by Brandy Scott
‘No we bloody won’t.’
Courage, Aimee. ‘But it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Not in this case.’ Melinda put a hand on Aimee’s arm. ‘Listen to them, Aimee,’ she said quietly. ‘None of those people are thinking rationally.’ And neither are you, Melinda’s eyes said. ‘It wouldn’t matter what the inquiry found. The accident would be our fault in everyone’s minds from the moment you opened your mouth.’
‘But maybe it is.’
‘And maybe it isn’t. Pete wasn’t taking his medication, he’d been drinking. Maybe he was trying to end things.’
Aimee felt the air in her lungs go cold. ‘Are you suggesting . . . that he would . . . with Lincoln —’
Melinda shrugged. ‘I don’t know. And neither do you.’
‘Of course I know. Peter Kasprowicz loved Lincoln. He’d never do anything to hurt him.’ Aimee crossed her arms. ‘Melinda, that man’s son is dead.’
‘And you confessing won’t change that.’
Was she made of stone? ‘His life is in ruins.’
‘So why do you want to ruin three more? Six, if you count Nick and your kids. Seven, with Tansy, eight with her baby. Come on, Aimee. You’ve got a depressed, drunk, amateur pilot, flying at night through a bloody hailstorm of fireworks, and you want to sacrifice all of us because of a couple of tiny lanterns on the other side of the river? What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m trying to act like a decent human being, rather than a sociopath. What’s wrong with you?’
Bloody hell, they were still at it. Lou walked back inside to find her two oldest friends glaring at each other.
‘Thank God,’ said Melinda. ‘Talk some sense into her, will you?’
‘You understand, don’t you?’ pleaded Aimee. ‘You’re a mother.’
‘Understand what?’ said Lou, texting. Tansy was at a friend’s house, and didn’t want to leave. Too bad. Picking you up in ten, she typed, and pushed send.
‘Why we have to say something,’ said Aimee. ‘About the accident.’
‘Why we bloody can’t,’ said Melinda. ‘It’ll ruin all our lives. Including yours, Lou.’
‘But it’s fine to ruin Pete’s, is that it?’ Aimee was getting teary. ‘He doesn’t deserve justice?’
‘His is already ruined,’ said Melinda. ‘You said so yourself.’
‘Lou,’ bleated Aimee. ‘Help me.’
Do I have to? asked Tansy. Yes, said Lou. But she didn’t want to upset her daughter. So she added a smiley face and a promise of McDonald’s.
‘Lou.’ Melinda had her do-what-I-say voice on now. ‘Tell her.’
But Lou didn’t feel like falling into line. ‘Buggered if I know,’ she said. ‘And to be honest, I don’t really care.’
‘What?’
‘Lou —’
‘And neither do either of you.’ Lou glanced back down at her phone, where there were real problems. ‘You’re both only worried about yourselves.’
‘Well, Melinda is, but I —’
‘Aimee’s not even thinking about —’
‘Stop it, both of you.’ Lou had had enough now. Enough of Melinda’s power games, enough of Aimee’s whingeing. Enough of looking after everyone. Because that was all she bloody did. Ironic, given how everyone questioned the quality of her mothering. Lou shook her head. She had her own family to look after, now more than ever. She didn’t have time for this. ‘Come on. Let’s be honest. Neither of you are really worried about Pete, or Lincoln. You never have been.’
That shut them up. ‘You don’t want the truth, Aimee. You just want to feel better. You want someone to tell you it’s all going to be okay, to absolve you. To take over. It’s like when you call me in a spin, asking for advice. You’re not actually after my opinion, you’re looking to outsource the worry. You use people like a pacifier.’
Aimee’s face went blotchy pink as she gaped at Lou like a newborn searching for a nipple.
‘You’re not trying to give Pete justice,’ said Lou. ‘You’re trying to make this someone else’s problem.’
‘Thank you,’ said Melinda.
‘As for you.’ Lou turned to Melinda, who was somehow not covered in vomit or sweat like Aimee and Lou, but looking cool and righteous. And angry. Well, Lou didn’t care any more if she was angry. ‘You’re not worried about them either. Or us, or our families. You’re worried about yourself, and your precious company, and what might affect your bloody IPO. Do you think we’re stupid?’
