The Parable of the Mustard Seed Page 23

  “Okay.” John closed his eyes briefly. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow, and give you my credit card details.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realise you were her owner.”

  “I’m not,” John said. “I’m a friend of the family.” A jolt went through him when he said it. He’d been using that line for so many years that it was second nature. “I mean, she’s my boyfriend’s dog. He’s in hospital himself, so if I can take care of this in the meantime, then I’ll do it.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” The woman seemed a little flustered, and John could only imagine what she was thinking right now: If this was the state of the dog, what condition was the owner in?

  “I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” John repeated. “Sorry for calling so late.”

  “That’s okay,” the woman said. “I’m here all night with the animals. Oh, but before you go, we don’t have a name to put on her chart.”

  “Cricket,” John said. “Her name’s Cricket.”

  He ended the call, and immediately sent a text to Darren: Tell Caleb that Cricket is going to be okay.

  He glanced up from his phone and saw Lockland making a face as he drank what was presumably a cold coffee. It wasn’t fair. A woman was dead, and John was relieved that a dog had survived. It didn’t seem right to be happy for that when whoever Naomi’s friends and family were, tonight they were in shock and grieving. But then nothing was fair when you put it up beside some other thing and tried to make it balance. If there was one thing the job had taught John it was that he had to hold hard to the little victories, because the defeats, when they blindsided him, were fucking massive.

  Tonight, John had won. Caleb and Cricket and Darren had won. There’d be plenty of time in the upcoming weeks and months to rail against the unfairness of the universe. In the meantime all that mattered was that Caleb and Cricket were alive, and they were both coming home. John could hold onto that, and he could sleep tonight.

  This was his miracle, and John would take it, bitter aftertaste and all.

  “Come on,” Liz said. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  John logged off the computer, and followed her out.

  He’d take it.

  Chapter Twenty

  John pulled up at the side of the road, and glanced at Caleb. Caleb was in the passenger seat, clutching the plastic bag full of the scant belongings he’d accumulated while in hospital. Most of them had come from John: comic books, toiletries, a bunch of pairs of fuzzy socks because his hospital room had been cold.

  “What do you think?” John asked, nodding at the house.

  Caleb squinted at it, and then shrugged and shrank back. “I don’t remember it.”

  “Well, it’s been a long time. It’s nice though, right?”

  Another shrug, while he chewed his bottom lip anxiously.

  “It’s a nice house,” John said. “You’ll like it here, I think.”

  “How does this work?” Caleb asked him in a soft voice. “Do you just leave now?”

  “I’m going to come in, and help get you settled in, but yeah, at some point I’ll have to leave. I’ll be back though, to check up on how you’re going.”

  Caleb nodded, and clutched his plastic bag harder. “Promise?”

  “Your dad’s a good bloke,” John said. “He’s going to look after you. But I’ll come and visit as often as you want me to, okay?”

  Caleb looked at the house again. He swallowed, and nodded. “Okay. As long as you promise.”

  “I promise,” John said, and reached out and squeezed Caleb’s skinny shoulder gently. “Now let’s go and take a look, okay?”

  On Saturday afternoon, John arrived at the house to what sounded like an argument. He rapped on the front door and peered through the shutters. “Hello? Everything okay?”

  Footsteps hurried toward him.

  “He’s not going to care, Caleb!” Darren yelled from further in the house.

  Caleb wrenched the door open. His face was flushed, and he was agitated. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” John said, stepping onto the enclosed veranda and trying very hard not to remember the last time he’d done this. The veranda was spotless now, though it smelled faintly of bleach. “Everything okay?”

  Caleb dropped his gaze and stared at his feet.

  Darren wandered down the hallway. “He’s worried about what to wear. Thinks he hasn’t got a single thing in his wardrobe.”

  John looked him up and down. “What’s wrong with what you’re wearing now?”

  Caleb was in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “That’s what I said!” Darren rolled his eyes. “I’m going to pack the esky. Sort him out, will you, John?”

