‘What? Nothing. I’m just late.’
He stood up, but she held out her hand for his phone. He didn’t move. They looked at each other and something passed between them. Recognition, maybe, that this was something that couldn’t be ignored, couldn’t be swept under the carpet.
‘It’s probably all made up,’ Lachy said. ‘Really, Mum. It’s probably all just bullshit, right? People go online, they like to talk.’
Vanessa took his phone from his hand. They sat side by side on the porch, and she started to read. He’d been looking at a long comment thread on Instagram. She clicked back into the post. Four hundred and twenty-eight comments and counting. They were talking about her husband. They were talking about Robert.
I went to the health centre because I was stressed out about exams. I had insomnia. They didn’t want to give me sleeping pills so they sent me to him. The first two sessions were fine. Normal. The third time he said I was pretty. The fourth time he put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t go back.
Yeah. This guy is a complete perv. My roommate’s sister warned me never to see him. Everyone knows what he’s like.
Oh my god. I went to him in second year. I saw him, like, six times. I so didn’t pick up the vibe.
I went to see Dr Walker. Like everyone else is saying, he was fine the first few times. I guess he’s careful, right? But five sessions in he gave me a shoulder massage to help me ‘relax’. I really liked him. That’s the worst part.
—So what happened? Just the shoulder massage?
—No.
Vanessa felt sick. She scrolled down. Most of the comments were people responding, speculating, but sprinkled throughout there were stories. Testimonials, really.
‘It’s all bullshit, right Mum?’ Lachy said. The anxiety in his voice made him sound younger.
‘You should stay off your phone right now,’ she said. ‘I think... I think there might be a lot of talk for a while.’
‘But Dad says he got a lawyer. He said that that woman... the girl who went to the police, she’s not a real person. I mean, she’s a real person, but she’s not a student. She gave a fake name, false address, all of that. So Dad says all this has to stop now.’
Vanessa said nothing. She gave the phone back to Lachy. She’d keep it if she could. Lock it up. Take the charging cable for his computer, the way they had when he was still a kid, to keep him from playing games when he should be sleeping. But he was too old for all of that now. There was no way to protect him from what was coming. Her hands were shaking.
‘You should go, Lach. You don’t want to be late.’
The dog next door started to bark. From inside the house, she heard Milo’s answering bark. Poor little guy. He probably needed a walk. Vanessa stood up. Lachy stood up too. He tried to look her in the eye. Tried to hold her there.
‘Mum?’
There were a thousand questions in that word, and she couldn’t answer any of them. She took the coward’s way out and avoided eye contact.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, after a long moment, and he sounded uncertain. She reached out and hugged him, and experienced for the thousandth time that sense of oddness, of discombobulation. How was he taller than her? How was it that he had the wide shoulders of a man, when really, he was just a kid? She kissed him on the cheek.
‘Where’s practice?’ she asked.
‘It’s just tennis,’ he said. ‘I’m meeting Peter.’
‘At Grace Park?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. See you later.’
* * *
Inside the house, she could hear the commentary from an AFL game playing from the living room television. Vanessa walked silently past the open door and upstairs. She went to their dressing room and packed a suitcase quietly. Pen’s advice had been very clear.
‘If you’re going to go, you need to go quickly. There’s no point in dragging it out. You need to be living under a different roof when this thing breaks. Don’t try to get him out of the house. He won’t want to go and you’ll end up in a back and forth. The place will be sold eventually, and if you want it you can try to buy him out. For now, distance is the most important thing.’
In their bedroom, Vanessa felt a storm of emotion swirling just beneath the surface. She forced it down. She packed her clothes, her underwear, her jewellery and her skincare. Enough clothes for a week. Her workout clothes. Her runners. Which shoes did she need? She ended up packing two suitcases. She would send someone for everything else in a few days. Someone discreet. Probably she’d have to pay a security agency or something, just to ensure that whoever did the work didn’t turn around and sell the story the next day.
Oh god.