‘And you’re the only one who’s not thinking about herself, is that it?’ Melinda had her hands on her hips, looking very much like she used to in the playground thirty years before when someone didn’t do what she wanted. ‘The only one who’s not a bad person.’
‘I’m the only one who’s not being a hypocrite.’
‘You are, actually,’ said Melinda. ‘Because you’re as much a part of this as we are. You can’t just wash your hands of the situation and say it’s got nothing to do with you.’
Lou shrugged. ‘Doesn’t mean I have to waste my time arguing about it,’ she said. ‘Trying to control everything. What will happen, will happen, regardless.’ Her phone vibrated. Lou checked it, and shoved it back in her jeans. ‘Honestly, I’ve got bigger things to worry about than your insecurities, or your reputation.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ said Melinda. ‘It’s not your money that’s going to end up paying for this.’
Lou gave a snort. ‘That would be one of the benefits of not having any.’
‘Think of the effect it will have on Tansy,’ said Melinda, changing tack. ‘The baby.’
Lou whirled around. ‘Don’t you dare bring Tansy into this. You don’t care about her, or what might affect her. God, you don’t even ask how she’s doing.’
‘I do,’ said Aimee, pathetically. ‘I ask.’
‘Only so you can feel smug about the fact that it’s not your perfect daughter,’ said Lou. ‘Only so you can sit there thinking, “My Shelley would never do this.”’
Aimee groped along the bench for her water bottle.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Lou grabbed her handbag. ‘Fuck the both of you. I can’t be dealing with this.’
Neither Aimee nor Melinda stopped her as Lou strode towards the door. They just stared at her, looking stunned.
‘Tell,’ said Lou. ‘Don’t tell. I don’t care. Do whatever suits you. You always do anyway. Both of you.’ And she banged out the fire exit and into the glorious peace of the parking lot.
In the quiet of the kitchen, Aimee began to cry. She didn’t bother to wipe the tears, just stood there with snot and mascara dripping down her face, leaving tracks in what little foundation had managed to survive the morning. There were flecks of white tissue on her black shirt where Lou had tried to scrub the vomit away, and a roll of escaping fat where her Spanx had clearly given up. She looked pathetic and vulnerable, and it was all Melinda could do not to bustle her out the door after Lou and safely home. But she couldn’t. For all their sakes, she couldn’t make Aimee feel better. She had to make her feel worse. Melinda reached out and grabbed Aimee’s wrists.
‘Listen to me,’ she said quietly, feeling like the biggest bitch who ever walked, but this had to be done. Aimee was self-destructing and taking them all down with her. ‘If you start telling people about the lanterns, if you talk to anyone about us potentially having anything to do with the accident, I’ll make sure no one in this town ever listens to you again.’ She squeezed Aimee’s wrists, hard, to drive the point home.
‘Like you, you mean,’ said Aimee.
‘They don’t like me, but they respect me,’ said Melinda. ‘They’ll listen to me. They’re not going to listen to you, Aimee, because you’re not credible.’
‘I am,’ said Aimee. ‘I’m school council president. I’m practically a local.’
‘You have a history of making things up.’
Aimee gasped. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘You imagine things,’ said Melinda. �
��Convince yourself they happened. You’ve done this before.’
‘I was ill,’ Aimee whispered, twisting in Melinda’s grip. ‘And that was a long time ago.’
Melinda’s heart twisted with her. But still she kept her hold tight. ‘You convince yourself that you’re responsible for events you have nothing to do with.’
‘I was unwell,’ Aimee repeated. ‘And it doesn’t mean I’m sick again now. It doesn’t mean I’m imagining this.’
‘Aimee, you weren’t unwell. You didn’t have the flu. You had a mental breakdown. You were in a psychiatric hospital.’
The harsh words bounced off the steel surfaces around them. No one ever said it, Melinda realised. But someone had to. And as usual, it was her.
‘If you tell anyone . . .’ Aimee said shakily.
‘I won’t say anything,’ Melinda promised. ‘As long as you don’t. Deal?’ She squeezed one more time. ‘Aimee? Do we have a deal?’
