Ceasefire #6 Now
We were wrapping up our third and final year of teaching English 101 – and were thus about to be flung back headfirst into the endless knife-fight for teaching work that was casual academia – when the sixth ceasefire occurred.
It was the last day of October, which meant it was my thirty-second birthday.
My father had called me earlier and told me 15 that he and my mother would be picking me up at seven and we would be going to dinner.
‘And I mean seven, Jonah,’ he said sharply.
‘We don’t have time for you to be late.
’
I was supposed to be at a pretty crucial union meeting, but there was no point arguing with the man who had taught me how to argue.
‘Yes Dad.’
I was ready and waiting in the living room by six forty-five, adjusting the cuffs of my shirt, when Sadie got home.
‘Where are you off to?’ she asked, glancing at me as she hung her keys on the hook marked ‘S’ by the door.
‘You look like you’re about to elbow some peasants aside to get into the last lifeboat on the Titanic.
’
‘Not your best insult. Low-hanging fruit. What happened at the union meeting?’
‘If you’d bothered to turn up instead of getting all dressed up to go and grind the faces of the poor, you’d know.
’
‘Shaw.’
‘What we all knew was going to happen.’ Her tone was light, but I could see the tension in her jaw.
‘More budget cuts. Casual jobs the first on the chopping block. A wonderfully bright future of unemployment for us all that the union probably won’t be able to do shit about.
What’s so important that you couldn’t come and hear the good news for yourself?
’ She gestured at my suit.
‘Hot date?’
‘Ha ha. Birthday dinner with my parents.’
Sadie rolled her eyes – possibly at my reason for not attending the union meeting, possibly a reflex at the invocation of my dad, probably both.
‘Happy birthday.’
Before I could parse that there was a nice sentiment underneath the facial expression, she’d already disappeared down the hallway.
And let’s be honest: it wasn’t that nice.
‘Happy birthday’ is not the kind of phrase you have to put any effort into.
It’s inherently citational.
It’s always a quotation, reliant on such a distant echo of meaning that it practically means nothing.
It was still the nicest thing anyone said to me all night.
‘Jonah?’
I looked up from where I was slumped over the kitchen table in the dark.
I’d taken my glasses off, so the figure of Sadie standing in the doorway was blurry.
She was backlit by the hall light, wearing pyjamas, 16 hair tied up in a topknot that was listing to the left, and she was holding her comically enormous tea mug, the one with the C.
S.
Lewis quote on the side that said, ‘You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.’
‘Ignore me.’ I went back to resting my forehead on my folded arms.
Her footsteps shuffled across the kitchen.
Water ran.
There was a click as she flicked the kettle on, a rustle as she found herself a teabag.
‘You know you have a bedroom, right?’
I made a vague noise.
‘Unless you’re so broke you’re subletting it.
In which case, the rest of us have to sign off on that.
’
The kettle started to boil, softly bubbling.
‘And if you’re that broke, surely your parents—’
‘Don’t.
’
My tone was sharp, bordering on aggressive, but when I looked up, Sadie just raised an eyebrow.
‘Birthday dinner went that well, huh?’
I put my head down again.
There was a gentle susurrus as she poured water into her mug, then a heavy clunk as she set it down on the kitchen table.
‘Are you all right?’
I looked up again.
She was standing, one hand curled around the top of a chair.
In the dim light, she was like an image from an old black-and-white movie, hair and eyes and clothes dark against her pale skin, my bad vision putting her in low resolution.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Do you want a cup of tea? There’s that disgusting ginger one you like.
’
‘No. Thank you.’
She paused.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
No, I should have said.
I had spent fifteen years doing my level best never to show weakness to this woman.
In that moment, I had no armour, no defences.
I was nothing but an open, gaping wound.
‘My family is poison,’ I said.
‘ I’m poison.
’
She blinked.
‘You can say I told you so ,’ I added bitterly.
She didn’t.
Instead, Sadie sat down across from me.
‘I know I devote the better part of my life to being a bitch to you, but surely you don’t think I’m that bad.
