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‘How’s Dad?’
‘He’s fine,’ replied Shay. No point in telling him that Bruce had gone off to a cave with all his best clothes and his passport; at least, not until she had to.
‘Do you need any help doing paperwork or anything?’ Sunny lifted up his glass and Shay noticed how bitten his fingernails were. Courtney had bought him a manicure set once because he always took pride in his nails, his hands. His tools. ‘I suppose you’ll be packing up all Gran’s stuff at some point. Courtney and I will come and help you do that. You shouldn’t do it alone.’
‘I can’t sell the house until probate has been granted and that’ll take a couple of months at least, I think. I can’t face dismantling anything at the moment anyway. I have to let go in stages.’ She lifted her fresh orange juice and wished it had a double vodka in it.
‘Is there a lot to do?’
She laughed a little, a dry, tired sound. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m guessing Auntie Paula isn’t doing her fair share?’
‘Fairandsharearen’t words in your Auntie Paula’s vocabulary,’ replied Shay. They didn’t sit well withdestroy, annihilation, greed, illegal DNA tests.
‘Dad’ll be too busy working, I expect.’
Shay didn’t answer that.
Sunny raised his head and she looked at his eyes, so like her own, the colour of cocoa, thick black lashes, their shared Egyptian heritage. Should she tell Sunny about his real grandfather? By giving him a stranger, she would take away the man he’d always known in that place; Harry Corrigan, who played cards with him and bought him books, pens and pencils.Is this why my mother didn’t tell me? Is this what was running through her mind every time she thought I deserved to know?
‘So much seems to have happened in such a short time,’ said Sunny, the cool drink not alleviating that painful-sounding rasp.
You don’t know the half of it, thought Shay, but she answered, ‘Yes, there’s been a lot to get our heads around. But your gran wouldn’t want us moping. She always said that people should grieve up to the funeral and then stop, otherwise it becomes maudlin. Although that’s easier said than done in practice. How’s Karoline? Is she still off work?’
‘Yes,’ said Sunny and the unprompted thought came to Shay that maybe that’s why her son was out at work with a sore throat. It was an unkind fancy she was immediately ashamed of.
‘I imagine she’ll be using the time off to refine her wedding plans – six weeks now, isn’t it?’
Shay saw the cloud that passed in front of her son’s face at the mention of it, saw his expression droop.
‘It was never supposed to be this big. I didn’t want the fuss.’
‘Well why didn’t you put your foot down?’
‘I’m not the type, am I? I’m a wimp.’ He laughed a little, in the same self-deprecating way Denny used to and a shiver wriggled down her spine at the comparison.
‘You’re not a wimp, but you always were accommodating. You’d give way if it meant peace, but not every time.’ On the occasions when her children squabbled, Courtney would win the argument, but nearly always because her brother let her.
‘Accommodating…’ Sunny smiled. ‘I like that.’
‘What made you want to get married so quickly? You were going out for hardly any time at all when you got engaged.’
Sunny shrugged. ‘I can’t remember. We went out with her friends, we all got blasted. She told me the next morning I’d proposed and it was full steam ahead from then on. It was a bit fast, I know.’
‘And you can’t remember?’ Well, that wasn’t dodgy at all.
‘Nope. But I must have.’
‘Oh, Sunny. It’s not too late to put the brakes on.’
A little laugh of disbelief. ‘It is. It really is.’ He pinched the top of his nose and shook his head and made a noise of such utter despair that it scared her.
‘Is this why you’re losing weight and getting sore throats?’
‘It’ll be okay when it’s all over and done with.’
Shay recalled the pressure of her own wedding: the reception venue cocking things up, the flower woman being poorly and having to find someone else at the eleventh hour. And she knew that deep down she had wanted a big, splashy wedding to try and obliterate the memories of what hadhappened five years before on the same date. That’s what scared her, because sometimes weddings were just big fat smoke screens with canapés.
