Gabi gasped and immediately scolded him for his choice of words.
Too impressed to feign outrage, I laughed. “Shorten that strap and you’ll increase your range,” I suggested, handing it back to the boy.
“You’re a legend, Alex,” declared Tyler. “Can we fix it here?” He pointed to the shed.
“Not a chance.”
Sean piped up. “There are awesome tools in there.”
I cocked an eyebrow and folded my arms. “And how would you know that?”
“Adam worked in there all the time,” he replied casually. “On big boats and stuff.”
Gabi alternated her pointed finger between all three boys. “You mustn’t ever go in there,” she warned.
“We can’t get in,” volunteered Mason, the littlest brother. “The door is locked.”
Sean elbowed him in the side, which backfired on him in an instant. Mason yelled out to their mother and Hannah appeared on the veranda next door a moment later.
Perhaps knowing they were up to no good, she ventured over, scolding each of them with a harsh glare along the way. None of the boys questioned her when she ordered them to go home, which made for an awesome show of authority. They skulked back to their yard in total silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said still walking toward us. “They know better than to play over here.”
“They’re no trouble,” insisted Gabrielle sweetly.
Only because we don’t live here, I silently added.
Hannah stepped up on to the veranda. “How are you Gabrielle?”
Gabi put her hand to her belly. “Fine. I only have a few weeks to go.”
Hannah Davis had the perfect disposition for a nurse. She was always cheerful and happy, except when reprimanding her small soldiers.
Gabi was convinced that her job was the reason for her good nature. “How could she not be happy?” she once asked me. “She sees babies being born every single day.”
Gabrielle was desperately hopeful that she’d be on duty for our baby’s birth, and made a point of telling Hannah every time she saw her.
“I’m rostered on every other day,” she replied. “I’m sure I’ll be there at some point.”
When chat turned to Gabrielle’s ambitious written birth plan, I excused myself and headed to the shed to find the cot. I knew her no-drug-no-pain plan back to front, and it still made no sense to me.
***
It was almost a relief to see that the lock on the shed door was still intact. The Lost Boys might’ve had a crack at getting in, but Adam had it well secured.
It took a long time to find the crib and all its fixings. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but I was distracted by the contents of Boy Wonder’s man cave.
It was hard not to feel sorry for Adam. I knew he wasn’t keen on the idea of returning to New York, but Charli had wanted to go. And once he finally got his act together, his pledge to give his girls whatever they wanted was a promise he never broke.
I thought he was playing it smart. There was no way Charli would stick it out forever. Life on the beach would eventually beckon again and Adam knew it, which explained why the contents of the shed had been locked up instead of sold off.
“How many spiders have you found?” asked Gabi, poking her head around the doorway.
I turned back to face her. “None. It’s perfect, except for the little teeth marks on the edges.”
“Bridget ate the cot?” she asked.
I carried the white framework over to her. “I’ll touch it up. No big deal.”
She ran her fingers over the chipped paintwork. “You’re determined to use this crib, aren’t you?”
“I like tradition. This is an heirloom cot now,” I explained. “Maybe our great grandkids will use it too.” I shuddered at the thought. Chances are, we’d still be around to see it. At this rate, I could be a great-grandfather before the age of sixty.
“You’re an old soul, Alex,” she declared, smiling.
I leaned down and kissed her as I passed. “But I’m a young body, Gabs,” I replied. “It’s kind of awesome if you think about it.”
Gabi caught up to me as I was loading the cot into the back of the car. If she’d hadn’t been there, I would’ve been swearing. I’d surrendered my beloved Ute a few weeks earlier. I was now driving a family friendly SUV. Unlike the Ute it wasn’t cot friendly. Having to lower the back seats to fit it in pissed me off. That meant it wasn’t Alex friendly either.
Gabi’s voice pulled me out of my silent rant. “You’re a patriarch, Alex.” Her thick French accent made it sound like a seriously hardcore title. “The head of a family. How do you feel about that?”
Before that moment, I’d never given it a thought. “I’m not sure.”
“Everything started with you,” she continued. “We’d have no need for an heirloom crib if not for you.”
I slammed the rear door shut and turned to face her. “That’s how we measure the world, Gabs.”
I knew I’d lost her when she frowned. “Explain it to me, please.”
I reached out and smoothed my hands across her belly, stretching out the white fabric of her dress. “We measure the world by what we leave behind,” I explained. “When I’m done, my world will be huge.”
5. THE NAME GAME
Putting the cot together took longer than expected. I suspect it had something to do with Gabrielle’s micromanagement. “How do you know the screw goes there?” she quizzed.
I looked down at the bolt in question. “Because there’s a hole there, babe,” I said dryly. “A screw size hole.”
She nodded. “You’re very handy. I like that about you.”
I laughed. “Thank you. You’re very arty. I like that about you.”
My comment reminded her of the blank wall she was yet to work her magic on. She turned to look at it. “I think I’m going to make a start on the mural soon.”
I dropped the screwdriver back in the box and reached for a smaller one. “You’ve come up with some ideas?”
