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My shoulders burn as I press the sack of Mum’s bread flour overhead, the burlap biting into my palms. A puff of dust breaks
free, clinging to the sweat on my chest, catching in the back of my throat. I hold it steady, breath locked in my ribs.
It started with the big milk bottles when I was seventeen, hiding behind the garage, lifting until my arms shook. Then I turned
to flour. I had to get creative—he’d never let me buy proper weights. Over time, I worked up, bit by bit, until I could press
twenty-kilo flour bags without dropping them.
Lisa has been giggling all morning, still breathless from the games Brent played with her in the lounge room, chasing, tickling,
roaring like a lion. She thought it meant he was the best dad in the world. She didn’t notice the tang of bourbon on his breath
or the way his eyes kept flicking toward Mum, calculating. I stayed close, listening for the shift. When he finally went to
take a shower, I slipped out to the shed, not to get away but to train. To be ready.
It made me sick, the way he smiled at Lisa. The way she smiled back. I wanted to tell her. Wanted to tear the mask off his
face. But Mum has made me promise. So I swallowed it down. All of it. I let Lisa keep believing.
The air outside is thick with the smell of rain and Brent’s cigarettes. A magpie warbles somewhere across the fence line.
I close my eyes, count to five, let the weight settle through me.
Then I hear it, muffled at first. The low, coiled threat of a voice rising from inside the house.
I drop the bag, flour puffing around my ankles. First, I run to Lisa’s room, where she’s splayed out on the floor in her Minnie
Mouse pajamas, surrounded by crayons, toys and enough craft supplies to open her own Michael’s.
“How many times have I told you?” I shout. “You need to keep your room clean!” I’m racing around, throwing toys into the closet.
Brent takes it out on Mum when the house is untidy.
Lisa scrunches her nose at me. “Ratbag, my Barbies don’t go there!”
“Keep it down, okay? You’re too loud and too messy!”
“No, I’m not!” she huffs. “Why do you have to be so mean?”
A thud from upstairs. I mask it with a cough. Drastic action is needed. “Here. You can listen to my new cassette player if
you just keep quiet.” I painfully pull my most prized possession from my pocket, the latest gadget I had saved every penny
for.
Lisa gasps, staring at it then at me, like I’ve handed her the crown jewels. “Really?” she whispers, barely breathing.
I jam the headphones over her ears before she can ask again and press play.
A slam. A yell.
ABBA bursts into her tiny world, my tape disguised with a handwritten label: AC/DC. If Brent ever sees it, he’ll nod and move on.
Lisa sways, as if disco itself has come to rescue her. She closes her eyes, lost instantly in the tinny beat, her grin so
wide it almost undoes my frown.
I shut the door and sprint upstairs.
Brent towers over Mum in the bathroom, her small body cowering against the shower, a red mark blooming under her right eye.
He raises his hand again, but I step between them.
“Think you’re pretty tough, don’t you?” he sneers.
“Leave him alone, Brent,” Mum sobs.
He slides his belt free with a slow, deliberate pull, daring me to flinch.
But this time, when our eyes lock, something falters.
His gaze snags on my bare arms—the muscle I usually kept hidden under sleeves, now on full display in my Bonds singlet—with a silent realization that I’m not the scrawny kid I once was.
He swings anyway, a clumsy, half-hearted blow, but I catch his wrist midair. I squeeze. Not hard. Just enough to see the panic
flash on his face. I push him out into the hall.
For a moment, we’re frozen.
Then he snarls, yanks free and shoves me hard enough to make me stumble. “It’s your fault, you know! All of this. Me being
here, having to do this. He wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for you. Your perfect bloody daddy.” The words hit harder than any
punch, and he knows it. He paces the room in jagged circles, belt dragging from one hand, muttering under his breath. Then
he swings again.
I dodge and slam him hard against the doorframe. “Touch her again, and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what, princess?”
