Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
T wo suitcases lay open on her bedroom floor. Grimacing at the red one she was placing items into, she remembered the last time she had seen it covered in dust, under her mother’s bed. Now it was clean, with most of her clothes already folded and packed into it. Her flared jeans and Bombay shorts, along with striped T-shirts and sloppy joes took up one end, while some cotton dresses and underwear wrapped around some of her china ornaments and photo frames, filled the other end. The second case was smaller, and in this one she put her most treasured items.
How do you pack up your entire life of nearly sixteen years into two old suitcases? School photos, a family photo album, her favourite books, as well as a small timber box that held a variety of badges, some Italian coins and jewellery. She stared at a silver coin her father had given her. It had an eagle with outstretched wings and the word, Italia , on the front. When she turned it over, she read the name of the king whose head appeared on the back—Vittorio Emanuele III. She threw the coin back in with the others, wishing she had kept the penny she had found on the beach at Stradbroke Island. Her father had drilled a hole through it, and they made it into a keyring. ‘You can keep it for when you have a car,’ he told her. She didn’t reply, her mind already set on giving it to Chris for when he got his car.
She looked closely at some of the small black-and-white photos in the box. One photo showed a row of four smaller photos taken at a photo booth one day, when she and Chris had gone to the shops. Their heads were touching, and in one photo they were pulling silly faces. One of the other photos was of them kissing and she folded the photos over, trying to decide whether or not to put them in the bin. She tucked them under the others at the bottom of the box, before taking the ring from her finger. It was a thin band of silver with tiny stars etched into the surface. Chris had bought it for her at the jewellers in the city, the same day they had taken the photos in the photo booth.
‘They call it a friendship ring,’ he told her, ‘but I’m calling it a love ring.’ Until now she had never taken it off. The ring was supposed to be a declaration of his feelings for her, meaning they belonged together, and that they loved each other. Shutting the lid of the box, she wished she had the courage to throw the ring and the photo in the bin, along with every dream and hope she had for the future. Just like she was shutting the lid on the box, so was the lid closing on her life.
After three days of packing and sorting, her mother declared they were ready to go. The strained look had not left her face, and taking Aspirin now seemed a daily ritual. Evie lost count of how many times her mother gave her boxes of papers, or other items to put in the incinerator in the backyard. Her father was also going through his belongings and there had been a couple of trips to the dump. ‘I’ll take some of the furniture with me to Sydney, but I can sell the rest,’ he told them. ‘You’ll be better buying new stuff for you and Evie.’
Life resembled a whirlpool. With every item thrown away, her childhood slipped deeper into a spinning descent of blurred time. If only Layla had been here to talk to, but she was away visiting relatives. Evie couldn’t bring herself to go and see any of her other friends before leaving. Sooner or later, they’d all find out she’d left. At least no one would know why. They might find out that her father had gone in one direction and her mother in another. But no one would know the real reason. Not even Mr McIntosh would know the truth. No one except the three of them knew. And that was how it was going to stay forever.
As much as she wanted to be angry with her father, she couldn’t. Every time he looked at her, his eyes filled with tears. She wished so much that he was coming with them, not heading south when they were going north. It didn’t matter what she said though. All the suggestions she gave him about moving with them were met with the shaking of his head. ‘I’m sorry, Evie. Nothing will work, except this plan.’
In the end, she stopped making suggestions and asking questions. Although they had treated her like an adult, telling her the truth about the situation, anything after that seemed to put her back into the child category. No one asked for her advice or what she thought they should do. Neither of them cared what she thought of the stupid plan they had worked out together. She was just the same little Evie, a fifteen-year-old whose mother was having an affair with one of her teachers, and whose father was a man who liked men. Just an everyday family.