Aimee yanked her hands away and wiped them down the front of her skirt, as though to get any trace of Melinda off her.
‘Come on, promise me.’
Aimee backed towards the door, looking at Melinda as though she didn’t even recognise her. ‘You’re supposed to be my friend,’ she whispered, as she fumbled for the handle, then ran, stumbling slightly, out into the sun.
CHAPTER 22
Cameron lay on the floor of his brother’s room and stared at the model planes dangling from the ceiling. They hung completely still, their wings held aloft by a funky teenage mix of sweat and sneakers and spray deodorant. But Cameron didn’t open a window. Didn’t want a single molecule of his brother to escape before he’d had a chance to properly say goodbye.
He took a deep breath, as though he could absorb the last few years of Lincoln’s life by breathing in stale air. The walls were covered in Blu-tacked pictures of a teenager he didn’t quite recognise: the same toothy grin, but taller, thinner. More confident. Lincoln had been a shy and overweight twelve when Cameron left. ‘But I had no choice,’ Cameron angrily told the room. He couldn’t stay here, watching Pete get on with his life like nothing had happened, watching him go off every day to work at the same place as her, knowing what he knew.
Through the thin wall, Cameron could hear Pete banging around in his own bedroom, becoming familiar with the newly dark space. He didn’t get up to help. Just watched the planes shudder slightly with the reverberation. Had Lincoln really loved the idea of flying that much, or had Pete pushed him into it? Wanted his real son to share his passion? ‘I’m your dad too,’ Pete had insisted, when Cameron started calling him by his first name, but that was bull. Pete was Lincoln’s father and Cameron’s stepfather, and there was a world of difference. Pete had never bothered to take Cameron flying.
There was a painful-sounding thump next door, but Cameron stayed put. He had a real dad, in Sydney, the first place he’d run to, but he’d been just as useless. Hadn’t wanted much to do with him. Cameron had spent a week on his old man’s couch then taken off again, working odd labouring shifts until he lucked out and got a job crewing on a super yacht. Went wherever they sent him. Travelling was a bloody good way to deal with pain.
But in turning his back on Pete, he’d also turned his back on Lincoln. Cameron stood up and fingered a yellow Tiger Moth. Kid probably thought he didn’t care. He yanked on the plane, feeling a satisfying pop as the string gave up its grip on the plaster. And when he finally did return, it was too late. He pulled down another plane, then another, and another. Cameron wasn’t one for apologies. But he could make a promise. He went to chuck the planes in the bin, then realised it was probably Lincoln who’d painstakingly glued them together. ‘I’ll make sure no one gets away with anything,’ he whispered, stacking the models carefully in a desk drawer instead. ‘I’ll find out what happened, and I’ll make sure people pay.’ First his mum, now his brother. Cameron felt a wave of emotion so overwhelming he had to drop onto Lincoln’s narrow single bed. ‘I promise,’ he said again, trying to stay angry. Anger was easier to deal with than grief; his grief might just bury him. Justice, Cameron told himself, as he clutched Lincoln’s pillow to his chest. Retaliation. Payback. It was the only thing that had kept him sane last time. He shoved his face in the pillow so Pete wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing him fall apart.
CHAPTER 23
Aimee ran down the main street, wishing her family away.
Not forever, obviously. But just for the day, the next few hours even, so she didn’t have to face them like this. Embarrassed. Filthy. Thoughts bouncing painfully up and down like her under-supported double-Ds in the bra she’d outgrown years before.
She ran past the newsagents, the butchers, the hardware store, all thankfully closed for the town concert. Ignored the curious stares of parents hustling tearful children into SUVs, the hesitant half-waves from people she sat on committees with.
‘Just getting a bit of exercise,’ she huffed to old Marjory, sitting outside the post office in the sun. Sharna, praise the Lord, was nowhere to be seen. Still out spreading the news of Aimee’s humiliation, no doubt.
Aimee ran faster.
Over Hunters Creek bridge, past the bowling club, the town swimming pool. Up the hill that led to the servo. The teenage attendant on the forecourt gaped at her.
‘I’m in training,’ Aimee snapped, aware of the skirt riding up her knees, her pointy leather flats biting into her feet as she lumbered along. The picture she must be painting: a middle-aged fat woman, puffing along in her Going Out clothes, all failed deodorant and sweat patches.
