Page 68 of Queenslander
“It’s okay.”
Rainbow snuggled under her arm. “This is so nice. I love this.”
What?“Really?”
To her surprise, Rainbow nodded. A minute later the girl rolled over and her breathing slowed. Ronnie was left wondering what had just happened and what she had missed.
Mattie appeared like a disembodied head, lit from below by the cold glow of his phone. He bent over the bed, patted Ronnie on the head like a dog. “Are you awake?”
Ronnie grunted, mentally walking through all of the steps it would involve to extricate herself from the pillows, sheets, and lukewarm hot water bottles.
Mattie bent over Rainbow, then picked up the girl and carried her into his bedroom. He returned carrying a pillow, tossed it on the couch, clicked on the overhead light. “I’m calling Luca. Want to say hi?”
Ronnie’s cold dead heart melted. “Yeah.” She checked the time. “Help me up.” He helped her sit up and shuffle over to theother couch. She reached back with both hands, grasped the side and back of the sofa, then eased herself down gingerly. She was never going to take her abs for granted again.
Beside her Mattie held up his phone like he was taking a selfie. A tiny head appeared on the screen. A toddler’s head bobbed at the bottom edge of the frame. Mattie’s face broke into a wide grin. “Luca! My boy!” He began babbling in a mixture of English and Spanish.
Luca’s face lit up and he approached the camera. He glanced up at someone off-screen, then back at them. Luca reached for the phone, held it upside down, giggled.
She and Mattie waved again, grinning. Mattie asked Luca about his day at school, which must mean daycare.
The toddler replied in near-perfect English and fluent Spanish. Luca was precocious. Ronnie had noticed that the last time she saw him. He had been born two months premature, spent two harrowing months in the Spanish equivalent of a NICU, and had cochlear implants that looked like external hearing-aids.
Luca showed them his toy dinosaurs and trucks. They oohed and aahed appreciatively. Mattie babbled on delightedly in Spanish about the various qualities of the t-rex and triceratops, front-end loader and bulldozer.
After a few minutes the toddler lost interest and wandered off, hunting for bikkies and milk.
Judging by the way yellow light slanted across the walls of the apartment it was late afternoon in Madrid. Mattie chatted with the elderly woman easily and affectionately. Luca’s great-grandmother’s name was Firenza.
Firenza encouraged Mattie to buy an apartment in Bilboa. Ronnie nodded off against his shoulder.
Your sister is sick?
Mattie held her with one arm and the phone with the other, struggling to explain the ectopic in his limited Spanish.
“Pobre Ronalda,” Firenza said.So ugly, like my aunt. Everyone called her a lesbian. Send her to me. I will find her a rich husband in Bilboa. There are men in the city who like women who look like men. It is because of the French that they like ugly women.
After Mattie ended the call Ronnie snorted. He chuckled. “It is because of the French that they like ugly women,” he whispered, imitating the exasperated cadence of the old woman’s voice.
Ronnie laughed silently, hugging a pillow.
In the morning, Reg and Blaise moved around the kitchen, frying sausages on the stovetop while talking in low voices.
Mattie joined her on the glider in the screen room, offered her a plate of snags and eggs. She accepted it, holding a hot water bottle against her incision with her other hand. She had seen her incision at the hospital when a doctor examined it yesterday; she would have a c-section scar.
She ate beside her brother in companionable silence. Today she felt better.
Nev had arrived in Christchurch and texted her pictures of the inside of a yellow house that looked like something out of a luxury lifestyle magazine, as well as a picture of white-haired Gunni double-fisting bottles of madeira.
“Where’s this bloke so I can beat him up?”
She looked up from her phone. “Come again?”
Mattie gestured to her stomach with his fork. “Stop looking at pictures of Nev for a minute and tell me who knocked up my baby sister.”
It took her a minute to figure out what he was talking about. “Julio?”
“By the laws of the Middle Ages I have to kill him now. Where is he?”
