Chapter Three

Sera’s vintage Road Runner bumped over the hump at the end of her dad’s driveway and curved into the cosy nook beneath the jacaranda on the edge of his front lawn.

One day soon she’d wake up to find her dark purple car blanketed in light purple flowers – the portent of gloom for uni students as the flowers notoriously bloomed right on exam time. For now, the tree was a pretty green awash with new buds.

Sera realised – in a twist of the bittersweet; for the first time in as long as she could remember she wouldn’t nervous at the sight of the purple flowers.

Sera shut off the engine. It slowly juddered to an ignominious halt and she leant her forearms on the steering wheel.

She’d landed the job. Like she’d known she would. Her ‘gift’ hadn’t failed her yet.

She knew it was ridiculous even as she thought it. So much so she laughed out loud.

What a day! Yet not without moments she wouldn’t take back.

Like when she’d double checked with Hazel that she’d meant it when she’d said Sera had the job. “Really? You mean it?” And then, “I won’t let you down!”

Sera was a smart girl. She knew where that desire to please came from. In fact, she’d acted much the same way when she’d been given her first tutoring slot under a female professor. Men might not hold much in the way of mystique to her, but having her mother walk out on her as a girl made a female mentor akin to the Holy Grail.

She’d settle. She’d inure herself. She always did.

The real question was: now she’d landed the job, was she up to it?

There was the tiny fact the position entailed digital branding on a matchmaking business and Sera had never met a guy who’d made her dream of forever much less think past the next date. But she was an excellent creative, with a broad range of knowledge. And her coding skills were wicked.

So, yeah, she was up to it.

And most importantly, it meant she could take care of her dad as he’d always taken care of her.

In the silence left by her now quiet car the last of her adrenalin wore off. This was where things got real.

She had to let the university know her provisional approval to postpone her PhD would have to be put into effect. As for her tutoring position, she had no choice but to let it go. Meaning she might never get it back.

To think only weeks ago she’d known exactly what her life was all about – studying, cars, and her dad. Now, for the first time since she was five-years-old, her foundations were in flux.

But it was only a little hump. Get past it and things could go back to normal.

Feeling a mite better about things, Sera bumped the car door with her shoulder before nudging it open. Once free, she slammed the door. Twice.

And in between slams she remembered Hazel saying, “If you have any more questions along the way and can’t find me ask Murdoch. He can be a touch gruff at times. Though I do prefer a man with grit.”

Sera laid a hand over her belly, as if that might quell the peculiar, uneasy hum that had sparked to life therein the moment she’d seen the man blocking out the sky.

And then she’d hiccupped.

She hadn’t had hiccups since she was a kid, and only when her dad had forced her to drink water every half an hour in summer as if she’d perish without. She used to swallow too fast so she could get back to helping him work on whatever car he had pulled apart in the back shed.

Was that what had happened? She’d taken one look at big, strapping, gruffly delicious Murdoch and swallowed too fast?

“Hey, Sera!”

Sera glanced up to find Marcy next door, lying on a deck chair in short shorts and a tank top, bright-pink bitten-down fingernails standing out against the cover of a magazine.

Sera strolled over to the scraggly rose bushes that marked their border. The sun was setting over the hills to the west, tugging with it evening’s quick chill and Sera crossed her arms.

“Hey, Marcy. How’s school?”

“Bluerk.”

“That good?”

“Mum says I should stop whining. Get a job. Not go back.”

What a shock.

For a girl whose father put so much stead on education, who’d sacrificed so much to make sure his daughter had every advantage, Sera couldn’t understand Marcy’s mother at all.

She glanced up at Marcy’s house knowing there’d be no one home; Marcy’s mum spent more time ‘on the search for Marcy’s new dad’ than with her daughter.

Beneath the bitten down nails, Marcy was a good kid. A great kid. Sera smiled and said what she thought a good mother should say, “You know you can do anything you set your mind to, kiddo.”

“Yeah. How about you?” Marcy asked, angling her face to the dying light. “How’s school?”

Ha ha. “No school for me for a while, as it turns out.”

That got Marcy’s attention. She uncurled her legs from the lounge, more graceful at seventeen than Sera could ever hope to be. She noted the Docs in place of Sera’s usual Friday uniform of in-the-office-grading-papers-jeans-and-Uggs. “Another job interview?”

“Yep.”

“How’d it go?”

“Fabulously,” Sera said, already channelling Hazel. “I used your trick.”

Marcy frowned. “Clearly not the ‘always wear the shortest skirt’ option.”

Sera’s hands went to her hips. “Visualisation.”

Marcy smiled, and it was all teeth and joy. Pure seventeen. Sera had hope for the girl yet.

“It worked?”

“Seems so. I got the job.”

“Go you! How’s the scenery?”

“Scenery?”

“You know...hot bods you can gaze at over your glasses?”

