Never Second Best Read online

  He wanted to make up a pancake batter for a breakfast treat, but instead made himself another cup of tea. Work emails awaited and he had a new project to bid for.

  Standing in the hallway, he remained undecided. Sleep or work?

  The buzzing of his phone gave him a moment’s reprieve from deciding.

  “How did today go? L.”

  Friends, then lovers, then slowly they had worked their way back to being friends.

  He could only imagine how long it took Lucy to phrase the question. Lucy Dawson, one of the most beautiful hearted people he’d ever met. Warm brown, shoulder length hair, soft blue eyes and a wicked tennis serve. They met after both being invited to speak at a conference about working with vulnerable teens. A passion that gave him a purpose after high school.

  Still smarting from a broken heart, he had thrown himself into finishing his apprenticeship and building a spec home with some friends. Flipping their first house was luck. Their second and third took hard work. By the time he started his business he had started working with his old high school to mentor teen boys. At first, he was young enough for them to relate to. Then he became successful enough to offer them their first job or to open other doors.

  When he heard Lucy talk about her advocacy work, designing early intervention programs, he reached out to get some advice. Never expecting to fall for the woman behind the thin rimmed glasses.

  Gorgeous, sweet Lucy. Their friendship became more, only to stall when he knew he was not ready to get over his teenage love.

  Crazy and stupid. Lucy was perfect for him, and he was perfectly naïve enough to believe in fairy tales. Not even having the courage to tell her why. The old, “it’s not you, it’s me” seemed too little to explain the complexities of his feelings. What would have been worse is if he had told her that she was the one for him, if ever he could get over his first love.

  Lucy, he never forgave himself for hurting her, even though once they picked up their friendship, she assured him he was not unforgettable. Still, she was the social worker that he now worked with almost as much as his old school, together helping dozens of teenage boys keep out of trouble. A trusted friend and sometimes mixed doubles partner who never married or had children of her own.

  An honorable woman who respected his marriage and didn’t want to intrude when it fell apart.

  Lucy sent him a single text after Grace left, “I’m sorry.” Then nothing until today. Seth could spend the rest of the night second guessing what she meant by the question. Or call her and find out for himself.

  The need to hear her comforting voice couldn’t match his pride in needing to do this on his own.

  He didn’t want to need anyone.

  For reasons outside his control he was single.

  His greatest role for the rest of his life would be that of father.

  Until he figured out what that meant, he couldn’t allow anyone into his life.

  “Daddy, I gotta go,” supporting Retha’s toilet training meant leaving a full trolley of groceries in the supermarket, hiking across the shopping center to find the family change and toilet room.

  All conversation stopped when he walked in with two children and only a hint of suspicion when he entered the toilet with his daughter.

  “Aunty JoJo!” the delighted squeal from Eddie out in the changing room, “Lemme hold her, where’s Kyle?”

  “Kyle’s at school and you can hold Gemma when she is less stinky. Where’s your dad?”

  “Retha had to go to the toilet and now we have to start getting food all over again. She’s such a baby.”

  Inside the cubicle with the child-sized toilet, Retha finished up and he helped her wash her hands.

  Forcing a confident smile before opening the door, “Jo,” he hugged her before she placed the baby on the change table, then extracted his children from around her legs.

  “Grocery shopping with two kids, you must be the most patient man alive,” she laughed. “I barely get through it with one.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t have a choice. I can barely keep a nanny long enough to put in the hours at work, so we manage. At least today Owen is at school.”

  “You don’t have to do this on your own. Joe and I are happy to help, you have other friends.”

  “They are my kids and my responsibility.”

  “You know how I feel about her,” Jo’s face darkened. “I will never forgive her for what she has done to them.”

  “Jo,” Retha had already joined her brother in the small play pen. “She is still their mother and you can’t talk about her like that when the kids are around.”

  “What did you tell them?” Jo didn’t meet his eyes as she focused on her own daughter.

  “Mummy went to live with Aunty Si and …” conscious of all the silent women trying not to listen. To hell with them. “They know their mother moved in with her girlfriend and has now moved overseas. I’ve told them that there aren’t many phones in Cambodia and that’s why she doesn’t ring.”

  “Oh, Seth, you need to let us help you.”

  The tightness in his chest came too late to warn him to close down the conversation, avoid sympathy at all costs and keep his grief and self doubt to himself.

  “I don’t need help. I need my wife, their mother to come back and be a family again. I need to know how to get them ready in the morning before the nanny arrives at eight so I can go into the office and keep my business afloat and the food on the table. I need to know how to keep the washing up to date, and the house clean and the bills paid at the same time.”

  “Oh, Seth,” he hated the sympathy and letting anyone see him as anything less than being in control. The façade he built around him crashed.

  “I need to know how to make sure they know I love them and would never leave them, that they are safe with me and I need to know how to convince community services that Matt should stay with us.”

  “Seth, I had no idea.”

