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Gus exhaled. “Okay, I get it. But there are lots of people in Australia who aren’t lawyers. What are you doing here?”
“I…I thought…” She told him about the creative writing classes she’d taken, the story she wanted to write. The words stumbled out, a confession: her increasing disinterest in the law, the ever-growing sense of panic and loneliness, and the feeling that she just couldn’t face another day, another lecture, until all she could do was run. Then Theo made herself stop talking, knowing the frantic explanations, the pleading justifications made her sound quite mad, and she needed Gus to believe that she was at least sane. She bit her lip to stop herself from filling the silence with words.
For a moment he said nothing, simply looking at her as if he were trying to decide if she was really herself. And then he groaned. “Bloody hell, Theo. You could have just said this on the phone, and I would have picked you up at Fort Worth.”
“You would have told me to stay…to get my degree.”
“I’m your big brother. I have to say that… But I still would have met you at the airport when you ignored me.” He told her she could choose from the two unused bedrooms, though he recommended the one farthest from the bathroom, as the pipes had a tendency to make noises in the night.
At first, Theo wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “I left,” she said slowly. “I told the dean I wouldn’t be coming back. I’m not going to be a lawyer, Gus. I’ve half a degree, which qualifies me for just about nothing…but I can’t—”
“You said.” He yawned. “Are you hungry? I’m starving…”
“But the trust—”
Gus shrugged. The university education of Gus and Theo Benton was financed through a complicated trust set up by their late grandfather—who had been quite an eminent member of the American Bar. When his only daughter had eloped with a penniless Australian musician, Robert Maclean had cut her off from his life and his fortune, but he had hoped through the trust to retrieve his grandchildren, to lure them back into his world.
“I’ll speak to the trustees, if you like,” he offered, unperturbed. “Work out a stay of execution for the rest of the year.”
“I’m never going back! He’s dead now—he won’t care!”
Gus smiled. “If anything could make the old bastard come back…” Their grandfather had chosen futures for them, and even from beyond the grave had managed to dictate their lives, through the terms of his trust. Gus had taken the path of least resistance, but he’d clearly not had the courage of his little sister. Still, he’d come out an attorney, and so he tried to preserve an out clause for Theo. “How about we hold off telling the trustees until we absolutely have to? There’s nothing to be gained by giving them extra notice. I’ll just tell them you’re taking the rest of the year off to help me with a case and gain some invaluable industry experience.”
“They won’t believe that!”
“Making people believe is what I do,” Gus replied, looking at his cell phone. “We could get takeout… What do you feel like?”
Despite herself, Theo smiled.
“You have until Christmas to write your novel,” he continued. “Then at least you can tell them you’re not quitting law school to be a bum…though that might be quite satisfying.” Gus pulled out his wallet and handed her a debit card to his account in case she needed money. “The password is vegemite.”
Theo took the card, too overcome with gratitude and relief to thank him. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, but her resolve to hold herself together crumbled. The dog, whose name was apparently Horse, licked her face.
Gus handed her a box of tissues and ordered pizza.
“Why…you…so nice?” Theo spluttered finally and somewhat ineloquently for someone who wanted to write. There were more than six years between her and Gus, and they had not lived in the same house or country for more than a decade. He’d left when she was ten years old. She’d grown up in his shadow, admired and resented him in equal measure, missed him, hated him, and loved him… But she wasn’t really sure she knew him the way you normally knew family. How could she? “You’re not just humoring me, are you, Gus? Because you want me to stop wailing? I know it doesn’t seem that way, but I’m not having a breakdown. I promise I—”
Gus laughed. “Yeah, I’m just buying time till the doctor gets here to sedate you…” He waited till she lifted her eyes to his. “Look, Theo, you don’t have to be so well adjusted all the time. You’re allowed to react to what happened.”
“I’m not—”
“I know. But you are allowed, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Okay?”
Theo nodded. She had turned to Gus instinctively, as she had when she was a child. But now she remembered that the instinct had never proved false. And she breathed out. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we were supposed to be lawyers… I didn’t think you’d understand why I suddenly thought I could be a novelist.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to be a professional surfer.”
The matter was thus settled. Theo took the room farthest from the bathroom, as recommended.
The old house that Gus had bought a couple of streets away from what used to be Crane, Hayes and Purcell, and which was now Crane, Hayes and Benton, was badly in need of renovation. It had probably never been a grand house, but in its current state of decline, it was definitely the worst house on the best street…or at least the best street that Gus could afford. Gus’s financial reserves had apparently been so drastically depleted by the cost of buying out Gerard Purcell that anything more than plumbing and electricity was deemed nonessential. Even so, he’d adamantly refused to take any money from his sister.
“You came here to write a novel, not to work in a sandwich shop so you can pay rent,” he’d said firmly. “As long as you make it absolutely clear to any woman who comes by that you are my sister, we’ll be square.”
They talked about what to tell their parents and decided that until Theo’s decision was irreversible, saying nothing was best. As much as Paul and Beth Benton spurned such things as convention, job security, and wealth, they had been somewhat relieved that their choices were not going to be imposed upon their offspring, that they could reject the capitalist system without depriving their children. Theo feared that telling them would mean they’d want her to come home to meditate and reconnect with something or other, perhaps pick up a tambourine and join her father’s act.
As the elder Bentons had originally migrated to Tasmania to join an effort to save the island’s forests from development, they had, over the years, been arrested several times trying to do just that. Consequently, criminal records kept them out of the United States, and their aversion to modern technology made contact sporadic and difficult, hasty, fragmented exchanges over bad lines. As a result, avoiding any discussion of the fact that Theo’s presence in Lawrence was not a coincidental short visit, was easier that one might think, and the escape of Theodosia Benton was made with barely a ripple.
In the days that followed, Theo cleaned the house, removing years of grime, attacking mold and fixing what she could, as she told herself she was earning her keep. She sanded and repainted, washed and cooked until Gus, somewhat unceremoniously, threw her out.
