Page 9 of Contested

Becca shrugged it off.

“Her Spanish is a wreckage,” Marcos explained, placing the dish towel on the bench.

“A wreckage?” Becca questioned, the word choice clearly throwing her off.

“That not right?”

“You mean ‘terrible’. Like your English, apparently.” Becca laughed.

“What has that got to do with me?” Greg questioned, stepping to the side as Diana passed him and went back to the stove.

“You also don’t speak it.”

“I work fourteen hours a day. I don’t have time to pick it up.”

Marcos had heard different versions of that line his whole life. “No time,” “too tired,” and “your mum’s English is good anyway.” Diana would roll her eyes or tell Greg he was lazy, depending on her mood, and Greg would grin or grumble, depending on his.

Greg had learned to sign, though.

That was the part Marcos never knew where to put. Greg had learned because Paula needed it. Classes after work and practice at the table. Big hands working clumsily at first, then better.

Marcos glanced toward the doorway, past Greg, and saw Paula standing there, eyes shifting from Greg to Becca to Diana, gathering pieces by posture before anyone gave her words. She had always been good at that. Too good, sometimes. People thought silence meant missing things, and yet Paula missed less than most of them.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

Marcos dried his hands on his shorts and signed back, ‘Dad’s making excuses. I think he’s just lazy.’

“I know sign language, dipshit,” Greg said, stepping further into the kitchen and turning to Paula. ‘Your brother is being an idiot.’

Paula raised her eyebrow at Marcos.

He shrugged, then signed something that was not normal. His hands moved differently for the private language, looser and quicker, cutting around proper structure because proper structure was not the point.

‘Pretty sure he meant to say super smart.’

It had started when Paula was little, and Marcos was too impatient to spell things out properly, both of them inventing shortcuts that made sense only because they had built them together. Some of it came from the sign language they knew. Some of it came from expressions, old games, family jokes, and random nonsense.

Paula watched his hands carefully, then her mouth twitched.

“I told you not to use that fake stuff,” Greg said, snatching the dish towel from the counter as Marcos danced out of the way of his father.

“It’s not fake. Just secret,” Marcos replied, stepping to stand next to Paula.

Paula responded in the same way, her hands messier, the movements shaped for Marcos alone. ‘You are gonna make his moustache hair fall out.’

Marcos let out a bark-like laugh as Greg grumbled and began drying the dishes.

Diana shifted between the stove and the bench, calling for things without always looking up. Becca washed dishes badly enough that Greg took over twice and got told off both times because she had to learn. Paula leaned against the bench and watched everyone, jumping in when Marcos signed something worth answering and ignoring most of Becca’s attempts to drag her into an argument. Marcos passed between all of them without thinking too hard about it. English to sign. Diana’s Spanish thrown over her shoulder and passed to Paula with his hands, which had become much easier over time. Greg’s grumble translated because Paula asked for it with her eyebrows.

By the time they sat at the table, the windows had gone dark enough to throw back their own reflections. The dining table was scratched and marked, though Diana still wiped it down. Marcos sat opposite Paula, and Becca dropped into the chair beside him and immediately stole a piece of food from his plate. Greg sat at one end, shoulders rounded in the first real sign that the workday had caught up with him. Diana sat last.

The conversation drifted from school, to Diana’s job altering clothes, to Greg’s job managing a steel mill warehouse. Marcos signed everything for Paula so she could keep up with the conversation. It was something he always did.

Sometimes he would do it when she wasn’t around out of habit. He had caught himself signing at training once, hands moving while he answered a question from one of the assistant coaches.

Eventually, the conversation ended up on the AFL and Marcos’ new team.

“It must feel good, though, right?” Greg asked, his mouth still full of food. “To have beaten out that Sebastian kid for the position.”