One Day // Daniel Ricciardo

Chapter 34

I stood over Daniel while he tried to put the bed together we had bought for Hallie.

"You're using that wrong, it's not even that tool you need to use the drill."

He ignored my help and continued to put the bed together wrong. "Please can you let me help."

"If I can't make a bed then I'm a hopeless parent!"

I stifled a giggle and watched as he eventually threw the tools down.

"Hal you're going to be moving out by the time this bed gets built." I sighed, she gave a little giggle and then tried to squirm from my arms. I placed her down on the ground and crouched myself beside Daniel.

"Please, can you just let me do it."

He rolled his eyes and moved out the way, "I feel very emasculated right now that you're the one who can build furniture."

"So you should, can't believe you can't even out a simple panel on a bed."

He tapped my arm with the rolled up instructions and pulled Hallie over to sit on his lap.

"Tell me something... are you really ready to leave f1?"

"Honestly?" He asked, "I'm not ready to leave, I know that for a fact... but I do know I'm ready to leave just now. I'm ready to spend time just us, we've never hard that before. Taking a year out means it can just be us, our little family. We can do what we want."

"Like get a dog?" I teased. He hates dogs. Small fluffy cute ones are tolerable but dogs in general are a no, no. Admittedly I'm desperate for one, you don't ask you don't get.

"Hallie doesn't like dogs," he answered, "she told me yesterday."

We both looked at her, seeing straight through his lies. "Dog?" Her little angelic voice said.

"You want a dog Hal?"

"No."

"See, she doesn't want a dog she is the spoken voice!" He cheered, tickling her until she went red from laughing so hard.

"She doesn't say yes to anything, no means yes in Hallie's world we have to learn that."

She had settled in well over the past few days, even though we were all still cramped in the house with not enough sleeping spaces. Thankfully the ikea delivery came early this morning and hopefully by the end of the day everyone would be in an actual bed.

Currently, Sarah and her baby were in what would be our bedroom on the one bed we did have. Grace was on an airbed in the spare room and Daniel and I had taken to the living room with Hallie, both of us taking turns on sleeping on a blow up bed with her or sleeping on the couch. It was far from ideal but all the beds were finally put together, Hallie's now being the last.

"You know, by the speed of us unpacking it's just as well I'm not driving next year we need all the time we can get."

"Stop making jokes just to cope with it, just cuddle up in bed and cry, be a normal person."

"You're saying it would be okay for me to just cry for the next week? In bed? Doing nothing but stay wrapped up in a blanket with Netflix and snacks?"

"I'd love to say no because you'd give me the ick but the fact you struggled to make a child's bed actually gave me the ick."

"Just because it's for a child doesn't mean it can be built by one!"

I rolled my eyes and got back to putting the wooden panels together.

My sisters funeral was today, 1pm. It was currently 11.30 and I was still undecided at whether or not I should go. Daniel said I should but I wasn't so sure. There was a time that my sister and I were best friends, at the time I would have been completely heartbroken but over the past few years it was as if she was completely unrelated to me. It would be a lie to say I wasn't sad but funerals weren't my thing, my Dad's was hard enough.

"Do you think you're able to put a single mattress on top without help?" I teased. "We should go this afternoon to get some storage for here's some things to decorate and feel a bit more homely."

"I think you've ordered the whole of Amazon, I don't think we need to get anything else yet... and you're only trying to get out of the funeral. You'll regret it if you don't go."

I started making up the duvet cover as he put the mattress on top of the bed. 

"I tell you what," he said, taking the other end of the cover to help me, "we'll go, we'll just drive there and you can decide what happens then. We'll sit in the car and wait for you, if it gets too much we'll be outside waiting."

"No dog!" Hallie shouted from behind us.

"You can tell she got that from you," I laughed, "everything she says sounds English but that's your Australian twang."

****

"If you're going in, you actually have to move."

Daniel gripped tightly on to my hand. I looked over my shoulder at Hallie, sitting peacefully in her car seat not fussing in the slightest. It broke my heart that biologically, that was her Mum we were about to bury.

"I never thought in a million years that the shit show that was my family would lead to this." I said. I spoke softly, trying not to cry before I even left the car. "If my Dad was here he never would have let any of this happen."

"You never talk about him anymore, I miss him too. When you first told me he died it bothered me for days that I wasn't with you and that I never knew. He was like my Dad when I first came here."

"You know, when I left you in Monaco and came home I went straight to him. I did what I told you to do earlier, I wrapped up in a blanket, I lay on the sofa and I just cried on his lap and he said to me 'you can cry about your baby for the next 50 years if you want to but you won't be crying about Daniel when you left him there.' So it's not true what they say about Dad's not liking their daughters boyfriends because he loved you sometimes more than me."

"Just before you go any further I will absolutely not love any of Hallie's boyfriends, I will be forever grateful if she just doesn't have one until she's 30."

"She won't let me have a dog, I think she'll do whatever you want her to."

"If me and her could have what you and your Dad had I'd be more than happy." He smiled.

"Come with me, bring Hallie and just come with me five minutes. I'm not going in. Just follow me."

He frowned in confusion but reluctantly got out the car. He lifted Hallie from her car seat and followed me. I took the bouquet of flowers I had bought from the florist and handed them to him to hold. I then removed one single rose and asked him to wait outside the church.

Mark was standing just inside with my Mum and Sam. It didn't bother me so much him being around anymore, Mark and I had agreed to have a relationship separate from our Mother. I was in no place to tell him what he could and couldn't do or what he should and shouldn't do so whatever he did with her and Sam was between them and he understood.

I decided to be the bigger person and hug them all, I apologised for my lateness and told them the flowers they had picked out were lovely.

"I'm not staying. I just wanted to show my respect. I'm sure the service will be lovely but I can't be here."

I placed the flower on top of the coffin, gave them all a small sympathetic smile and left.

"That's it. That's the closure I needed."

I took his hand and had him follow me to the graveyard. A few minutes later we stopped in front of my Dads grave and I put down the flowers I had brought.

"I don't come here enough. I don't come here ever actually. It's like if I don't come it's not true."

Daniel never said anything, only wrapped his arm around me and kissed my forehead. Hallie had fallen asleep, her little head cuddled in to the crook of his neck.

"This whole Dad thing really suits you," I smiled. "She's going to be really lucky to have you."