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wards the window. “Not for everyone.”
He thought about that. She was right; many people lived lives unmarred by complicated family dynamics and estrangement, by death and loss.
“So you all work together harmoniously, except for Samir?”
Harmoniously? The word was jarring somehow. There was no bad blood between him and his relatives and yet Gabe couldn’t apply the word ‘harmony’ to any aspect of his life. “We respect each other,” he said guardedly.
“I see.”
He began to froth the milk, glad the noise made conversation impossible. But once he was finished, and pouring the silky liquid into the cup, she spoke.
“I was always jealous of kids who came from big families.”
“You didn’t have brothers or sisters?”
“No. It was just me.”
“There were times when I would have given anything to be an only child,” he said with a half-smile.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“It was a lonely way to grow up.”
“You must have had friends?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, but after my mother – my adoptive mother – died, we moved around a lot.”
“What happened?”
Her features tightened, pain obvious in the depth of her ocean green eyes. “There was a fire. An electrical fault.” She cupped the coffee in the palms of her hands, her eyes lifting to his. “My dad blamed himself. He was never the same after that.”
He waited, sure she’d keep speaking if he didn’t interrupt. She sipped her coffee and then continued.
“They were such a great couple. He loved her so much. It was only after she died I realised that he’d been jealous of me – jealous because mum spent so much time with me, jealous because he was perfectly happy being just the two of them. She was the one who wanted more, who needed family – me. He didn’t.” Her throat shifted as she swallowed.
“How did you know this?”
“He started drinking,” she said with a lift of her shoulders. “He told me how he felt one night.”
“I’m sorry.” He was surprised by the quick response, and more so by the genuine sympathy underpinning it.
“He apologised the next day, but the damage was done. I was eight years old.” She placed her coffee cup down on the bench but kept one hand curled around the mug, her eyes lingering on the caramel coloured surface. “After that, things were different between us. I felt like a stranger in our home. I was very conscious of not being wanted, of nothing I did ever being good enough. He was polite and civil, but he didn’t love me.”
She said the words calmly, but he narrowed his eyes, scanning her face for signs of how that must have made her feel, as a little girl. An unexpected rush of pity flooded him.
“He lost his job a few months after mum died. He had to sell the house. We moved into an apartment in the next suburb, but he fell behind in rent pretty quickly. The apartments got smaller, dingier, food more and more scarce. I changed school three times in one year, and that’s when social services got involved.” She sipped her coffee again, her face so uncharacteristically sad that he ached to do something to cheer her. The feeling was foreign to him; he pushed it aside.
“I was put into foster care a year or so later. I hated it.” Her lips formed a grimace.
“Why?” It was a question asked simply to keep her talking; he didn’t need her to elaborate. He could imagine any number of reasons a person might dislike foster care.
“It was just more of the same – feeling like an unwanted stranger in other people’s homes.” Her smile was a ghostly imitation. “Kind of like this, actually,” she remarked softly.
It was like having a weight crushed to his chest. His behaviour – making her feel unwelcome – hit him hard. He’d been pushing her away, intentionally making her feel as though she were a major inconvenience to him without having any idea that he was reopening wounds of her fractured childhood.
“I’ve explained that,” he said darkly. “It has nothing to do with you. This is just the way I am.”