I haul him backward, out the door, until he hits the floor in a sprawl of limbs and rage.
He pants, eyes blazing, but doesn’t get up. He knows he has lost. “You know what?” he seethes, scrambling upright. “Screw
this! Take her. Take your stupid sister too, you . . .” The rest dissolves in a rant, his mouth twisting, spitting words I
don’t need to hear to understand. My pulse hammers as he shoulders past me into the bedroom, catching my forearm with the
metal buckle—a parting shot that splits the skin and sends me to the floor. I lie motionless as he stomps about his room.
I hear banging cupboards, slammed drawers and then silence.
I crawl to the bathroom and put my arm around my mother. Heavy footsteps clamber down the stairs and I spring to my feet,
flooded with blind panic that he is going to take Lisa. I run, silently begging that she’ll stay safe, that the music will
be louder than the abuse. The front door slams so hard the windows rattle. His motorbike growls to life, tearing down the
street until at last it can be heard no more.
“Mummy!” Lisa’s small voice echoes from her room. “I’m hungry!”
My lungs fill with oxygen. Mum finally moves, grabbing her toiletry bag. All the makeup ads say concealer hides wrinkles and age spots; they never advertise that it works well on bruises too. I bandage my arm and pull a jumper on.
It’s the unspoken choreography Mum and I know by heart, because we’ve done this dance many times before. Hidden it all from
Lisa.
I sit on the cold back step, too wired to stay inside, too wrung out to leave. The morning mist clings to the grass; I hunch
over, arms on my knees, as the house holds its breath behind me.
Mum joins me a while later, two mugs in hand. She doesn’t look at me when she sits. Just passes over the tea and stares out
at the bottlebrush trees. “I didn’t think you’d do it,” she says at last, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Someone had to. If he comes back, I’ll do it again. I’m stronger than him now.”
“I can see that,” she says, squeezing my bicep like she’s checking it’s real. A bewildered smile flickers at the corners of
her mouth. “Where did these come from?”
I shrug, a bit embarrassed. “I’ve been lifting your bread flour bags.”
She lets out a soft breath, almost a laugh. “I always said you knew how to get the most out of ingredients. You’re going to
change people’s lives with food one day, Griff.”
I almost smile.
She looks at her slippers, and it seems whatever brightness she managed to find drains away again. Her voice is no more than
a whisper. “I don’t think he’s coming back this time. He cleared out his wardrobe. He’s never done that before.” She sips
her tea. Her face is pale, pinched. Older somehow. “I should feel relieved, shouldn’t I? I keep waiting for that. But mostly
I just feel . . . stupid. And tired.” She presses her palm to her chest. “I truly thought he was a good man when I first met
him. But he was a monster; nothing like your dad.” Her eyes flick toward mine, then away again, and something shifts in her
face.
Guilt slices through my gut.
“I kept thinking if I held it all together—one more night, one more week—I could outlast it somehow. I told myself it was better to keep things steady for Lisa. That it was a phase. That he’d calm down.
” She glances at her tea. “It was never meant to be like this. I’m sorry, Griff. I didn’t mean for it to land on you.”
“But you—”
“I let you carry too much. And I knew it: I knew what he said to you.” She swallows. Tries again. “The names, the threats.
I should have left him the first time he ever spoke to you that way, but I was afraid of what he’d do to us. I’m not strong
like you or your father. I convinced myself it was easier to keep the peace, but I should have fought harder for you. For
who you are. Griff, you’ve never been wrong for being yourself: not once, no matter what he said, okay?” She goes to touch
my face but I turn away. “Oh god!” Her voice cracks. “I’ve really mucked up, haven’t I?”
I stare at the driveway and kick a fallen pebble away.
“Promise me you won’t tell Lisa,” she continues. “We’ve managed to keep it from her this long. It’s not too late for her.
I don’t want her remembering this part.”
I stare at Mum, infuriated. “But she lived it.”