“Yes,” she replied. “A landscape, I think. Perhaps a sunset. That would be serene and calming.”
I twisted the tool into the head of the screw. “Sunsets are overrated. Sunrises are where the action is.”
I didn’t need to look up to know she was staring at me. I could feel the curiosity wafting off her. “Tell me why,” she ordered.
“I can’t tell you,” I teased. “I’d have to show you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. You come to the beach with me at dawn and I’ll show you.”
It took Gabi a long time to ponder my offer. I’d tightened every single screw before she replied. “Will you carry me if I get stuck?”
I smiled across at her. “No, I’ll just build us a house on the beach,” I teased. “When junior’s old enough, we’ll send him to get help.”
“Please do not call him junior,” she grumbled. “We must find him a nice name.”
The name debate had been ongoing for a while. I favoured classic, simple names that weren’t likely to get him beaten up. Gabrielle had a thing for classic names too. The problem was, they were so old-fashioned that none of them had been used since the early 1800s.
“I think we should name him after Renoir, the artist,” she suggested.
I could feel myself cringing before she even got the words out. She wasn’t surprised by the reaction. It happened a lot when discussing names.
“He was an impressionist,” she continued. “His paintings were lovely and bright and vibrant. Renoir didn’t use detail to capture detail. He used bold colours.”
I stepped over the toolbox and pulled her into my arms. “I love that you’re putting so much thought into it.” I lightly kissed her lips. “But no son of mine is going to be called Renoir.”
She put her hands to my cheeks. “Not Renoir, silly man,” she corrected. “His given name was Pierre-Auguste.”
“Gabs, Pierre-Auguste would get thumped in the playground just as hard as Renoir.”
br />
“Will you at least think about it?”
“No.”
She dropped her hold on me in an instant. “There is no reasoning with you.”
“I’m a very reasonable man,” I insisted. “To prove it, I’m prepared to move the cot to wherever you want it.”
Gabi studied the room carefully. “I like it where it is.”
I drew her in close again. “See? We’re completely in sync. Our son is going to be the most calm and well adjusted child on the planet.”
“Pierre-Auguste will be both of those things.” She reached up, linking her hands around my neck. “He will be perfect.”
6. SILVER DAWN
In June, the sun rises across the Cove a little after 7.30AM.
That meant the hyped up temper-mental French princess was jumping the gun when she dragged me down to the beach at six.
Being early didn’t bother me. I could live at the beach indefinitely, but it was cold and dark and no place for Gabs. I managed to stall her by sitting in the car and refusing to move.
No woman on earth looked prettier than Gabrielle when she was pouty and cross, which was fortunate because that was her usual demeanour of late. “If you won’t come, I shall go by myself,” she threatened.
I leaned across and pushed her door open. “Watch your step, babe,” I said casually. “It’s dark out there.”
A frigid gust of wind swept through the car and she promptly pulled the door closed. “I’ve changed my mind,” she huffed.
“I thought you might,” I replied, tilting my head to look up through the windscreen. “It’s really black out there.”
It was actually the perfect morning to showcase a silver dawn. The heavy cloud cover was exactly what I was hoping for.
“You mustn’t confuse blackness with darkness, Alex.”
I slipped my arm behind her and tangled my fingers through her hair. “Explain the difference to me.”
She held out her hand, palm up. “Well, if I had a palette of red paint, and I mixed black paint with it, the red colour would become cloudy and dull.”
“It would,” I agreed.
“Darkness doesn’t do that,” she replied smiling. “If I had a red ruby and I added darkness to it, the ruby would stay beautiful and clear. The red colour would get darker, but never cloudy and dull.”
“You’re brilliant,” I fervently declared. “Beautiful and artistic and brilliant. Teach my son all that you know.”
Her lovely soft laugh drifted toward me. “Dark refers to the absence of light, while black is our perception of that absence,” she added.
“I love you, Gabrielle,” I announced. “I love your French brain and your French heart and your French body.” I leaned over and kissed her French lips. “I love everything about you.”
Truer words had never been spoken. I’d never met anyone like Gabrielle Décarie. She was smart and feisty and beautiful. She was also guarded, complex and stubborn, which meant she was seriously misunderstood by most. I read her perfectly, and for that reason alone, we were meant for each other.
“Do you know what I love?” she whispered.
“Custard?”
She giggled again. “Yes. I love you and I love custard.”
“Which do you love more?” I leaned back and stared at her, making the question seem deadly serious.
Gabi pretended to put some serious thought into her reply. “I’d say you, but that’s probably because I don’t have any custard right now.”
I reached into the back and grabbed a plastic container off the back seat. “I planned ahead and made you some while you were in the shower,” I explained.
Her bright green eyes lit up as she took it from my grasp. “You did?”
I handed her a spoon. “I figured it was the least I could do considering you let me knock you up.”
“I love you, Alex Blake – even more than custard.”
I probably would’ve believed her if she hadn’t been fumbling with the lid of the container like an addict desperate for her next hit. “Put the spoon down and tell me that.”
