3
I’M WOKEN BY the call of an electronic rooster coming from the hallway cupboard. I groan and pull my pillow over my face. It takes Dad fourteen cock-a-doodle-dos to drag himself out of bed, remember where he hid his alarm clock from himself last night, thump his way to the cupboard and slam the off button. It’s not a personal best but at least he manages the task before the second alarm goes off. It’s been like this since he’s been up later at night, working on whatever it is a real estate agency co-director works on late at night.
I’m about to roll over and go back to sleep when I remember the plains-wanderer. I scramble over to my desk and peer into the box. She blinks in the light, seemingly as baffled as me about how she ended up here, how a ground bird that doesn’t fly flew into my window, but then she seems to shake the thought off and stretches out her tiny legs one after the other. My chest glows warm. I wonder if I should let her go. If she might be okay. But then she almost completely loses balance like a tiny, feathered drunk and has to sit down. Nope. It’s not worth the risk.
I throw on a T-shirt and shorts without showering, put the box at the front door and drag myself into the kitchen for a quick breakfast. I wince against the brightness, morning sun bouncing off white cupboards and the shiny fridge featuring magnets of every tradesperson within a twenty-kilometre radius. We don’t have a tennis court but, according to Dad, refusing the fridge magnet of the net-repair guy isn’t very community minded.
Mum’s making a green smoothie with her new all-purpose kitchen-aid thing, having returned from her regular way-too-early spin class. She’s dressed head-to-toe in orange: warmth, kindness, joy. Mum’s very into colour, not just as an interior-design trend thing but also as a psychology thing—the way it can apparently affect our moods. Whatever helps, I guess.
‘Morning!’ she says. ‘You’re up early!’ She’s great at stating the obvious, my mum. Nice weather doesn’t stand a chance of escaping her shrewd observational skills.
‘Why can’t Dad use a phone alarm with some inoffensive chiming sound like a normal parent?’ I mumble, rubbing my eyes.
‘Getting to bed before 2 am might also help.’ Her voice is light but there’s a wobbly edge to it I don’t know how to interpret.
‘Sure.’
Mum pours filtered water into the kitchen-aid contraption, which is actually just an overpriced blender. ‘So…second day of holidays. What’s on?’ Her gaze is way too avoidant for the question not to be loaded. She’s worried I’m going to spend the summer in my room. And even though I pretty much was planning that up until last night’s window collision, the implication still annoys me.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I say, taking two slices of bread. ‘Just single-handedly saving one of the world’s most endangered species. Is that enough?’
Mum places the glorified blender lid on and rolls her eyes. ‘No need to get defensive, Lucy. I was just asking.’
‘Asking what?’ Dad swoops in, dressed for work, and I think he’s going to kiss Mum, but he just steals an almond from the bench.
I turn to shove the bread in the toaster so I don’t catch if Mum gives Dad a ‘leave it’ look, but I’d bet my laptop password there is one because he clears his throat and changes the subject. ‘Hey, Luce. Did I tell you we’ve got a proper DJ for this year’s Summer Day Do?’
Every January Mum and Dad’s real estate agency throws a community barbeque slash branding exercise on the local footy oval. It used to be called the Australia Day Do. Free food, lawn games, a meat raffle, and a fundraiser for a local cause. When we were kids, Charlie and I loved hanging the bunting in the trees and crafting the certificate-of-participation awards for the footrace with an excess of glitter (before we knew microplastic was bad for the environment). Our surname was on the giant Evans Real Estate banner, and we pretended it was a party thrown just for us. We felt like the centre of the universe. One year though, I realised what we were celebrating, and started calling it the Invasion Day Barbeque. Dad was not a fan of my ‘combative attitude’. Thankfully, Charlie was on the school’s debate team. He sat down to have a logical, restrained discussion with Dad. In the end, my parents changed the name and the date. Charlie also got them to add vegetarian sausages to the barbeque, even if they wouldn’t get rid of the meat raffle. The Australian flag tablecloths would stay though, given we’d paid for them already.
‘A lesson in diplomacy, Lucky,’ Charlie had said later. ‘Dad’s easier to win over post-afternoon beer than pre-morning coffee.’
‘I didn’t realise beverage choice was related to having morals.’
Charlie let out a dramatic sigh, running a hand through his golden-brown hair. ‘You have so much to learn from me in this life.’
I chucked a mini toy football at him, and he gave me the finger and chucked it back. Charlie could be as annoying as any sibling, and of course we fought sometimes, but I actually liked my brother. And I think he actually liked me too. We didn’t tell each other everything but we knew when the other one was angry or down, even if we didn’t know why. We could exchange one look and burst into laughter over nothing. We were mates but, more than that, I secretly kind of worshipped him because he was super intelligent and also—this hurts to admit—funny and cool. When we were kids especially, I revolved around him as if he was the sun—even though there was something about how bright he was that made me squint. That meant I couldn’t fully see him sometimes.
But now he’s gone, and I’m like a possum caught in a trap still trying to escape that fact.
I spread some peanut butter on my toast. ‘A DJ. Cool.’ It’s all I say, because I know Dad’s only bringing up the Summer Day Do to suss out if I’m going. Last summer they called it off, for obvious reasons. Instead, we picked at defrosted sorry-your-family-member-died casseroles delivered by the neighbours and stared at the living room wall. But I know Dad will want me to make an appearance at the first one since it happened. For us all to be together for it. I’d rather eat glitter.