  Darren’s teasing tone told John that Caleb wasn’t in any immediate danger of heading for a crisis. He’d been a little off-kilter since getting out of the hospital, and taken to sleeping with his light on at night because his fear of the dark had returned. But he was seeing Dr. Harper for a session every day, and a visit to Cricket at the animal hospital yesterday had gone better than John had expected. Caleb had cried, but then so had John. So had the vet, and she didn’t know half the story.

  Caleb lifted his gaze. “I want to look nice.”

  John raised his eyebrows. “You always look nice.”

  That won him an unwilling smile. “Shut up. I mean, I want to look nice for your family. I know you like how I look.”

  “Last time my family saw you, you were wearing boardies at the beach,” John said. “I don’t know where you’ve got this impression we stand on ceremony. We’ll be lucky if David’s arse isn’t hanging out of his ratty old footy shorts, let’s be real.”

  Caleb’s smile grew, but so did the flush on his cheeks. “I know. I just…this is the first time I’m meeting them when I’m your boyfriend.”

  “My boyfriend,” John said, and couldn’t stop his smile from spreading. Warmth expanded in his chest. “I like the sound of that.”

  Caleb reached forward and took his hand. “Help me find something nice with long sleeves to wear.”

  Except the second they were in Caleb’s room Caleb was closing the door and pushing John back against it. Not that John was unwilling to go. It’d take more than a skinny white boy to move him an inch unless he wanted it to happen. Still, he was unsure exactly what Caleb was going for here, so he rested his hands on his narrow hips, and let him take the lead.

  “Thank you,” Caleb whispered, and pushed himself up onto his toes to brush a soft kiss against John’s mouth. “For never giving up on me. And not just for the other day too, for what you and Liz and everyone did, but for afterwards. For every time I’ve ended up in hospital, or yelled at you, or hit you, and you could have just walked away.”

  “Caleb.” John’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “I could never just walk away from you. I would never even want to.”

  Caleb embraced him, pressing his face to the crook of John’s neck for a moment. When he spoke, his breath was warm against John’s skin. John had to strain to hear him. “I’m scared that all I’m ever going to be to you is a beaten kid. A fucked-up headcase. A victim.”

  John frowned. He put his hands on Caleb’s shoulders and gently put enough space between them so he could look him in the eye. “No. No way. You listen to me. You think I ever thought that? I never thought that. You know what you were? You were someone those fuckers didn’t break. And they tried. They tried, but you wouldn’t break.”

  Caleb’s eyes swam with tears. “Broke me in other ways.”

  “Nah,” John said, and smiled. “They couldn’t fucking touch you, I promise. Not where it counts. Not in a million years.”

  “Do you mean that?” Caleb’s voice hitched.

  “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” John said. He cupped Caleb’s cheek with his hand.

  Caleb’s gaze searched John’s face, as though he was searching for a lie. If he was, he’d never find one. And then he dived forward against John, and buried his face in the crook of his neck again
, and John held him. Rubbed his hands up and down his back, the thin fabric of his T-shirt sliding underneath his palms, and breathed in the scent of his shampoo. Tears pricked his eyes, because he’d been so afraid that he’d lost these moments, lost this man, and he could barely believe he was here now, holding him.

  It took him a moment to realise that Caleb was leaning back again, and pushing up onto his toes for another kiss. This one was less innocent than the last: Caleb curled a hand around the back of John’s neck to hold him in place as they kissed, and his tongue darted out to sweep along John’s bottom lip. When John opened his mouth, Caleb slipped his tongue inside. Heat swept through John as the kiss deepened, and his skin tingled and prickled. Caleb moaned and pressed against him, his erection pushing against John’s thigh. John slid his hands down to Caleb’s arse in response, pulling him tighter against him.

  Caleb panted against his mouth. “I want you.”

