Ask Me to Stay by Elise K Ackers

them really sleepy and no one found them in time to wake them up.’
    Nina stared, wide-eyed. She paused, arranging her thoughts. ‘So it didn’t hurt?’
    ‘Not at all. They never even knew.’
    ‘That’s so sad. I’m sad.’
    Dean touched her cheek. After a bolstering smile he said, ‘Don’t be sad, honey. It was a long time ago. In a funny way, it’s kind of nice, don’t you think? They loved each other so much and they got to go to sleep together forever. It’s like a great, tragic romance.’
    ‘But you and Mummy loved each other so much . . .’
    Christ, it was hard talking to kids.
    ‘I know we did. But I get to stay here with you and Ro.’ Even though there were times, in the stillness of the night, that he almost died from heartache.
    ‘And Ethan.’
    He hesitated. Nodded tentatively. ‘And Ethan.’
    This man was going to break his kids’ hearts.
    ‘But listen.’ He leaned back and spoke with enthusiasm. ‘I have some presents for you.’
    Her eyes sparkled. ‘Ooh!’
    ‘Ooh’s right. Your mummy asked me to give you these. They’re yours now.’ He opened the lid of a gunmetal-grey jewellery box and began to lay necklaces alongside one another on the towel. He’d stayed up late, siphoning the more valuable pieces out for Nina’s later years. What remained was a colourful selection of beaded necklaces, bracelets, chunky chains and pretty pendants. ‘I’ll give you more every birthday. What do you think?’
    ‘They’re pretty,’ was her whispered answer.
    She lifted one from the towel and eased it around her neck. The pendant had sat just below Bree’s breasts, Dean remembered. On his little girl it dropped to the level of her waist. Amused, he watched her put them all on. When she was the equivalent of a glittering, clunking jewellery holder, she sashayed out of the room to boast to her brother.
    Noises outside made Dean move to the window. Beyond the back verandah a flatbed truck was reversing towards Ethan, who had stationed himself alongside the modest toolshed near the back fence. Ethan called out to the driver and waved and the truck stopped. He jogged to the back and began unhooking the loading straps. The driver, a man Dean recognised from the lumber yard just out of town, stepped from the truck and began unhooking straps on the other side. They called to one another then began rolling fence posts onto the ground. Over two dozen, Dean estimated, each the width of a man’s thigh.
    Minutes later the driver shook Ethan’s hand, climbed behind the wheel and drove off. Ethan surveyed the work ahead of him with his hands on his hips.
    Dean turned from the window. He crossed to the telephone mounted on the wall by the fridge and dialled the number for Foster’s Garage. Geoff answered on the seventh ring.
    ‘It’s Dean.’
    ‘Hey, man.’
    ‘I’m not coming in today.’
    ‘No worries, no worries. Take all the time you need.’
    ‘It’s not like that. I’m building a fence.’
    ‘Okay. Build a bridge while you’re at it, boss.’
    Chuckling, Dean hung up. More noise turned his eyes back to the window. Cal had arrived. He and Ethan were dragging tools from the tray of Cal’s ute.
    Dean climbed the stairs. He checked on the kids, who were watching a DVD in the upstairs living room, then changed into his ratty tracksuit pants, a paint-stained shirt and an old pair of steel-capped boots.
    It was strange working alongside Dean this way. Strange but kind of wonderful. As Ethan used his body weight to leverage a fence post free from the earth, Cal and Dean speared metal bars into its rotted side to assist. It collapsed onto the grass, the heavy, booming sound of impact indicative of its weight. Cal tossed his bar down and began to kick the post, rolling it towards the pile they were constructing that would tonight make for a magnificent bonfire.
    The invites had already gone out. The boys from the garage, the neighbours, Sammy and Anna, Bree’s mum if she could bear it. If you