Page 54 of When Lemons Give You Life

“They look very heavy, Mum!” he says.

“They are.”

Once, I needed them to be. They weren’t just ingredients back then; they were what I used to become strong.

Rob hums as he watches me whisk the mixture, swinging his feet under the chair. I flip a pancake, the batter hissing in the heat. As the scents of warm butter and vanilla waft through the air, an ache sneaks up, sharp and stupid.

Back then, survival came first. Now it’s the ordinary things I didn’t get that sting the most. The safety. The softness. The chance to be a kid, like she was—wild hair, sticky fingers, no idea what it took to maintain the quiet.

A life that should have belonged to both of us.

I grip the spatula tighter and focus on the batter, trying to stay here with Rob. But the past creeps in anyway, unwanted, unstoppable, pulling me back to the day when food saved me. This time, not on a plate.

33

Griff (age 19)

November 1979

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.