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‘If only.’ He smirks.
I give him a dirty look as I pull my underwear back on and lift a box of old photos from the top of my cupboard, shoving it in Caleb’s hands.
‘Go,’ I beg, pointing towards the door.
Caleb is confused. ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’
‘We can say we found them. Go.’
Caleb and I walk downstairs together. My mother looks outwardly stern, but I see her fighting to contain a smile.
‘I see you found some photos. Ariella, kitchen. And Caleb, you might want to pop to the bathroom.’
I look at Caleb. His previously neatly tucked shirt is rumpled and partly untucked at the bottom. I am overwhelmed with embarrassment. At least his fly isn’t open…Nope. It is. I want to die. He notices too.
‘Dahlia, it’s not what you—’ he starts.
‘Caleb. Bathroom.’ I help him out.
He hands me the box and walks to the bathroom sheepishly. In the kitchen, Mommy lowers her voice to scold me.
‘Ariella, I’m not intervening when your father starts wondering where his shotgun is and tapping his foot for hollow spaces under the patio. What’s up with you?’
‘I don’t know! On Friday night, we just…I feel alive around him. I’m not so…preoccupied. It’s freeing. I’ve never felt like this before. It’s not even emotional.’ I’ve said too much and it is too late to take it back.
‘Maybe not for you.’
‘It’s Caleb, Mommy. It’s not like that.’ I wave the suggestion away.
‘We’ll see. Let’s talk later. Potatoes. They’ll be here any minute.’
I take the potatoes off the boil, brush them with duck fat and start putting them in the baking tray. A few minutes later, the doorbell goes.
‘I’ll get it!’ I volunteer.
‘No, you won’t!’ my mother interjects. ‘You need to go upstairs and grab any one of my scarves. The bruises on your neck have acquired a new friend.’
Lunch is tense. Our normally chatty, happy table is exceptionally quiet, and it’s winding Zachary up. I can feel his frustration steadily increase as the conversations he starts keep coming to an abrupt end. Everyone seems to be consumed with their thoughts, and have no problems showing it on their faces. Jasper’s mom keeps shooting me death stares, alongside loving glances to her son. Daddy is giving Jasper approving looks, occasionally nodding subtly in my direction. I can see you, Daddy. He also manages to throw a permanent look of deep disapproval in Caleb’s direction. Mommy is trying her best to keep the peace by being especially nice to Caleb and Margaret. Caleb, thankfully, is ignoring me, but keeps inching further away from Katherine. At one point, he is almost off the table; not that Katherine notices. Her focus is fixed on him, giving Margaret another target for her hostility.
Jasper tries to help keep Zachary’s conversations alive while having an exceptionally polite discussion with me about work. It is a precarious situation, but it is beginning to look as if we will all make it out alive; until Isszy drops the line, ‘It’s so good to see that, even after everything, Jas and Aari can still remain friends.’
Zachary bursts out laughing.
Jasper’s mom takes the bait. ‘What’s so funny, Zachary?’ Oh no.
I pray that, for once, Zachary will say nothing, but today is not the day for that prayer to be answered. My mother deflates and shuts her eyes. She knows her son.
‘They’re not friends. Not even in the loosest definition of the word.’
Oh no. He lifts his fork and starts pointing the potato at the end of it at each of us.
‘Can we just talk about this and get it over with? The passive-aggressiveness at this table squarely places this lunch in the fifth circle of hell.’
‘Zachary!’ Mommy scolds, but it is too late. She knows it too.
‘Aari walked out on Jasper for some secret reason that we’re all trying to figure out because, let’s face it, Jasper is the man we all want to be, but are too flawed to come close. Love you, bro, I don’t get it either. Then, Jasper becomes so macho and hostile, even I don’t recognise him. So, congratulations, Aari. You broke Jasper. Anyway, he lets Aari go, totally convinced she’s going to come back, but it’s been almost seven months and there’s still no sign of her returning. Five months in, realising he’ll need the big guns, Jasper recruits Daddy and they start jogging weekly to invent some dodgy strategy to get her back. What Mom doesn’t know, though, is half an hour of that ninety minutes is spent having a fry-up at the Harbour Hotel.’
‘Hugh?’ Mommy asks, and Daddy looks elsewhere.
