Joan Kilby - To Be a Family

John stared after him. And that was that? No discussion? No exploration of Tuti’s options? Just shut down her life at the age of six so she could be a babysitter? What would happen to that smart little girl with a thirst to learn, who would never have an opportunity to improve her lot in life? Nena, he knew, would never have allowed that to happen. In their brief, irregular email exchanges over the years she’d been full of hope and plans for Tuti to go to high school, maybe college.

He couldn’t let her stay here. But how could he take her away? Wayan and Ketut were good people who would love and care for Tuti as if she was their own. They had little of material value to offer her but they would surround her all day, every day, with loving familiar faces and a home that held a million memories of her mother. Uncle Wayan and Auntie Ketut would be able to tell Tuti stories about her mother as she grew, keeping Nena’s memory alive.

What could he give Tuti besides the advantages of an education, good health care and a high standard of living? Okay, that sounded pretty good. But was it enough? He had no wife to soften the edges of his bachelor existence. And there was no one on the horizon. Would material advantages make up for the family life Tuti would have to give up in Bali?

He couldn’t imagine not being geographically close to his parents and his sisters. To him, the close-knit family life he’d grown up with was as solid an advantage as school. These days the traditional family with mum, dad and two-point-two kids was more of an ideal than a reality but what was the point of ideals unless you aspired to them? Despite the steady stream of women through his life, he did aspire to the dream of a white picket fence. Whether he would find it in time to benefit Tuti was another matter entirely.

But he had his own family to offer her. He knew they would love her and accept her. She might be sad at leaving Bali in the short term, but now that he knew her future here was so limited he had no choice.

Tuti was coming home with him.

He was acting on instinct, but the immediate relief he felt told him he’d made the right decision.

That evening he spoke to Wayan and Ketut about his plan.

Ketut gazed at the ground unhappily.

Wayan said, “Tuti is all we have left of Nena, my sister.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But she’s my daughter.” He paused and added delicately, “I will continue the support payments in Nena’s honor.”

Wayan shrugged as if to say that was beside the point. Then he and Ketut talked between themselves in Balinese. They seemed to be disagreeing. John held his breath. Which side would win out?

Finally, Wayan held up a hand. “Tuti go to Australia. Get an education like Nena wanted.”

“She will visit us?” Ketut added hopefully.

“Yes, every year,” John said, ready to promise anything. He had the right to take her but he wanted their blessing. After further discussion, Wayan and Ketut decided that a cousin from another village would be brought in to help with the baby.

John didn’t say anything to Tuti at first, either about being her father or about taking her to Australia. He wanted her to get to know and trust him.

He contacted the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, filled out a bunch of forms and paid extra for expeditious processing of Tuti’s immigration documents. Luckily he had holiday time saved, a sympathetic district superintendent and reliable deputies in Riley and Paula.

Over the next three weeks, while he waited for Tuti’s visa, he gave her English lessons and taught her how to swim. While her uncle was a fisherman and they lived in a coastal village, Tuti, like most Balinese, was a novice in the water.

The day Tuti learned to float on her back, John decided it was time. When they got back from the beach, he joined Wayan on the shaded bale for tea. Tuti started to skip off to the kitchen. John called her back and asked Wayan to explain to her in Balinese that he was her father. Wayan spoke softly at length. When he was finished, Tuti turned to John.

“Bapa?” she repeated, her small forehead wrinkling.

Wayan nodded and said something else in their language.

John smiled encouragingly. It must be hard for Tuti to accept that he, a stranger from a far-off country, was her father. But she took it calmly, almost fatalistically, once she understood. Nena had assured him long ago that she intended to tell her daughter he was a good man. She must have lived up to her promise.

“Ask her if she’d like to come with me and live in Australia,” John said to Wayan. “She can go to school and swim in the ocean. She’ll have her own room and make new friends.”

Wayan conveyed the information. Tuti’s face lit at the first few words. She nodded, her eyes shining. “Yes!”

John gave her a hug. He’d had her at the word “school.”

* * *

KATIE CARRIED a cup of coffee into her home office, the master bedroom of her two-bedroom house. She slept in the second bedroom because the master was bigger and could accommodate both her artwork and her writing.

The easel that she used to create the acrylic paintings that illustrated her books stood in front of the window to take advantage of natural light. Against the far wall a table was littered with palette, brushes and paints. On the other side of the room she’d set up her computer, bookshelves and a whiteboard to scrawl ideas on. People thought that just because there weren’t a lot of words in a children’s book they mattered less. But the truth was, that made each one matter more.

She slid into her chair and powered up her computer. Lizzy and Monkey were stuck in a swamp where a crocodile was about to eat them. Generally Monkey got the pair into scrapes and Lizzy got them out. This time, however, Lizzy had followed a colorful parrot into the swamp and gotten them lost.

Like all her stories this one had a basis in reality. Years ago she and John had gone out walking after a heavy rain. After hiking through the muddy terrain for a couple of hours, Katie had had enough. Ignoring John’s warning against leaving the path, she’d taken what she thought was a shortcut and had gotten lost. Too stubborn to give up, she’d led them deeper and deeper into the bush.

Thinking about John led her to wonder about Tuti. Who was this girl who lived near a jungle? He liked kids. Maybe in lieu of the family they’d planned he’d sponsored a child. Or maybe Tuti was the daughter of friends he’d made in Bali. She knew he went surfing over there every few years. Riley had told her John was in Bali now, on holiday.

It was strange that John had never married. According to Riley, these days he went out with party girls—the antithesis of who she was. Maybe if he settled down and had a family she would find it easier to move on. But the thought of John married to someone else made her chest constrict.

Which was so wrong because she was over him. The reason she hadn’t gotten serious with anyone else was because she didn’t have time for romance with her teaching and her writing.

Speaking of her writing…she needed to buckle down and get some work done. Lizzy was walking in circles while Monkey swung from branch to branch in the trees above her head, saying he told her so. How was she going to get Lizzy out of trouble? On that hike years ago, by sheer luck she’d stumbled on another path that led back to the parking lot. But luck wasn’t good enough. Lizzy had to triumph using pluck, resourcefulness and brains.

She wrote in a patch of clear sky so Lizzy could track the movement of the sun and figure out the compass points. That way, knowing the road lay to the west, Lizzy could navigate her way out of the swamp.

The phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hey, Katie,” Paula said. “Riley and I are going to try the new French restaurant in the village. Do you want to come?”