After careful deliberation, Gabi rose to the challenge and set the spoon down on the dashboard. “I love you, Alex Blake. You make wonderful custard.”
***
Unlike my Marseillaise princess, I am not complex. I like things to be simple and calm, and nothing could be calmer than sitting in a car at dawn watching the sun lift over the ocean.
Thanks to the high vantage point of the car park, talking Gabrielle out of venturing down to the beach wasn’t difficult. Now that she had a belly full of custard and baby, hiking probably wasn’t an option anyway.
“Why is it called a silver dawn?” she asked, staring out to sea. “I think it’s more grey than silver.”
“It’s definitely silver,” I insisted. “Has been for a long time.”
She turned, angling her body toward me as best she could. “What makes it silver?”
“If I tell you, you have to promise not to interrupt me.” It was a big ask but she nodded as if she could do it. “It was started by a bloke called Rubin,” I began. “He had six daughters, and as luck would have it, they were all fairies.”
“Six?” she gasped. I looked across at her, silently reminding her of her pledge to keep quiet, which was pointless. She kept talking. “How would one keep track of six fairies?”
I smiled. “I don’t know, Gabs. I had enough trouble keeping track of one.”
Gabi laughed. “Yes, but you managed.”
“Rubin had his work cut out for him too.” I reached for her hand. “His youngest daughter, Kia, had a few problems. She was a special needs fairy. Her wings were incomplete,” I continued. “They had holes in them so she couldn’t fly like her sisters. She could only get as high as the clouds, and then she’d drop back to the ground.”
A tale doesn’t get much sadder than a grounded fairy. I quickly got to the point so Gabi wouldn’t take it to heart and start blubbering. Burning toast was enough to set the waterworks off these days. Unbelievably, she didn’t interrupt as I explained Rubin’s grand efforts at helping Kia fly.
“He was a silversmith. Every morning he’d patch up the holes in her wings with silver,” I explained. “It worked a treat, but only short term. The patches would wear off after a few hours and she’d be grounded again. Rubin would work on her wings all night long just so Kia could spend some time in the air with her sisters every day.”
“Artists always show dedication to their craft,” boasted Gabi. “It shows true artistry.”
I glanced across at her and smiled. “Well, it wasn’t always appreciated. Kia was a bit of a handful, always wanting to fly further and longer. Rubin warned her time and time again that if the silver patches wore away while she was flying, she’d crash.”
“It angered her?”
“Frustrated the glitter out of her,” I replied making her laugh. “So much so that early one morning, Kia made a break for it. She crept out of the house while her family were sleeping and took off for a long dawn flight.”
Gabrielle turned her head, focusing back on the silver edged clouds. “I suspect this is where the story takes a turn for the worst.”
“She never came home again,” I said, inciting a pretty pout. “Presumably her wings failed and she crashed to the ground. Her father spent the next few years crafting a massive blanket out of silver. Now he travels the earth, following daybreaks. Just on sunrise, he fans the blanket out, covering as much of the sky as he can.”
“And then?”
I looked out at the rising sun. “He waits and he waits, hopeful that he’s finally covering the place where she landed. There’s supposedly enough silver in the sky to get Kia airborne again. It’s her ticket home.”
“I hope he finds her,” she said quietly.
“Charli doesn’t believe she’s lost,” I replied. “She thinks she found a way to patch her own wings and is out there exploring the world.”
Gabi glanced across at me an
d smiled. “That would make for a much nicer tale, Alex. Why are all your stories so sad?”
I wasn’t entirely sure. It could’ve had something to do with the fact that most of them had come to me in times of strife. Pulling Charli into line was much easier if the tales I told were of the cautionary variety.
“Fairies aren’t always good,” I replied. “Some bad eggs run with that crowd.”
“They’re your stories,” she reminded. “You could turn them around and make them see the error of their ways.”
I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed her fingers. “They’re not my stories, Gabs. Most of them belong to Charli, and Bridget has taken ownership of the others.”
7. PURPLE TURTLES
I was hopeful that the last few weeks of Gabrielle’s pregnancy would wind down slowly. Gabi had other ideas. She was busier than ever, making sure that every last thing was perfect for the new baby.
She’d been working on her mural wall for days, usually at night because she couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t been into the baby’s room since she began, promising to steer clear until it was time for the big reveal.
As expected, it was worth the wait. When she finally let me in to look at it, every compliment I’d planned to rain on her escaped me.
The landscape painting was intricate and textured, creating so much depth that it was almost as vivid as looking out a window.
I just wasn’t sure which planet the window would’ve been on. The coastal scenery was realistic and familiar. The little animals hiding in the bushes were not. Gabrielle had put her own stamp on them, and it wasn’t her usual classic style.
The first thing I noticed was a purple turtle chilling out underneath a perfectly normal green tree. Maybe he was a hippy turtle – he had a pink flower painted on his shell.
“Do you like it?” she asked. “I want you to like it.”
I snaked my arms around her hips and stepped closer to her. “I love it, Gabs,” I replied truthfully.
“Even the crows?”