Joan Kilby - To Be a Family

“I wrote it for that age group.” Was he teasing her again? On the whole she thought not. The eye glint and the dimples were not in evidence. “Are you asking for one of your nieces?”

“Er…something like that.”

It wasn’t like John to be evasive. If she wasn’t one of his nieces then his current girlfriend must have a daughter. According to her brother, John had broken up with Trudy, his previous squeeze, a few weeks ago. His girlfriends never lasted longer than six months. Whoever she was would be another in a long and endless line of John’s women. Katie was inured to that now. She wasn’t really interested but writers were curious types.

“New woman in your life, one with a kid?”

Instead of replying he flipped through the book, turning his attention to the colorful illustrations. “Nice pictures. Riley said you did those, too.”

“Is this little girl from around here?” Not in her class, she hoped, her mind skipping ahead to John arriving at school to pick up some other woman’s child. Well, it had to happen someday. She was surprised he’d remained single this long. He’d been in a hurry to marry when they’d been going together—maybe he’d finally met another woman who had been able to convince him to drop his role as the town playboy.

“What’s the story about?” he asked, still ignoring her questions.

“A little girl and her pet monkey. Sort of Curious George meets Madeleine.”

“I always had a soft spot for monkeys.”

She knew that, of course. John was the inspiration for Monkey in the story. Bold, clever, brave. “The monkey and the girl go on adventures together. It’s going to be a series.” If her latest book proposal was picked up by her publisher. Big if, but she was counting on it.

He closed the book and smiled at her. “Your hair looks really pretty today.”

“You said that.” She felt nothing, she really didn’t.

“Do you have time for a coffee?” he went on. “It’s been ages since we’ve had a chat.”

“I can’t. I told you. I have to get back to school.” She wished he would stop. He never gave up asking her out even though she’d replied with a firm no about a billion times.

“No worries. Another time.” He said it as if it mattered not a whit to him, as if all his flirtation was just hot air. It probably was. John didn’t seem to know any other way to relate to women.

He held the book out to her, open at the title page. “Will you sign it?”

Katie dug in her purse for a pen. “Who should I make it out to?”

“Tuti. T-u-t-i.”

“That’s unusual,” she said, but didn’t make much of it. As a teacher she’d learned not to bat an eye at the odd names parents came up with these days. She propped the book on her knee and wrote:

To Tuti,

I hope you enjoy my book.

Warmest wishes, Katie Henning.

Katie couldn’t help smiling as she handed the book back. She’d just signed her very first book. “Do you think the girl you’re buying this for will like a story about a monkey?”

He didn’t answer for a moment while he read her inscription. Then he looked up at her. His smile had the power to melt hearts. But not hers. “Monkeys are perfect. They live in the jungle near her village.”

Katie blinked. “Seriously? She lives near a jungle?”

“Yep.” That was it, no elaboration.

Not the offspring of the girlfriend of the moment. Who, then? No, no, no. She was not going to ask about the mysterious Tuti. Writer or not, she didn’t care enough about John to be that interested.

He tucked the book under his arm and gave her a last lingering look. “I’ll see you around.”

No, he wouldn’t unless it was by accident. Katie made sure she was never at the same social gatherings, despite their mutual friends. The statute of limitations would never be up on his violation after he’d abandoned her when she’d needed him most.

But then curiosity got the better of her after all. As he turned to go, she asked, “Who is Tuti?”

His smile was bland and fixed. But a shadow passed across his eyes. She couldn’t read his expression.

“Just a girl I know in Bali,” he said.

* * *

JOHN TIED A traditional Balinese brown cotton band around his head. He didn’t know Tuti, his six-year-old daughter. He was about to meet her for the first time at the funeral of her mother, Nena. He was mixed-up and confused, not sure how he was supposed to feel. This meeting was never supposed to happen. What would he say? What should he do? What was going to happen to Tuti now?

Incense wafted over the high stone walls of the family compound. Drumming and chanting floated on the sea breeze. Wearing a borrowed batik sarong beneath his short-sleeved shirt John went through the gates to join the dozens of family and friends behind the funeral tower, a thirty-foot-high golden pagoda-like structure built of wood and bamboo that transported Nena’s body.

Women dressed in silk batik sarongs and lace blouses carried offerings of flowers and fruit on their heads. The men wore cotton headdresses and sarongs. The funeral procession slowly wound through the tiny fishing village. There was no crying, no sadness, even though Nena had died prematurely in a motorcycle accident. In Bali, death wasn’t a cause for grief but a celebration of a life that had moved to a higher plane.

John recognized Tuti among the throng by the pigtails that stuck out on either side of her head. She also wore traditional clothing and carried her niece, a toddler almost as big as she was. He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her yet. He’d arrived late last night and the elaborate funeral preparations, already two days old, consumed everyone’s time.

Tuti had no idea who he was. Was there any point in telling her? He’d only come to pay his respects to Nena and to make sure the girl would be cared for.

There’d never been any question that he and Nena might stay together long term. They’d both been clear it was a holiday fling. He’d been on the rebound and Nena, who worked in a souvenir shop in Kuta, a tourist hot spot and part of the surfing scene, wasn’t looking for a husband. When she found out she was pregnant, she made her intentions known. She didn’t want to live in Australia, nor did she want her child to pine for a father who only visited once a year. It was better to raise the child without John. That had hurt but he’d sent her money regularly and extra whenever she needed it. He would continue to help out Nena’s brother and the family.

Being back in Bali, among Nena’s people, brought back memories and emotions from that turbulent time. What he’d wanted out of life and what he’d ended up with were, sadly, two different things. He’d wanted a home and family with Katie but instead she’d gotten cancer and broken their engagement. Fleeing to Bali, he’d had a fling with Nena and accidentally fathered her child.

Katie had been near death but she’d survived. Nena, the picture of health, had died at the age of thirty-three. He and Katie lived in the same small town and he saw her frequently, but their relationship was strained. After his affair with Nena, despite telephone and email communication, he’d never seen her again. It was a tribute to the generosity of her family and community that he was now welcomed into her world.

When he’d known Nena seven years ago she’d seemed very Western. Her funeral, and village life on the less-populated side of the island, was revealing a foreign culture with unfamiliar rituals. He didn’t know whether nonfamily members were aware he was Tuti’s father, but his presence seemed to be accepted.

He joined the procession that wound its way to the cremation grounds next to a temple overlooking the ocean. The coffin was placed in a ten-foot-high wooden bull painted in black and gold standing atop a funeral pyre. The white-robed priest said prayers. There was more chanting, more incense. The dissonant notes of a gamelan orchestra—gongs, bells, xylophones and drums—filled the air.