Sera blinked. At seventeen, she’d worn second hand men’s jeans and sweaters that went to her knees. She’d helped her dad in the garage and taken extension classes at uni. The only hot bods she’d have dared gaze at would have been on wheels.

“Celebration?” Marcy asked, letting Sera off the hook. She peeled herself to standing, letting the magazine fall where it fell. “I can make popcorn.”

“Maybe later. I’d better check in.”

Marcy glanced towards the Scott house. “Alf’s been home all day. Quiet. Music only came on a little while ago.”

Sera’s heart twisted. Music—Elvis in particular—was to her father what air was to everyone else. “Thanks. I’ll see you later. Be good.”

“Be bad.”

Sera laughed. And picked up her pace as she neared the warmth of the house.

As she opened the front door, “Always on My Mind” – Elvis style – rolled down the hall from the small CD player in the kitchen that her father refused to let her update. Along with the familiar sound came the scent of Italian herbs and the warm, soothing, safe feeling she never got anywhere else. Home.

“Serafina?” A voice boomed from the depths.

“It’s me, Papa!” she called back, sliding her satchel to the floor next to the hall stand. Then she tugged off her Docs and slid her feet into dilapidated, black, knee-high Uggs with a blissful sigh.

Habit had her tapping the frame of the faded portrait of St. Jude that hung in the hallway before she followed Elvis’s voice to the small sunroom off the kitchen where she knew she’d find her father.

And there he was, Alfredo Scott—born Scotti in a small town in southern Italy, until a mix up at immigration had left off the ‘i’. A big man – even when sitting – tall and broad and handsome filling his favourite kitchen chair. A forgotten espresso balanced lightly between his fingers, his reading glasses were perched on the end of his nose, his brow furrowed as he read Italian news on the tablet she’d bought him for his sixtieth birthday.

He actually looked quite a lot like Elvis – handsome Elvis, pre-middle-aged-spread Elvis – all thick, dark hair, sharp nose, cheekbones. So much so, he’d been to conventions for years, getting dressed up, meeting with like-minded Elvis-philes. The fact that this year he’d missed it had been the warning bell that had alerted her to the fact something was wrong.

He hadn’t worked in going on four months, not since he’d had a fall and ended up in hospital with a right wrist that wouldn’t heal. He was better...nearly. Though not nearly enough for the people in charge of giving out shifts.

She couldn’t blame the garage for not wanting him tinkering in the belly of a car motor for eight hours a day with a dodgy wrist. Yet to see him sitting there in his heavy-duty, navy work slacks, matching short-sleeved, button-down shirt and scuffed work boots, as if he was ready to grab his lunch box and hit the garage the moment he got the call...

She placed her hand over her belly and the hum from earlier was gone. Replaced with a tender knot. She knuckled the knot and shuffled her shoe against the cork floor. “Hey, Papa.”

He looked up, beamed at Sera, sparkles twinkling in his deep brown eyes. “Serafina. What news this day?”

Here goes. “I got a job.”

She held her hands out. Ta da!

“Of course you did, piccola. Who in their right mind would dare not hire—Wait. What job? You already have a job.”

She moved into the small diner and wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing him on the top of his shiny hair before hitting the kitchen. “This one’s better.”

“You love your university, with all its odd characters, and twisting hallways and dismal draughts. You always tell me so.”

She could feel him frowning at her back. No one in his family had finished high school much less attended university and he was so proud of her achievements. He introduced her as his ‘Almost Doctor Daughter’. She had to tread super carefully here so he didn’t cotton on to why the sudden change.

“I do.” Heading to the fridge, Sera opened the door, gazed into its possibilities, realised she wasn’t hungry, closed the door. “I’ve decided it’s time to extend myself.” Yep, that sounded good. “Getting a job in the private sector can help with research for my PhD. It’ll just take me a little longer to get it done.”

“And your tutoring?”

“Professor Johansson couldn’t survive without me! I’ll be able to get back to that, no problem. If that’s what I want.”

Or not.

Her gaze touched on her father’s deepening creases, the red flecks in his eyes, the gnarly splashes of grey in his thick, dark hair.

“So they are nice, the people you work with? Kind? Aware of the wonder that is you?”

She nodded. Though nice seemed a little innocuous. “Hazel, my new boss, will certainly keep me on my toes.”

“And?”

“And that’s it.” Officially. “So far. It’s a new business.” She thought about how she’d present Love’s Labours...Levitated to her dad and, instead, went with the bricks and mortar version of the story. “It’s in one of those big houses in Vaucluse. The house is under renovation and should be quite something when it’s done. In fact, one of the builders was in charge of the Italian restaurant on Ramsay Street.”

His eyebrows rose at that one. “The one with the pizza oven, or the one without?”

“With.”