  John shook away visions of dropping to his knees and sucking Caleb’s dick into his mouth. “Me too, but—”

  Right on cue, a sharp rap on the door that startled them both and left Caleb stepping quickly away. “Hurry up, you two! We’ll be late!”

  John laughed silently at the sight of Caleb’s blush.

  “Just helping Caleb find something to wear,” John called back.

  “Is that what the kids are calling it?” Darren asked.

  John couldn’t silence his laugh this time.

  Caleb wrenched open his wardrobe door and dived in as though he was trying to escape to Narnia.

  “Malo!” David called, jogging around the side of the house to the front.

  “Malo lava.” John helped Darren haul the full esky out of the boot. The ice inside it sloshed, and the whole thing listed like a ship on a stormy ocean before they set it down on the footpath.

  David didn’t bother with the front gate. He just hauled himself over the fence, even though it groaned alarmingly under his weight. “Hey,” he said to Darren. “Let us take that for you.”

  David and John took an end of the esky each and carried it through the gate and around the side of the house to the back yard. John could already hear voices and laughter. The family was all here, and he broke into a smile when he saw them. His smile widened when he saw the smoke coming from the earth oven his dad had dug into the backyard years ago. The stones piled on top of the umu were stacked around foil-wrapped packages of food, and there was a small pig roasting in the middle.

  “You found one!”

  David flashed him a grin. “Yeah, I know a guy who knows a guy. That little fella’s been cooking for hours now. Hope he turns out as good as Tama’s always did.”

  They set the esky down, and John turned to where Caleb and Darren had followed them in with folding canvas chairs.

  “I think you know everyone,” he said. “Except Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen.” He waved to Ma’s neighbours, and they waved back.

  Mrs. Nguyen was holding a fat squirming baby. Harry.

  Liz, a beer in her hand, was pinching his toes while Mrs. Nguyen fussed over him.

  David returned to supervise the umu, and Craig, Liz’s husband, joined him.

  Jess was slouched in a chair, but she stood up and made her way over to John cautiously, as though she was afraid of the reception she might get. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” John said.

  “David said you got shot at.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Got a hug for me?”

  She rolled her eyes, but stepped forward into the hug and squeezed him back tightly. Then, from the vicinity of his armpit, she said, “Hi, Caleb. Hi, Mr. Fletcher.”

  “Hi,” Caleb said.

  “It’s Darren,” said Darren. “Nice to see you again, Jess.”

  John let her go. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Ma’s showing Tee how to make sapasui,” Jess said. “And Mary’s doing the panipopo for dessert.”

  “They’re going all out,” John said. “How long’s it been since we had panipopo?”

  “Too long,” Jess said with a hesitant smile.

  “Agreed.” John didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so he reached out and squeezed her arm and hoped that said it for him: I love you, Jess. I’m glad we’re back on the same side. She didn’t pull away, so he took that as agreement.

  John opened the esky and pulled out a beer for Darren, and soft drinks for him and Caleb. He was driving, and Caleb wasn’t supposed to drink on his meds. Which didn’t always stop him, but he flashed John a shy smile when John handed him the Coke.

  They set up their chairs near the others, and settled in as the afternoon wore slowly into dusk. It was good, sitting here and talking, and catching up on the things he’d missed: neighbourhood gossip courtesy of Mrs. Nguyen, the job Craig had last week where he got stuck on a fence chasing a suspect and ripped the arse out of his pants getting down again, and Jess’s speculation that Mary was seeing one of the other dentists from her practice.

  “He’s divorced,” she said. “And he’s old.”

  He was thirty-seven, John found out later from Mary, and died a little on the inside. Jess probably thought anyone over twenty was ancient.

  By the time the sun had set and the stars were blinking in the sky above them, the pig was ready to serve. David carved it up, making sure to leave room on everyone’s paper plates for sapasui, taro, and fa’alifu fa’i—green bananas cooked in a savoury coconut sauce.