  “No one does. It’s my life now. I come into rooms like this filled with mothers who love their children and they look at me as if I am a child molester. At some point, I’m going to be questioned for going into a bathroom or standing around waiting for my daughter. Don’t even get me started about what will happen when she’s old enough to go away for netball camps and I start booking airline tickets or hotel rooms for us to share.”

  By now he had collected the nappy bag, picked up Retha from the play area and had Eddie’s hand. Joanne’s, “Seth” rang in his ears as he hurried back to the supermarket to hopefully collect and pay for his groceries.

  After midnight and yet another day survived. Seth hit, “send” on one last email sorting out his new building development project before closing down the house for the night.

  Room by room, he shut the curtains, avoiding the plethora of plastic building blocks, wooden tracks and trains, and half-finished jig-saws. He closed the door on what used to be Grace’s study and now the dumping ground for clean clothes waiting to be sorted or ironed. The older boys were now used to hunting for their clothes on an as-needs basis.

  The kitchen was his never-ending source of embarrassment and challenge. No sooner had he spent an hour cleaning it, than Matt’s teenage hunger equaled another dirty saucepan with baked on macaroni and cheese or chilli.

  Against no rules of parenting was he winning, except in loving his children. If they wanted more time with him, reading books or building plastic towers, if Retha wanted to play dress-ups even going outside and kicking a football, they were and always would be his priority.

  The house was patient and would wait until he sorted things out to be cleaned. His business partners had stepped up, covering his absence and distracted focus in the short term. If he put in a couple of hours each night after the children’s bedtime, his business would tread water until he could get better organized.

  Six messages from Jo and her husband, Joe. His best friends had been there for him when Grace left him for university and accepted he never sto
pped loving her those years ago. Then, after one, unexpected night together when Grace came home for a reunion, they supported him through the weeks of complicated emotions. Not until after they were married and Owen was born did they trust Grace was emotionally and fully committed to him.

  He couldn’t face their help, or advice. Even worse would be any sympathy or “I told you so.”

  “It’s Joe, I need my jogging buddy back. Five am tomorrow. No excuses.”

  Too soon, and too exhausted to get up in four hours to go running. He needed time and space. “Not yet,” he texted before turning off his phone.

  “Daddy,” Eddie padded out of his room and curled around Seth’s leg.

  “Hey, sport. You should be asleep.”

  “I got scared.”

  “Why,” he picked up his son to carry him back to the bedroom.

  “I thought you left me.”

  “Daddy will never leave you. I promise.”

  “Then why did mummy leave?”

  A question with no answer.

  “How about I sleep on the floor next to your bed, tonight. If you get scared, you can see me.”

  “Okay, daddy.”

  The soft snores of his youngest son came quicker than Seth’s sleep on the old camp stretcher now kept in Eddie’s room for nights like this.

  How the hell could a mother abandon her children, and how could he ever make it up to them. He fingered the wedding ring, now uncomfortable in its memories.

  Disorganized Chaos

  “Matt, you have five minutes before the bus is here. Owen, help your sister with her shoes. Eddie, count out the apples for lunchboxes. Come on, kids we need to get going.”

  Seth gave up trying to iron a shirt, deciding to throw it in the dryer for ten minutes so he could feed Retha while her brother helped her dress.

  Every morning seemed like ground hog day. A complete surprise that they needed to get dressed, have breakfast and leave the house in time! Today, he was on his own.

  “Where’s nanny, I want nanny,” Retha bleated.

  “She isn’t coming today. You’re going to daycare and I’ll pick you up tonight.” Which meant getting everyone ready and out the door before he could go into the office and see what crisis developed overnight that he could fix before picking the boys up from school. Thinking about an unplanned early mark, he smiled, maybe they could chill with a football outside and even make some home made pizzas. Yes. Suddenly the day without nanny seemed not so bad.

  “I get to play in the sandpit, yeah!” she ran back to her room, leaving her shoes behind in Owen’s hands. Great, even Retha agreed.

  His phone rang, “Yes, no problems. I’ll be there shortly.” Damn. One of the subcontractors had walked off the job and was demanding more money otherwise his work would be re-prioritized. “Steve, it’s Seth, mate, what are you doing to me? Look, things have been messy at home and I haven’t been on site as much … I know … I understand … I’ll see you then.”

  Life got more complicated and now either he meet up with the subcontractor and sort things out over a beer, or his project schedule would be delayed and bleed money he couldn’t afford.

  “Matt, are you coming straight home after school?”

  “Yeah, trials don’t start until next week.”

  “Can you pick up Owen and Eddie from school and bring them home.”

  Only a moment’s hesitation before Matt agreed. Seth hated putting that sort of responsibility on him, but he was slammed from all directions and needed them to all work together as a team until he figured out how to get more organized, especially when life threw them a curve ball like today.

  “If I take them outside to play, I won’t have time to clean the kitchen.”

  “Smart arse,” Seth couldn’t help being proud. “Yeah, the kitchen has lasted this long without cleaning, another day can’t hurt.”

  He couldn’t be more wrong.

  He picked Retha up from daycare just before closing and was home shortly after six.

  There was no reason for a strange car to be parked in his driveway.

