Chapter 19 #2
Adam diverts his attention from the bacon to the grilled tomato. He hasn’t taken a bite of anything and seems content cutting things into smaller pieces. ‘I agree, Dianne,’ he says.
She straightens, a smug smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
‘But not everyone has the luxury of travel,’ Adam continues. ‘Growing up, we didn’t have much, so our holidays were car trips and wherever we could afford to stay for a few nights. We had just as much fun as we would’ve flying to the other side of the world.’
My mouth pops open. That’s the most I’ve ever heard him say about himself in one hit.
‘And really,’ he adds, clearly on a roll and in no hurry to stop the words flying. ‘If you take a good book with you, you can be transported anywhere.’
‘Of course,’ Mum says, nodding eagerly. ‘That’s why you write them, isn’t it? So you can take people on a journey.’
Adam shovels a forkful of bacon and tomato into his mouth, putting a stop to the conversation.
‘Ooh, breakfast,’ Gabi exclaims from inside.
‘I want pancakes,’ Amelia says.
‘You need fruit as well,’ Reese says, her normally bubbly voice flat with exhaustion.
‘But Mum said,’ Amelia starts and then stops quickly and while I’m not in there, I know the exact look Gabi has thrown her. It’s the same one Dad used to send our way when we were in on a secret. Like the you-can-have-pancakes-and-forgo-the-fruit-but-don’t-tell-your-mum kind of secret.
Reese slumps into a chair and stares at the steam rising from her coffee. Amelia skips out behind her, her smug smile leaving no doubt that Gabi is about to appear with a plate of pancakes and no fruit.
Sure enough, Gabi plops the pancakes in front of Amelia and avoids Reese’s annoyed glare as she tucks into her own breakfast.
Amelia props her iPad on the table and swipes until she settles on a video. A peppy theme song blasts out. I wait for Gabi or Reese to tell her to put it away. They’ve always been super strict about devices at the dining table.
‘Where’s Riley?’ Mum asks.
‘Sleeping,’ Amelia says through a mouthful of fluffy pancake. ‘She stayed up for ages last night writing in the journal Adam gave her.’
I guess she’s not tossing it away.
Mum’s chair scrapes as she gets up.
‘Let her sleep,’ Gabi says and clamps a hand on Mum’s chair to stop her pushing it even further back. She taps Amelia’s iPad. ‘Turn that down or put on headphones.’
I pick up my piece of toast. ‘Is she okay?’ I ask Gabi.
‘She’s fine.’
Mum’s eyes drill into Gabi at her vague response.
‘Her period,’ Reese says quickly.
Mum relaxes back into her seat and picks up her cup of tea. ‘Uh, of course. If she’s anything like Sabrina she’ll be a hurricane of emotions for the next forty-eight hours.’
‘I am not a hurricane,’ I say. Were there a few rough years in my teens where I did become a touch emotional?
Sure. It doesn’t mean I’m that way now. Yes, I get a bit weepy in the week leading up to it and I sometimes have a cranky moment, which is easily fixed with a little sugar hit.
But my family seems determined to forever see me as my sixteen-year-old self.
‘Yes you are,’ Tommy says, stepping out of the kitchen with a mound of scrambled eggs.
Gabi hums her agreement. ‘You turn into a monster. We never know if you’re going to cry, rage, or both.’ She winks at Adam. ‘I’m sure Adam agrees with us.’
He glances at me. I slide down in my chair. I’m clutching my piece of toast even though it’s now cold and completely unappealing.
‘Remember that time she fell apart because she’d over-watered her plant and killed it?
’ Gabi says, and then she and Tommy laugh at the memory of me clutching the potted orchid in tears.
That orchid was a gift from Grandpa, who had a huge green thumb and his garden was his pride and joy.
Both Gabi and Tommy managed to keep their plants alive, but I failed and killed mine within the month.
‘And the great Monopoly game of 2010 which I believe was Sabrina’s final game of Monopoly,’ Mum says with a chuckle. ‘We never ended up finding that thimble after she threw it across the room.’
They all laugh.
‘Mum tells us that story every time we play Monopoly,’ Amelia says, her swinging legs jostling the table. ‘She says none of us can be the thimble because it’s bad luck.’
‘Don’t forget the Jenga meltdown. That’s my favourite Sabrina moment,’ Tommy says. ‘Tantrums, carnage, bloodshed. It was like a scene out of Game of Thrones.’
‘Oh yes,’ Gabi exclaims, her laughter increasing now. ‘You bumped the table,’ she splutters out in the high-pitched voice she uses to mimic me.
‘You did,’ I say. Gabi and Tommy were whispering between themselves in the lead-up to my turn and then when I pulled my piece out the table moved and the tower crumbled.
And in retaliation, I might’ve thrown a Jenga block at them.
And it might have nicked Gabi’s arm. There was no bloodshed, but, of course, in true Fogerty fashion, the story has grown wilder with every telling.
Next year they’ll probably claim that there was a trip to the emergency room.
Adam’s shoulder presses against mine, the touch drawing my eyes to his. ‘I believe you,’ he murmurs.
It’s such a sweet gesture that a rush of warmth spreads through me and I want to express my gratitude.
I can’t seem to conjure the words though so all I do is stare at him, trying not to cry.
It’s too much. I shift, pulling back so we’re no longer touching, and I busy myself with pushing a mushroom around my plate.
‘Gabi, can you go and find your dad and Uncle Max? They went off for a walk and lord knows where they ended up,’ Mum says. She wanders away, muttering about how Dad will end up mauled by a bear if he keeps taking off on these walks of his. I’m not even sure if they have bears in England.
‘Why do you let them do that?’ Adam asks when we’re on our way back to the cottage to get ready for the trip to the caves.
‘Do what?’
‘You know what,’ he says, his swinging arm bumping mine as we pass through the gate.
Tease me? Talk down to me? Make me the butt of their jokes? Because it’s always been that way. And I don’t know how to make it stop. We’re not a family that sits down and talks through issues. We skirt around them, pretend everything is okay, and continue on like it’s all normal.
He holds the door open for me and, when I don’t make a move to walk in ahead of him, he sighs and heads inside first.
‘You have no problem telling me exactly what you think,’ he says. ‘But around them you completely shut down. Is it because they’re older? Or because you think they’re more successful than you?’
I flinch at how accurate his assessment is.
‘Your voice matters, Sabrina.’ I stare at his back as he opens a drawer and pulls out a clean T-shirt. ‘And if you learned to use it around your family, they’d show you the respect you deserve.’ He turns, his eyes searching my face. ‘The way they talk to you and about you, it’s—’
‘It’s just how they are,’ I cut him off. This conversation, Adam judging my family after only a few days is making me uncomfortable. ‘We all make fun of each other.’ If I put that thought out into the universe enough, then one day I might actually believe it.
‘You don’t make fun of their career choices.’
‘They don’t mean anything by it,’ I say. Why am I lying? Why can’t I admit how much it hurts me? I sigh inwardly. I know why. I’m a Fogerty. We’re loyal to a fault even when that fault is so clearly fractured.
‘They—’
‘Look,’ I say. ‘I appreciate you sticking up for me before, but you don’t know my family. Or me.’
A bemused smile crosses his face. ‘The thing about authors is that we’re very observant and insightful. Watching people and their interactions—’
‘Maybe if you spent less time observing us and more time writing, you’d have finished your book by now,’ I say. I grab my bag. ‘The bus leaves in twenty minutes.’