’
‘This isn’t a question of good or bad.
It’s a question of accurate and inaccurate.
And in this case, I told you so would be extremely accurate.
’
‘Jonah, what happened?’
I sighed, reaching for my glasses and putting them back on.
‘It’s my sister.
’
‘The one who incurred the wrath of your dad by daring not to get a PhD?’
I stared.
How did she remember that?
‘I listen when you talk, Fisher,’ Sadie said.
‘How else am I supposed to dismantle your arguments?’
God.
Her mind was a fucking steel trap.
‘Yes. Fiona.’
I stood up, the intimacy of sitting across from her suddenly too much.
‘When we got to the restaurant tonight, my dad argued with the sommelier for ten minutes over what bottle of wine to order.’ I found my ginger teabags in the cupboard, topped up the kettle, and flicked it back on.
‘Then he spent another five minutes mansplaining to my mother why she was wrong to want to order à la carte and that we should get the tasting menu. And then, just as the waiter was pouring the wine, my dad casually mentioned that Fiona’s shithead husband Matt has left her for his secret second family and is refusing to pay any child support.
’
It was too polite a way to say it, too euphemistic, too kind.
I hope things are looking up for you on the job market, Jonah, my dad had said, swirling the wine in his glass, tasting it, making a face, but then eventually nodding in approval to the waiter.
Now Fiona’s gone and ruined her life and come begging for money, we’re not going to be able to catch you if you fall.
What do you mean?
I’d asked, mouth going suddenly dry.
What’s happened to Fiona?
‘Oh, Jonah,’ Sadie said.
‘Fi had no idea.’ The kettle started to boil.
‘No clue at all that anything was wrong. Matt just sat her down one day and said, “Surprise, my investment bank actually doesn’t need to fly me to Melbourne every week, I have another life and another wife and other kids there, and I like them more than you, bye.”?’
I just don’t understand how she didn’t realise, my father had said, after he’d interrupted my mother about twelve times as she tried to – considerably more sensitively – outline the story for me.
I know Fiona was never the brightest spark, but surely this kind of thing isn’t that difficult to spot.
‘What a complete fucking arsehole,’ Sadie said.
I choked on a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as the kettle boiled.
‘Thank you for being the first person to have an appropriate reaction to the situation.’
‘What other reaction is there?’ She got up, took the kettle out of my shaking hands, and poured hot water into my mug for me.
‘Your poor sister. Is she okay?’
‘I don’t know.
’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?
’
‘She didn’t tell me.
’ I took my mug from her and put it back down on the kitchen table, almost collapsing into my chair.
‘This is how I found out what happened. From my dad making some offhand comment about money. Fi hasn’t said a fucking thing to me.
’
I had never seen Sadie Shaw lost for words before.
Anything I had ever said to her – anything anyone had ever said to her – she had a response to.
This, though, her brilliant mind couldn’t seem to even remotely compute.
‘I tried to call Fi as soon as I got home, but she didn’t answer,’ I said.
‘Which isn’t surprising, I guess.
She’s got three kids, and they can be a handful.
She’d probably already collapsed in exhaustion.
’
That was what I was telling myself, anyway.
What if Fiona was staring at my name on her phone screen, worrying that I was calling to rub it in?
To tell her that she deserved this somehow?
‘What about your brother?’ Sadie sat back down across from me.
‘Did she tell him?’
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of him yet – he’s on a fellowship in Germany – but I don’t think so.
’
Elias, at least, would have told me if he knew.
Wouldn’t he?
Sadie let out a long breath.
‘If anything like this ever happened to me, I would go running to Chess so fast there would be scorch marks on the ground. Why hasn’t she told you?
’
‘Because my family is absolutely fucking fucked , Shaw.’
I rubbed my hand over my beard, hoping that the room was dark enough, and my glasses were disguise enough, that she wouldn’t see the tears beading in the corners of my eyes.
‘Elias and Fiona and I aren’t like you and your sister.
We don’t—We aren’t—Sometimes I’m so fucking jealous of you, did you know that?
