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‘Jesus, Ams. You’re acting like I did it on purpose.’
I was tugging at the bandana. Sparks danced in front of my eyes it was on so tightly.
I felt my mother’s fingers working at the back of my head.
‘This was a stupid game to play.’
‘Lighten up, Ams. Let’s have some fun.’
‘I’m okay,’ I said, shrugging my mother off. ‘Matty’s right, this is fun. Spin me again.’
This time when I banged my knee, I kept the ows to myself.
Later that night, I heard them talking. I was lying awake, high on sugar and unable to sleep. I thought about getting up, seeing if they’d let me sit with them a while. It was my birthday after all. But their voices gave me pause.
Matty was calm like always, but I could tell my mother was winding him up. When he was annoyed, he became quiet; as though reining himself in. The way a parent might speak to a recalcitrant toddler. Patient, extra reasonable. Trying not to blow.
So instead of joining them, I eavesdropped, annoyed she was goading him. That she had been all day.
No wonder he’s getting fed up with us, I thought, which straight away sent my mind to my father, to where he was now. To trying to understand why he’d left us.
‘You know how I feel about marriage,’ Matty was saying.
‘I’m thirty already. My mother’s really on my case. I need to show her—’
‘I didn’t realise it was your mother I was dating.’
‘You love me, don’t you?’
‘Of course I love you. I’ve proved that, haven’t I?’
‘So, what’s the problem? Have you any idea what it’s like for me? What people must think?’
‘And that’s a reason to get married? Because of what people think? I thought you were better than that, Amelia-Rose.’
Amelia-Rose? That was a first.
I heard the pad of his feet moving down the hallway followed by the front door clicking. No slam. No shouting. Just gone.
And then my mother hurling something at the wall. Crying. Her bedroom door banging shut.
