The Piper's Son

“What is it?” she asks.

“What makes you think there’s something?”

“Because I know you.”

Because she knows him. That belongs to the language of intimacy, not strangers. He looks at her and it’s like each time he does it these days, she can’t help thinking, How did I love this man again?

“Leonie’s interested in joint custody,” he says, his voice tired. “A week each.”

She can’t speak for a moment because she doesn’t know what it will mean to them.

“How did you answer?”

They stop at the Parramatta Road lights and she thinks of their walk down here earlier, where she imagined the next time they’d be doing this pushing a pram.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says as they cross. “But if you and I don’t have a future together living under the same roof with this baby, I’m going to agree. I can easily arrange to get home by four every afternoon those weeks. Then when the time is right, you and I work out the custody arrangements for our baby. I’ll want the same thing. To keep them together on those alternate weeks.”

Her stomach churns. “Is that what you want?” she asks.

“No, Georgie,” he says. “It’s what I’ll settle for.”

“And if we live under the same roof with this baby?”

And still the bitterness is there on his face. She can see it, or feel it. In this half-lit street close to home. Is it directed at her, or the universe, or himself?

“Then I won’t go for joint custody and on the weekends I get Callum, I’ll go to my mother’s.”

Someone beeps the horn and they both wave automatically to God knows who.

“So the ball’s in my court?”

“The ball is always going to be in your court, Georgie. Always.”

It’s like Sophie’s Choice for him, she thinks. Without Auschwitz and death. But all the same it’s about choosing between children or choosing her over Callum, and that makes her feel evil. She’s the Nazi.

“Is this because of the boyfriend? Because she wants more time with him?”

“Maybe. Or maybe because I ask for this every year and she’s finally giving in.”

“Because it suits her,” she says sharply.

“Regardless, Georgie, it suits me too. Personally and financially. Look,” he sighs, shifting to get comfortable with Callum. “I don’t want this to be hard work. Let’s talk about it another time.”

She thinks of a conversation she had with Tom last night about girls and hard work. They had argued about the terminology.

“Am I hard work?” she asks quietly.

“Yes.”

Silence for a moment.

“You could have hesitated in answering that.”

“Why? I’ve never lied to you before,” he says. “You do that all the time, you know. You ask me questions when you know the answer will piss you off. Ask me a question where the answer could be yes? Ask me if you’re worth the hard work? Ask me if in the last seven years of my life I’ve woken up in a cold sweat knowing I lost the most important person in my life apart from this kid I’m holding? Ask me if getting you pregnant has felt like the best thing that’s happened to me since my son was born?”

She’s stu

“Fuck, Georgie, what do you want me to say? That I regret what happened back then? Look at me,” he says, the kid’s arms around his neck, his head on his father’s shoulder. “I can’t do that. That’s my punishment. Not being able to give you a complete ‘I regret every single thing that happened back then.’ This isn’t just about you and me.” He struggles to grab something out of his back pocket. His wallet. He manages to get it open.

“See this,” he says. It’s the photo Tom took that time in her backyard when Callum was listening out for the baby against her belly. “It’s all there, Georgie. Everything I want in the world is all there.”

They’re both shaky from the moment and begin walking again.

“Am I worth the hard w —?”

“Yes,” he says before she finishes. “Yes.”

When they reach her house, she looks up at him. “Why don’t you stay the night?”

“With Callum?”

“No, we’ll leave him out on the lawn, Sam.”

He laughs for a moment. “I can’t. Not tonight. If he wakes up in a strange room, he’ll panic.”

He bends to kiss her, but it’s awkward with Callum in his arms.

“But promise you’ll ask me again if he’s ever awake enough to know where he is.”

Tom’s favorite errand for Francesca is driving Will and Luca to the airport, all three squeezed in the front of the Spinelli family ute. Nothing more satisfying than the idea of putting Trombal on a plane that’s leaving the country.

Luca Spinelli is pumped and trying to get into his duty-free bag without breaking the seal. Will’s subdued.

“Why didn’t you just let her come along and get emotional rather than trying to control it?” he asks, because all of a sudden he’s the Francesca-and-Will relationship analyst.

No response.

“She could have dropped you both off. What’s the worse she can do? Cry hysterically?”

The truck’s gears get stuck at the lights, and Will pushes Tom’s hand out of the way and shoves it into the correct gear.

“It wasn’t her,” he mutters after a moment.

“Sorry?” Tom says.

“She didn’t cry.”

“Then what?”

It’s too quiet except for the crap engine sounding like a lawn mower.

“I cried.”

Luca bursts out laughing beside Will.

“Yeah, well, I did,” Will says. “And it’s not the thing you want to do in front of a bunch of engineers. Now my nickname is Will the Crier. We’ll be playing footy over there and someone will say, ‘Throw it to Will the Crier.’ They’ve actually cut it down to just ‘the crier.’ Or they used to do this,” he says, squeezing two fists over his eyes, “every time they walked past me.”

Tom can’t help laughing, but only because Will’s laughing as well.

“I can’t believe you told us that, Will,” Luca Spinelli says. “We can blackmail you.”

“’Course you can, mate,” Will says i

Luca stops laughing. “I can’t believe Frankie told you.”

Tom shoves Will back so he can stare across at Luca, but the kid won’t meet his eye.

He stops at the drop-off outside the departure area and they get out of the car, dragging out Luca’s luggage and complaining about all the stuff his grandmother has packed to send over to relatives.

“Thanks,” Will mutters.

“We owe you,” Luca Spinelli says, still not looking at him directly.

“No worries. Although Frankie said I might be able to see the Willy loves Frankie tattoo if I ask nicely.”

“Just say it’s on my arse and I tell you to kiss it while you’re down there,” Will says.

“Show it to him,” Luca urges. “It’s awesome.”

Will hates attention. It’s there in his fidgeting face, but he pulls up his sleeve, revealing his arm. The tat is massive and a bit on the spectacular side with not a cliché in sight. Tom refuses to let his respect for it show.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “I thought it was a Frankie tattoo.”

And then he becomes audience to one of those moments when Will Trombal smiles as he looks down at it.

“They mate for life, you know,” he says.

“Are you alone?”

He always asks her that. Only once or twice has she told him she “can’t talk just now.” He never questions whether it’s about work or the peacekeeper because he dreads the answer, and today she makes it worse because he can only hear silence on the other side for what seems like forever.