  John smiled at the cautious expression on Caleb’s face and he poked at his plate with his fork. “Try it,” he said in an undertone. “If you don’t like it, I’ll buy you a cheeseburger on the way home.”

  He was pleased to see Caleb’s expression morph into one of pleasure as he tasted Ma’s sapasui.

  “Do you know how to make this?” Caleb asked.

  “Sure. It’s our version of chop suey. Anyone can make it.”

  “I can’t believe you fed me spaghetti on toast when you know how to make this.”

  John laughed. “I’ll show you.”

  Caleb smiled.

  When John finished his drink he went to get another one, and met Liz at the collection of eskies set a little way away from the chairs and the lingering heat of the umu.

  “We finally got the forensic results back on the remains today,” she said.

  John raised his eyebrows. “Please tell me they were Simon’s.”

  She flashed him a wry smile, her gaze finding Craig and Harry for a moment before she looked back at John. “Of course they were. And you were right. We got the DNA match with Leon Harrison. Simon was his son.”

  “Shit.” It wasn’t a surprise, he supposed. He’d expected it. It was just that he could never understand how a parent could harm their own child. He’d seen it so many times in his years in the job, but he’d never really be able to wrap his head around it.

  “And listen,” Liz said. “I know you don’t want to talk work tonight, but I got a call from Nathan Lockland earlier today. He figured out how Harrison found Naomi.”

  “How?”

  “She never changed her name, John. Just went back to using Dobbs when she found out that’s what it was originally. And she used this app,” Liz said. “It maps out your walking routes and shit like that. Aaron would be all over it. Anyway, it updated to her social media, and showed she walked the same route every day.”

  John sighed. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.” Liz’s eyebrows tugged together, and her forehead creased.

  “But Caleb doesn’t use social media,” John said. “And Darren’s address isn’t even in the phonebook.”

  Liz nodded. She eyed John expectantly, the way she always did when she was waiting to see if he’d put the pieces together the same way she had.

  And then the penny dropped.

  Shit.

  “Analise,” John said. “Fucking Analise told him where to find Caleb, because she used to live at that house too.”

  “It looks that way.” Liz cracked open a beer. “Want to pay h
er a visit on Monday?”

  Anger burned low in John’s gut, and he glanced over to where Caleb was sitting. He’d gone back for a second helping of Ma’s sapasui. He was smiling at something Tee was saying, and that old protectiveness welled up in John anew. He’d burn down the world to keep that smile on Caleb’s face. “Fuck, yeah I do.”

  Liz clapped him on the shoulder. “Monday. Tonight’s for family.”

  “For family,” John agreed.

  He grabbed Caleb another drink and walked back over to him, and Caleb brightened as he saw him approaching. John sat down beside him, and held out his hand. Caleb’s smile widened, and he reached out and laced their fingers together. John’s thumb slipped under the cuff of Caleb’s shirt, and he rubbed it gently against one of the old scars on the inside of his wrist.

  Around them, people laughed and talked as the night wore on.

  It was close to midnight by the time they made it back to the hinterland. Caleb had dozed most of the way back, and stretched awkwardly after he climbed out of John’s car.

  John lifted the near-empty esky out of the boot and carried it in easily.

  “Stay,” Darren offered. “It’s too late to drive back now.”

  John glanced at Caleb.

  “Spare room or Caleb’s room,” Darren said. “You’re both adults.”

  “Thanks,” John said.

  “There’s always a bed for you here, John.”

  A little while later, John climbed under the sheets in Caleb’s bed. Caleb was already stretched out there, wearing his boxer briefs and a T-shirt, and fighting sleep.

  “Did you take your pill?” John asked him.

  Caleb shook his head. “If I take it this late, I’ll be wrecked all day tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” John said. “If you’re sure.”

  Caleb’s mouth quirked. “I wasn’t going to take it at first so that we could…you know.” He snorted. “But then I realised Dad’s totally ruined it anyway, because there’s no way I could have sex with you in my bed when knows that’s what we’re doing.”