Morgan shook her head. “She doesn’t. I haven’t actually seen her in person in about two years. The last time was when she came back for a family funeral.”
“Oh, so you must speak on the phone all the time,” Mum said, concocting an explanation that made the idea of being permanently away from one’s children even slightly more tolerable. But Morgan shook her head again.
“She sends postcards,” she said. “And emails. And we talk every few months or so. On my birthday, as you said. And hers, and Mother’s Day.”
Mum just blinked at Morgan, as if waiting for her to laugh and say she’d been joking. But when she didn’t, Mum visibly shivered and went back to pointlessly swirling her wine in her glass.
“Jack’s been telling me about the new project you’ve got coming up,” Morgan said, and it took me a moment to realise she was talking to Dad. It took him a moment, too, to the point that we were all looking at him before he looked up from his glass.
“Oh, yeah, biggest we’ve done,” Dad said. “Should put us on the map with some of the bigger developers investing in the area.”
It was almost the exact same spiel he’d given me when we’d first taken the job.
“Is that important?” Morgan asked. “Is there a lot of competition for the smaller jobs?”
Dad sort of half-chuckled, looking at me as if I would intervene. But I just shrugged. I didn’t know where she was going with this any better than he did.
“Not really,” he said, setting his fork down and leaning forward onto his elbows, “but the bigger jobs have much better profit margins. We can work a lot more efficiently.”
“Interesting,” Morgan said, taking a sip. “Seems like it creates an awful lot of admin, right? That’s what Jack has been dealing with?”
Dad nodded. “A bit more than we’re used to, but what’s a bit more admin for that kind of profit margin increase?”
Morgan shrugged. “Well, a lot if you hate admin, I suppose.”
Dad laughed – a big hearty laugh that echoed, even outside – and pointed at Morgan. “You’re funny, Morgan. She’s funny, Jack.”
“Sure is,” I said, but I wasn’t laughing. I glared down at Morgan, fully aware of what she was doing. She looked up at me and smiled, but her smile faltered when she saw that I wasn’t impressed.
“Well, I’m glad to have you here,” Mum said, her voice strained with emotion. Was she seriously on the verge of tears? “Our Jackie here hasn’t always been so lucky in love.”
“Mum!” I said, begging her with my eyes to stop – or, better yet, to rewind time and not be embarrassing as fuck – but she just shrugged at me.
“What?” she asked, oblivious.
“Maybe not the best time to bring up Aria?” Amy offered, but that wasn’t much better, so I glared at her, too.
“It’s fine,” Morgan said quietly to me. “It’s not like I didn’t know.”
“Still,” I said, “it’s a bit pointed, isn’t it?”
“Well, fine then,” Mum said. “I suppose I’ll never say anything lovely or sentimental again, how’s that?”
“Great, Mum,” I said, sitting back and downing the last of my glass of wine. “Perfect, actually.”
* * *
The restof the evening went as well as it could have: Dad was more talkative, Mum managed to avoid asking any overly embarrassing questions, and Amy gave Morgan a chunk of rose quartz, apparently to help with “bourgeoning love”. As we left to go back to mine for some food, a walk of shame made no less awkward by Amy whistling after us, Morgan snaked an arm around my waist and leaned into me. I draped my arm over her shoulder, but she must have sensed that my heart wasn’t in it, because she looked up at me in concern and, when she saw the frown on my face, clearly decided she would wait until we were inside my house to talk about it, dropping her arm away from me.
“That wasn’t funny,” I said quietly as soon as the door was shut. “That comment about the admin?”
Morgan rolled her eyes and threw her hands out to the sides as she walked ahead of me into the kitchen. “Your dad seemed to think it was.”
I pulled two beers out of the fridge and slid one across to her.
“Yeah, well, my dad doesn’t know why you were asking. If he’d had all the context, I can assure you he wouldn’t have been laughing.”
“Well, maybe he should have the context,” she said as she sat down at the island, and I shot her a look I knew probably rivalled the glare Dad often used with me. But it didn’t work on her. “Seriously,” she continued. “Does he even know you don’t like doing that part of the job?”