  Retha squirmed in his arms as he struggled with her bag, his briefcase and a bag of groceries for dinner. At least he had started doing multiple, smaller shops in-between meeting clients. It seemed to be working okay, especially if he cooked double one night and reheated later in the week.

  Matt anxiously greeted him in the foyer, taking the bag off him, “You didn’t tell me she would be coming today.”

  “Who?”

  “The bird from community services. It’s a spot visit.”

  Seth walked into the kitchen to see a prim and proper older woman sitting at his dining table taking notes in a faded notebook.

  He didn’t need to look at the kitchen to know most of the dishes were still in the sink, that the stove hadn’t been wiped over since the creamed rice overflowed last night and the floor would still have crumbs on it from the breakfast rush. Drawings, paint and food combined on the dining table from the artwork last night. Owen and Eddie were intent on expressing their feelings, insistent that the only color to represent their heart was pasta sauce.

  It didn’t seem important at the time to clean away their art. Even if a stranger would see it as spilled food and a disgusting mess.

  A basketful of washing still lay strewn across the floor where he dropped it to run in to fight off the imaginary monsters that woke Retha to screams.

  Today hadn’t been his best effort to impress himself as a father, let alone a stranger who would decide his son’s future.

  “Mr Greenwood, I’m Mrs Grainger, and this must be the missing child, Retha?” The woman stopped scribbling long enough to shake his hand and smile at Retha who wanted to play with the purple pen.

  “Call me Seth, please.” He needed to turn this visit around.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. I didn’t get the message that you’d be dropping by.” He ignored the slight about “missing child”.

  “This is an unscheduled welfare check on Master Matthew Night, as part of our determination whether he should remain in your care.”

  “I told her I want to stay,” Matt started until Seth’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. Softer, pleading, “Dad, I want to stay with you guys.”

  “It’s okay, sport, unless Mrs Grainger wants to talk to you, how about you leave us alone.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “I picked up some beef and vegetables. Honey and soy stir fry sound okay? It’ll only take twenty minutes.”

  “I made the kids some toasted sandwiches, so they won’t be hungry for a while and then I helped Owen with his reading homework.”

  “Thanks, off you go and I’ll give you a call when dinner’s ready.”

  Seth had a sickening feeling as Retha followed Matt to the other end of the house to where he could hear the boys playing noisily. The woman observed everything and hadn’t stopped scribbling in the damn notebook.

  “It’s a busy house you have here,” the social worker sat up straighter and smoothed her long skirt. He couldn’t stop thinking she reminded him of Mrs Doubtfire in the old comedy, minus the accent.

  “It definitely has its moments. Can I offer you tea? Coffee? Water? Would you like to talk at the table or can we talk while I start preparing dinner?”

  “What would you prefer?” He wished she’d give him a straight answer instead of making it feel like a trick question.

  Mrs Grainger’s pen poised above her notebook. Ready to pass judgement? He held onto the kitchen bench for moral support.

  “Look, to be honest, Matt is incredibly important to me and to this family. He calls me dad, I think of him as another son and all four of them call each other brother and sister.”

  He forced himself to release his grip, show her open hands and his best fake smile, “If proving that means I sit down with you at the table, then I’ll do it. But as you can see, I’m struggling to get this routine thing happening and I’d like to get a start on dinn
er if you can talk and ask me questions as we go.”

  “Whatever you prefer.” She stood, studying his reaction. To hell with her, the kids needed feeding and what father wouldn’t get dinner started.

  Seth wiped over the bench, got out the wok and put some water onto boil in the saucepan. “There’s enough if you want to stay for dinner?” He hoped she would say it was against the rules but forced his smile in place when she agreed.

  “It would be good to watch the family interact over a meal. I’ve certainly seen some interaction this afternoon.”

  “Oh,” he started slicing slivers of the beef, dropping them into a bowl with honey and soy sauce.

  “Does Matthew often have to collect your children from school and look after them?” Again with the poised pen ready for his response.

  “During winter, he picks up Owen and some of Owen’s friends and takes them down to the school oval for soccer training. Matt is their coach.”

  “Today, I understand you were unavailable with no formal caring arrangements and you relied on your foster child to provide free babysitting. Is that correct.”

  Judgmental bitch he thought as he added brown rice to the boiling water. “I guess it could look like that without context. The nanny called in sick. I was able to get an extra day at Retha’s daycare and Matt picked up his brothers after school,” he carefully sliced onion to add to the marinating beef.

  “Daddy, I’m hungry,” Eddie came into the kitchen, opening the fridge.

  “How about you get me five carrots to peel.”

  “Can I eat some?” typical Eddie loved the thought of eating stolen carrot strips.

  “Sure, don’t tell the others.”

  While Eddie peeled carrots, Mrs Grainger grilled his son on the sports they played and how he felt about Matt.

  “Are you going to take Matty away from us?” Trust his son to ask the intelligent question his father was too afraid to ask.

  “Edward, I’m here to make sure that Matthew is placed with the best family to look after his needs. Don’t you want what is best for Matthew?”