Her father nodded slowly, mouth downturned – the Italian version of impressed. She felt a strange little thrill, as if it was a seal of approval from her father to Murdoch. Like that mattered.

Then, voice dropping, he said, “So these builders. Do I need to come up there and give them my speech?”

No. Not the speech. She’d learnt early to keep the men in her life far away from her father. His accent, which somehow became more pronounced when he was in all out daughter protection mode, scared them off. Or maybe it was the shovel he toyed with during.

“Papa, I’m all grown up. I give my own speeches now.”

He grumbled his response.

“Anyway, it’s going to be great. A fantastic opportunity. I’m really lucky.”

“No, piccola, they are lucky to have you.” His last words were swallowed by a cough.

She’d ducked out early that morning so he wouldn’t see her all dressed up. The cough definitely sounded worse than it had a night earlier.

She made a mental note to take him to a specialist in case it was more than he was letting on, swallowing the internal wince at the cost.

He’d smoked before she was born. From the age of eight, in fact. Having come from Italy with his five much older brothers, it had been a given. As the story went, he stopped smoking when he’d met her mother.

She made a beeline for the pantry. Thinking of her mother always required chocolate.

Finding a stash of mini M&Ms, she tore a pack open with her teeth and poured a glorious shiny mound of chocolate heaven into her palm.

Leaning her backside against the mission-brown Formica bench, she watched her father squinting back at his news.

She knew people wondered how she could still live at home at her age. She’d watched friends move out of home, travel, change schools, change jobs, change boyfriends, and none of them seemed half as content as she was.

Because none of them had her dad.

A man with a big heart, a kind nature, and a left of centre sense of humour. He was the strongest, most solid, most loyal and trustworthy man. The best man she had ever known. No others had even come close.

Murdoch flashed into her mind.

She tried shaking him right back out, to no avail.

She’d met the man for all of five minutes and she was pretty sure he’d been laughing at her through most of it. Though in between the crushing bouts of slapstick, there’d been a moment, or two, when the laughter had fallen away, and she’d felt a sizzling current roping around her. Around them. So strong it had felt like a real, physical sensation. Until Hazel’s arrival when the man had backed right away.

In the end, she’d been left with an impression that was... indeterminate. Warm and cool all at once. Which wasn’t a comfortable feeling for her.

As a rule, she wasn’t keen on people who kept surprises up their sleeves.

Though it hadn’t stopped her from turning breathless in his arms. Or trembling when his rough palm had left the craziest tingles in its wake. As for the gleam of pursuit in his eyes when she’d accidentally on purpose melted into all that hard heat despite herself...

Sera threw the entire handful of chocolate into her mouth and crunched.

When she thought of her mother this time it was deliberate. As if that was what it would take to distil the Murdoch-induced hum in her belly that was starting to freak her out. Just a little.

As the story went, her dad had ended up in the hospital after breaking his foot when an engine mount had dropped on the thing. A tall, blonde nurse had whipped open the curtain surrounding his bed and it had been love at first sight. For him, anyway. It had taken Sera’s mother longer to give into his swarthy charms.

Her father always told her proudly that she was born seven months after their wedding day, as if it was some sign of the ferocity of their love, and of his manhood. She had been loved more than any baby in the history of the world.

The loved bit she believed. Her father had made sure she knew it every day of her life. As for the rest of the story, Sera had never had any counterpoint with which to compare the legend.

What she did remember was the part where her mother had walked out on them three days before her fifth birthday. So young, Sera had busied herself cheering her beloved Papa up. It hadn’t been until years later that she’d had begun to understand how her mother’s actions had coloured her own life.

Wiping the chocolate crumbs into the sink, Sera poured out a measure of vitamins – Echinacea, horseradish, zinc – and passed her dad a glass of water with which to knock them back.

“No!” He reared back, “All I need is pasta. Vino. Cures all.”

She waited till his grumbling was done and watched to make sure he swallowed the lot.

Then she set to writing up a shopping list, adding a few treats that she hadn’t been able to afford a day earlier. Treats she’d shower her father with until the end of time if that was what it took to distract him from the unexpected turns his life had taken of late.

Thank goodness for Hazel. This job would be their salvation. For the first time since she’d learned the only home she’d ever known was in trouble of being, she believed everything was going to be alright.

She’d create the classiest, most cohesive, most beautiful web presence ever. She’d be like a cheerful little valentine, spreading romance – Fred and Ginger style – till her stomach ached from the overdose of unaccustomed lovey-doveyness.

She might not be fully onboard with her papa’s theory that her ‘gift’ would tell her when she’d found ‘The One’, but she understood desire just fine.

Her hand went to her belly where the disorientating hum still resided, like a firefly had taken to bouncing about her insides trying to get her attention.

She let her hand drop and used it for something more useful – putting on a pot of boiling water as she set to cooking up some fettuccini to go with her father’s pasta sauce for dinner.