“She’s still a child. Let her have good memories. He never hit her, and we made sure she didn’t see what happened to us. She
can grow up without the trauma.”
Angry tears well in my eyes but I refuse to let them fall. “I’m not sure it works like that. What are we supposed to tell
her?”
“We’ll tell her he left for work.”
I open my mouth. Close it again. There’s a part of me that wants to shout. To ask Mum where she was when it was my turn to be a child. But her animal-like wails from the days and weeks after Dad died come crashing back, a reminder of the
pain I’ve already caused her. The fight drains out of me; whatever she asks, I’d give. I nod.
“Promise me, Griff?”
“I promise.”
She brings a soft hand to my cheek. “You’re the strong one now. I hope that doesn’t harden you forever.” She stands, turning to the door. “Come on. I’m making pancakes. They’re not as good as yours, but it will do you good to eat.”
I stay on the step a while longer, until the roaring in my head begins to dull. The smell hits me before I’m halfway down
the hall—burnt butter, too much vanilla. I hover in the doorway, watching her at the stove. Lisa sits at the table, humming
to the radio, legs swinging, syrup on her chin as though nothing has happened. She chatters about something she saw on TV.
Mum laughs too loud, as though she’s practicing. Like the monster hasn’t just been evicted from the building. Like he didn’t
shout and slam and spit bile into every room.
Mum glances at me as she flips a pancake with a hand that still trembles. Her smile wobbles but she holds it, as though willing
the kitchen to be normal again.
“Seeing as Brent’s out of town this weekend, love, why don’t you ask Michael over? You light up when he’s around.”
The words catch in my chest. Said right here, in front of Lisa, as if it’s the most ordinary suggestion in the world.
Lisa looks up from her plate. “Is Michael your boyfriend, Griff?”
Heat floods my face. “He’s just a mate.”
Mum sets the pan down with a sigh, her shoulders sinking. She looks at both of us, her voice threaded with sorrow.
“And if he is more than that, sweetheart, that’s perfectly fine. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to say that before.”
For a moment, warmth flickers through me, a fragile flame I didn’t know I’d been waiting for. And yet it comes too late, starved
by everything we’ve lost, everything we’ve hidden.
That’s when I see my cassette player, abandoned next to Lisa’s cup, bedazzled with stickers and glitter!
“Lisa!” I yell. “What the hell have you done?”
She jumps, blinking at me.
“Griff, lower your voice!” says Mum.
“I wanted to decorate it to thank you,” she says with a toothy grin. “I tried to use your favorite colors.”
“You’re never listening to it again!” I snap, snatching it away.
Mum shoots me a warning look, but I ignore it, cradling the player like it’s something wounded.
“But I was just—”
“No buts. That’s it. You’ve ruined it. You ruin everything!” I can’t take this outside now. Not like this.
I clutch the glittering machine tighter, hating how much it suddenly resembles all the feelings, the joy and the light, that
I’ve had to keep hidden.
Lisa’s lower lip wobbles.
“Griff, sit down, that’s enough, please.” Mum’s voice is tight.
I grunt and take a seat at the far end of the table, as far from Lisa’s green eyes as possible.
She rubs her face with the back of her hand, then resumes her very important task of trying to pick the jam label off the
jar. “Is Daddy coming?”
Mum’s smile falters, but just for a second. “No, sweetheart. He’s at work. We’ll talk more about it later.”
Our eyes meet. I look away first.
Mum flips the pancakes and turns them onto two plates. She sets one down in front of Lisa, smoothing her fingers over her
dark hair. “There you go, my best girl.”
Lisa beams, clapping her sticky hands.
Mum passes me the second plate. I pour the maple syrup slowly, watching the amber spiral fill the edges, waiting for something
I know probably won’t come. Some part of me still wants her to say it. Just once. To call me her best boy. But there’s only
silence.
I knew I’d never be her best boy. Her best man. Not even after getting rid of her worst. Not after being responsible for the
death of her favorite.