover all that chest. There was a tribal tattoo covering his left arm, too, emerging from the T-shirt like a painted sleeve and stretching all the way past the serious muscle of his forearm. The design was intricate, but of the more angular, coal-black, Samoan variety, more like a woven pattern and with less of the spiral Maori koru.
I couldn’t help but notice it. It was right there, and I was an Emergency nurse. I saw tribal tattoos every day. Not necessarily on arms like his, but still.
He didn’t notice me noticing, because he said, “You could wear that as a skirt, maybe. Hang on a sec, though. You and the girls.” He jumped out of the car with the same sort of loose-limbed grace he’d shown all night, then took the four steps to the front door in one leaping stride as if all of this had only been his warmup, and he was ready to get stuck in at last.
Gray
My mum still wasn’t in bed. I doubted she’d been there at all since I’d first woken her, because she was folding the washing now on the kitchen bench. At the moment, that was Daisy’s undies. They were red cotton. Bikinis. They were very small. The bra was red as well. Also small. And with no padding to it.
Women always did padding, in my experience. I wasn’t sure if it was to make their breasts look bigger or to keep their nipples from showing. Either way, I wasn’t a fan. And, yes, I knew enough to keep my opinion to myself.
“Hi, Mum,” I said, bending to give her a kiss. “I brought those girls home, I’m afraid. All three of them. Couple nights’ emergency lodging, that’s all.”
“Course you did,” she said. “I’ve made up the bed in the spare room, and done your room as well. Thought you’d like to switch with them, give them the good bath and all. I think Daisy liked that bath. Where are they, though?”
“Still in the ute.”
She slapped her hands down on the benchtop. “Well, bring them in, Gray, for pity’s sake. What did you imagine I’d say? ‘Be off with you, you heathen wretches?’ They’ve been up all night and likely scared to death. They’ll need food, hot baths, and sleep. Go get them, and let’s get cracking.”
Daisy
The minute the truck door closed behind Gray, Fruitful asked, “Will he really help us? Why?”
“Is he your appointed husband?” Obedience asked. “Is that why?”
“No.” I wrapped Gray’s shirt around my waist and tied the sleeves into a knot over at the side, feeling marginally less naked and definitely warmer. I was still giddy, and I was also monstrously, impossibly hungry. I should be collapsing in a fit of tears. All I wanted, though, was a pizza. Not a slice of pizza. A whole pizza. I told Obedience, “There’s no such thing as an appointed husband Outside. And if he says he’ll help us, he will. He already did, didn’t he?”
“But why?” Fruitful asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he’s a helpful person.”