Dad’s big on community, probably because he comes from a religious family with six siblings and a passion for team sports. Let’s go Franklin Falcons! He even found the mental strength to attend Charlie’s old footy team’s grand final this year to support them, because he’s that kind of guy (by which I mean a masochist, clearly).
I pick up my plate and sit down at the table. This was a terrible move, as a minute later Mum and Dad both join me. After a vodka-disrupted sleep, I’m really not in the mood, and unfortunately peanut butter is not conducive to speed-eating.
Mum takes a sip of her smoothie and winces, skin around her eyes crinkling. She overdid the wheatgrass again. ‘So.’ She places the glass down and glances at Dad, who gives her a nod, then she turns back to me. ‘We need to talk.’
My mouth goes dry and I drop my toast back on the plate. Something really bad has happened. Mum’s got cancer. Dad’s been cheating. They’re filing for bankruptcy. You can’t ignore the long list of things that can ruin your life once you’ve lived through one of them.
I glance at Dad, who I can only just see through the begonia in the middle of the table. He clears his throat again. ‘Your mum and I think you should get a job.’
Relief and alarm wash over me simultaneously. ‘What?’ I look at Mum, then Dad. ‘Why?’
But I know why.
Mum scrapes her chair towards me. ‘You’ve been spending a lot of time alone at home, sweetie. We’re worried about you. We get you’re not close with your school friends right now, but you’ll barely do anything with us either.’ Her voice wavers. She sounds hurt. Heavy guilt presses on my shoulders, the weight of being their only child. The pressure to be enough for them on my own. To make them happy. ‘We’re so proud of the way you handled school this year,’ Mum continues, ‘but now it’s holidays, it would be good for you to have something to do.’
I sigh. I should have known this would happen eventually, because they got back to work as part of their coping strategy. I want to protest. I don’t want a job. I have a plan for my summer now. But somehow I don’t think following a cosmic sign in the form of an endangered bird and hanging out with a friend they’ve never met who doesn’t know Charlie is dead is going to fly as a healthy alternative to the routine of paid work. I need a different excuse.
‘I’m almost in year twelve, though,’ I say, going for the conscientious angle. ‘What’s the point in getting a job if it’s not related to a career I want?’
Dad doesn’t buy it. ‘Okay, let’s talk about that then.’ He rubs his freshly shaved chin. ‘What do you want to do after year twelve?’
Nothing, I think. Everything. How am I supposed to know when, for the past eleven months, I haven’t once been able to imagine the future? When the future feels pointless? I don’t say that, though. ‘But all the good summer jobs will be gone by now. There’ll only be crap ones left.’
‘I’m sure you can still find something half-decent,’ Mum says.
‘I’m sure I can’t. I’ll end up elbow-deep in a chip fryer at some dodgy fast-food joint with terrible OH&S policies. Do you want me to get third-degree burns?’
‘Oh come on, Luce.’ Mum’s tone says she thinks I’m being difficult. ‘You can at least look. ’
‘What? Just for the sake of something to do?’ I ask, outraged now. They’re intent on ruining my summer just because I generally prefer my bedroom to being with other humans. ‘That seems like a great way to waste some pretty precious moments of life. I mean, who knows how long any of us has.’
It’s a very low blow and Mum sucks in a breath and glares at me for a moment, and I feel a spike of regret. I hate this.
‘Teenagers have part-time jobs,’ Dad says, ignoring my barb. ‘That’s a big part of learning responsibility. All the parenting-through-loss books say that routine and normalcy help, and we want your life to be as normal as’—he coughs out a tiny grief-frog in his throat—‘as possible. Besides, it’d be a good way to make some new friends, don’t you reckon?’
I push my cold toast around my plate and think about membership rule number seventeen of the two-person Cloud-Formation-Loving Girlies Club: if a girlie fails to bring a very cute bunny-shaped cloud to the attention of the club, said girlie forfeits her membership to the club (membership will be reinstated after one hour due to the obvious fact that one person is not a club and these girlies do not enjoy having to find new friends).
I bury the twinge of missing Rach.
‘It’s—’ Mum hesitates, and I look up. Her mascara’s glistening, but I know she doesn’t want to cry in front of me. ‘It’s okay not to be okay, sweetie.’ She’s been reading grief books too, clearly. ‘You’ve been through something so…we just want to help.’
Mum drinks her smoothie to hide that she’s about to sob. I can’t stand this moment we’re in, so I push my chair out, go over to the pantry and grab the honey which I plonk down in front of Mum with a spoon. Looking grateful, she stirs some into her drink.
‘You know’—Mum puts the spoon down, more composed now—‘if you can’t manage a job right now and you need to go back to Leonie, it’s not a step backwards.’
‘No,’ I say, a little too forcefully. I’d only just convinced them I’d made enough progress to drop the weekly, then monthly, grief-counselling sessions. I don’t want to go back to the tan leather couch that stuck to my skin and the fake plant from Ikea and the vanilla-scented tissues. It’s too awkward and depressing. Besides, it’s been eleven months since it happened. I don’t need to go back.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, making sure to look Mum in the eye so she believes me. ‘I’ll start looking.’
‘Good on you, Luce,’ Dad says.
I turn to him and force a smile.