A crazy woman.
‘I’m not crazy,’ she told herself, as she turned onto the wide grass verges of Old School Road. ‘I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.’ Heading out of town now, the space between houses growing. Miles from their own property, but Nick had taken the car and it wasn’t as though she could’ve asked Melinda for a lift. Aimee yanked off her shoes and continued barefoot. ‘I’m not crazy,’ she repeated, the mantra giving her focus and rhythm as she ran. The exercise she was supposed to be doing anyway, to keep her head from turning on her.
Forget her head turning on her. Look at her friends.
The houses disappeared, giving way to fields, the occasional vineyard. Long dirt driveways. Aimee slowed to a walk now the danger of people wanting to talk to her had passed. And it wasn’t as though she was in any hurry to get home. She had nothing to say to Nick or her children, no explanation except the truth. Aimee felt a little sick again. Please let him have taken them out to lunch like Melinda ordered. Please let me have a bit of space, to sort myself out in private. Except Aimee knew her husband, and knew he’d be at home, waiting for her. Worrying about her.
Thinking it was happening again.
It wasn’t happening again.
It couldn’t happen again.
Aimee hitched up her skirt and began to run.
‘Before you overreact, remember, this is not a definitive diagnosis. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong.’
Lou eyeballed the doctor. ‘Overreact?!’ The bloody nerve. ‘You message me to say we need to come in asap, tell us there might be some kind of problem with the baby, and you’re telling me not to overreact?’
The doctor — cool, calm, expensive — looked at Lou with exaggerated patience. ‘Mrs Henderson, you’re not helping.’
‘I’m not married.’ But Lou took her point. In the armchair next to her, Tansy looked as though she’d been shocked with a cattle prod. Lou put an arm around her rigid daughter and forced her voice to remain even. ‘All right then. What does it mean?’
The doctor put her pen down on the pile of test papers. She walked around the desk and pulled a third chair in towards Lou and Tansy, so close her bare knees were almost touching theirs. ‘The important thing to remember is this is only a first-trimester screening,’ she said. ‘It can give an abnormal result, even when there’s nothing wrong. On the other hand, it could be the first sign there’s an issue.’
> Under Lou’s arm, Tansy flinched.
‘So what do the results suggest?’ asked Lou.
‘There’s an indication that the baby might — might — have a chromosomal condition called trisomy 13,’ the doctor said.
‘Is that bad?’ asked Tansy.
‘It’s serious, yes.’ The doctor spoke gently. ‘Babies with this condition have quite severe abnormalities. Parts of the baby, like its eyes or its spine or its heart, might not develop properly. There would almost certainly be intellectual disability. A lot of babies with this condition don’t live very long after they’re born. And those that do, struggle to have what you and I would call a normal life. They need a lot of extra care.’
‘But you said you didn’t know,’ said Tansy.
‘I don’t know, you’re absolutely right.’
‘So why even tell us?’ Tansy demanded. ‘Why would you say something like that, if you weren’t sure?’
The doctor flicked her eyes towards Lou. ‘Because you’re very young, and you’re also very early in your pregnancy. Eight weeks now, am I right?’
Lou nodded. ‘We think so.’
‘We know so,’ said Tansy. ‘I’ve only slept with one person. I’m not a slut.’
The doctor winced slightly. ‘Anyway. You need to be aware that this is a possibility. Because it might alter the decisions you make, going forward.’
Tansy whipped her head around. ‘Is she talking about abortion?’
‘Tansy.’ Lou tightened her hold on her daughter to keep her in the chair.
‘Because I’m not having an abortion. I’ve already decided. No matter what.’
The doctor nodded. ‘And I wouldn’t try to influence you. I’m just giving you all the information. That’s my job.’
‘We don’t need any more information.’ Tansy wriggled out of Lou’s grip. ‘I don’t want to know any more.’
‘I would recommend further testing.’ The doctor moved back behind her desk, pulled the little keyboard towards her. ‘Even just so you can prepare.’
‘I don’t want to walk around for the next seven months thinking there might be something wrong with my baby.’