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The light floods the space, causing me to cower from the unfamiliar brightness. Creating strobes of white and lines of pitch black, the light from outside the wardrobe is painful.
She scoops me up into her arms, enveloping me in her perfume and burning me with the fumes of liquor. I don’t know what kind, but it is the scent of motherly love.
This is when she holds me, when no one else is home and she needs to be adored. I know this, even at the age of ten, but I never turn her away. I want to adore her, and the scent and cuddles feel too good and rare to not revel in.
“I’m not to blame!” She breaks down into a howl, squeezing me against her body, both of us trembling.
“It’s okay, Mummy,” I whisper, my voice scratchy from days of no use, pulled from my chest on a hoarse breath. The words are barely audible. “I said,” I repeat, louder and stronger. “It’s okay. I understand.”
She sobs. “Tell me I look beautiful. I got all dressed up and he never came home.”
I don’t lie. “You look beautiful, Mummy.”
Two.
Standing staunchly through the flare of pain, I groan but barely move. Then I take two steps and wail on him.
CHAPTERFIVE
kaya
The hour brings a mild chill,giving Chloe an excuse to tuck her‘cold’foot in Brian Kennedy’s—Kenno’s—crotch, her toes fondling his balls.
This means she is one sip of champagne away from vanishing into a pristinely manicured bush to let the big oaf caress herpristinely manicured bush.
I groan. I’m listening to a few girls I went to high school with flex their newly acquired Marxism knowledge. I have nothing to add. I took a gap this year. To figure shit out. But they are first-year university students, spouting freshly taught philosophies is a rite of entitled passage.
When my phone chimes—
When it saves me.
Feigning an apologetic smile, I snatch the device up with utter relief, having my opening to leave Chloe with her toe-jam, and ‘the collective’ to their debates.
I pull myself up off the outdoor pool lounger and walk away, across the lawn, reading the message as I go.
Mum:
I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t want to call. It would be pointless with the loud music. You wouldn’t hear me anyway.
Okay…
Passive aggressive.
I ignored you, Mother.
But fine.
Mum:
Your father has been arrested. They took him into custody this evening. I wasn’t going to tell you now, but the press has camped out the front of the house. So, it is better to stay at Chloe’s or one of your friend’s houses after your party. Call me before you come home so I can explain.
No.
I keep walking as I stare at the blue-lit screen, my throat clogging, the words beginning to blur as I wish them away. Wish away all the money we spent at the expense of his fraudulent activities, wish away the gambling problem, this morally corrupt city, and—
I bump into something cold, the phone leaving my fingers and bouncing across the mesh of the trampoline, now blocking my path. That I walked straight into.
I know he’ll go to prison. He’s not a rough man. And he’s sixty-nine-years-old. But he’s the man who read me Brer Rabbit when I was younger while my mum focused on my sisters. He knew how much I loved how Brer always tricked the fox, the owl, and the bear. Loved how naughty and cheeky he was.