’
Sadie raised an eyebrow.
‘I know, I know. I sound exactly like a poor little rich kid. Fuck, I am a poor little rich kid. But… you remember our first graduation? When your sister got into it with my dad?’
‘Of course I remember. I was so embarrassed I didn’t think I’d be able to look you in the eye ever again.
’
She’d been embarrassed ?
That was new information – and a concept I wasn’t even remotely in the right headspace to process.
‘Well, I was jealous,’ I said.
‘Because my siblings and I were raised to fight each other, not fight for each other. There’s not a person on this planet who would fight for me the way Chess did for you.
’
I wrapped my fingers around my mug.
‘The very first thing I ever learned was how to argue,’ I said.
‘Dad drilled it into all three of us. There was this game he used to play at dinner – if one of us expressed some kind of opinion, he’d point at another one of us and say ‘devil’s advocate!
’ and we wouldn’t be allowed to leave the table until we’d debated it out.
Fighting each other was like our family sport.
’
I took a long sip of tea, but it didn’t help the lump growing in my throat.
‘Fiona was the only one who ever resisted. Sometimes, when Dad pointed at her, she’d just say no and walk away.
And sometimes she tried to protect me, too.
She’s three years older than me, and…
’
I swallowed reflexively.
I’d only been seven when my dad took my teddy bear away and told me I could have it back when I’d constructed a persuasive enough argument as to why I needed it.
I’d been completely distraught, but he’d been unmoved ( tears, Jonah, he’d said, do not constitute a thesis statement ).
Then two days later, Fiona had materialised in my bedroom in the dead of night.
Here, she’d whispered, handing me my bear.
I stole him back for you.
Find a better hiding place for him than Dad did, okay?
‘She tried to protect me,’ I repeated, ‘but when she needed me to support her, I turned my back on her instead.’
‘How?’ Sadie asked.
‘What did you do?’
‘Let’s just say that I was really, really unsupportive of her decision to get married.
’
I remembered vividly what it had been like when Fiona announced she was dropping out of uni, moving to Tasmania, and marrying an older man.
My mother – who was normally quiet and deferential – had snapped, calling her decision stupid and shortsighted.
My father had agreed, saying that a choice this foolish made her worse than a failure.
Elias had just shaken his head and said, come on, Fi, don’t be an idiot .
Then Fiona had looked at me.
She was making a terrible decision.
I, eighteen years old and newly enamoured of university life, was very confident in that.
But she’d just had three other people tell her that exact thing.
She didn’t need to hear it again.
Yet instead of having her back, I’d cocked my chin, looked her in the eye, and said, can you explain why this isn’t the worst choice anyone has ever made in the history of the world?
Fiona had looked back at me for a long moment, and then turned on her heel and walked out the door.
It wasn’t like we’d been on bad terms in the fourteen years since.
I’d been a groomsman at her wedding.
I sent presents to her kids on their birthdays and chatted to them on Zoom sometimes.
We’d spent some perfectly acceptable family Christmases together.
I loved my sister.
But something had broken between me and Fiona that day, something that had never, ever been repaired.
‘Sounds like you were right about that,’ Sadie remarked, ‘given how her marriage ended.’
‘Being right’s not the point, though.
’
Sadie blinked, clearly surprised.
I didn’t blame her.
That wasn’t a sentence I ever expected to come out of my mouth either.
‘No wonder Fi didn’t tell me about Matt leaving,’ I said numbly.
‘She wouldn’t have thought there’d be any point.
That I’d just laugh and say I told you so and make her feel worse than she already does.
’
I took off my glasses and scrubbed my hand over my eyes.
‘And when I think of her all on her own in Hobart,’ I said, voice hoarse, ‘so alone, so isolated, having everything me and my family ever said about her marriage be proven right – having to crawl to my fucking arsehole of a dad for money so she can look after her kids…’
I had to stop.
The lump in my throat was so large it was making me feel almost nauseous.
My eyes were burning with all the tears I was trying not to shed.
I was on the verge of completely falling apart.
And Sadie Shaw, the woman who had devoted the better part of her life to breaking me?
This blessed woman just leaned back in her chair, eyeballed me, and with a tone as dry as a desert said, ‘So what I’m hearing is that this isn’t the greatest birthday you’ve ever had.
’
My laugh was so sudden it surprised me, like she’d reached past my conscious mind and pulled it straight out of my body.
‘You know what? I don’t think either of my parents even remembered to wish me happy…
What are you doing?
’
Sadie was on her feet, reaching on tiptoes to grab a mug from a cupboard that was slightly too high for her, and then disappearing into the pantry.
‘No one should have a birthday that shit, Fisher. Even you.’
She emerged with flour, cocoa and sugar under one arm.
The flour bag hadn’t been sealed properly, and there was a white smudge of it on her camisole.
‘The eggs in the fridge are yours, right? Can I use one?’
‘What for?’
She took that as a yes.
‘Chess used to make this for me when I was growing up, whenever I had a shitty day. It’s the epitome of cheap and cheerful.
It’s not going to be up to your Superchef standards, but you should have at least a little bit of cheer on your birthday.
’
Sadie poured the ingredients into the mug, mixed vigorously, then put it into the microwave.
The proportions were definitely wrong, but I bit my tongue.
‘This really isn’t necessary,’ I said instead.
‘Shut up, Jonah. Let me be nice to you for a second.’
‘You’re never nice to me.
’
‘It’s your birthday.
There’s a special provision in the treaty.
’
‘Really?’
‘There’s also a special provision for talking shit about your dad.
I’m happy to do that whenever you want.
Whenever.
’
I was treated to a flash of her brilliant smile before the microwave dinged.
‘I’m not sure it’s all the way cooked, but that’s fine,’ she said, wobbling the mug experimentally.
‘I always liked them a bit under anyway. More of a gooey centre.’
She set it down in front of me, along with a spoon.
She’d made me a chocolate mug cake, rising lopsidedly out of the mug, listing to the left, just like her topknot.
The lump swelled anew in my throat.
The only person who had ever done anything even remotely like this for me before was Fiona.
‘Go on, then, eat,’ Sadie said, sitting back down, as casually as if she were sitting opposite any of our other housemates.
‘If you’re waiting for me to sing “Happy Birthday”, you’re going to be waiting a long fucking time.
’
‘Good,’ I managed to say.
‘I’ve heard you singing in the shower.
I definitely don’t need a private show.
’
‘You should be so lucky.’
I took a bite of the cake.
I’d been right about her mixing up the proportions.
There was way too much cocoa, way too little sugar, and it was incredibly bitter.
‘This is delicious,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
Sadie eyeballed me for a few seconds before she reached across the table.
She didn’t hold her hand out for me to shake, like she had during some of our other ceasefires.
Instead, she laid it on top of mine, her palm warm against my knuckles.
‘Truce?’ she asked.
I turned my hand over so we were palm to palm, my fingers loosely clasped around hers.
‘Truce,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Sadie. Tonight… You… Thank you for listening.’
‘You’re welcome.
’
She squeezed my hand gently, in a way that made it feel like her fingers were closed around my heart.
‘I know I’m probably the last person you’d ask for help, given our history, but if there’s anything I can do to help your sister…
well, I’ve got a soft spot for sisters.
’
‘Thank you.’
She squeezed my fingers again.
I was terrified, suddenly, that she might let go.
‘I don’t want to fight anymore, Sadie,’ I said.
‘I know academia pits us against each other all the time – that we pit ourselves against each other all the time – but I don’t want to do that anymore.
’
For a long time, she was silent.
‘I’ve been fighting for so long I’m not sure I know how to stop,’ she said, ‘but I’ll try if you will.
’
And so our sixth ceasefire was forged, the one I thought would be our last.
The final binding agreement between Dr Sadie Shaw and Dr Jonah Fisher.
The contract we would never break, a mature end to our immature rivalry, the tentative beginnings of something that might one day become a friendship.
White flags waving.
Weapons down.
The job was listed the next day.