by Max Henry
She looks around us, as though to check we haven’t been overheard. “Let’s get out of here, yeah? We’ll go get a late-night apple pie from McDonald’s and find somewhere to talk about this.”
“Did he lie to me, Tanya?” Truth—always the truth.
She places a hand on my shoulder and guides me from the station. “Not here, okay?”
I don’t utter another word to her the whole way to the drive-through, or even as she pulls into a park at the reserve. The crinkle of paper as she pulls our apple pies out is insanely loud in the otherwise quiet car.
“Eat.” She offers me one, waggling it at me the same as Carver did that first night at the bonfire.
Appetite, lost. “He’s done for, isn’t he?” I ask, arms folded.
She opens the cardboard pocket and blows on the hot contents. “More or less.”
“Do you think he did it?”
She sighs, waving the hot pie back and forth through the air, her focus squarely on it. “I’m undecided.”
“Well that sounds hopeful,” I sass.
“He has this way of… I don’t know… doing what he thinks is right, but not thinking through the full consequences of his actions.”
An awkward moment passes with Tanya trying to eat her apple pie as quietly as possible, while I stare out the side window at the sheer pitch-black surrounding us.
“I can’t stomach just sitting back and doing nothing.”
“We won’t,” she replies. “And as much as a grumpy old bugger Dad is, he’s probably the best person to talk to about it.”
“Why? He set him up last time.”
“Yeah,” she says, drawing out the word, “but….”
“But what? What excuse is there for what he did?”
“There’s none,” she agrees. “But the thing you don’t get, Meg, is that Dad’s been to prison. He’s been in this life for decades. Dad knows how the cops work, and he would know how we can get Brett out, if we even can.” She looks down at the box in her hands, fidgeting with it as she sighs. “I know it’s hard, and I know this is all new for you, but it’s not for our family. There’s a reason why the whole damn town sees us all as nothing but criminals, and that’s because we’ve given them reason to.”
“But you’re good people,” I protest. “You guys were the only people who were there when I needed somebody to listen, to care.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But good people still do bad things, Meg.”
I run a hand down the leg of my jeans and frown. Why did he, though? I never forced him to pay for that damn motel. God, it’s all my fault. I did this. If it weren’t for me and my stupid problems, then he never would have felt the need to steal to support us. What the hell did you do, Carver?
“What’s going on in that head of yours?”
I look over at Tanya, at how tired she appears, how dejected. She’s a mirror of me. “If it wasn’t for me having this disagreement with my parents, needing somewhere to stay….”
“Shush.” She shakes her head firmly. “None of it is because of you, so get that ludicrous thought out of your head. He’s a grown man, Meg; he can make his own decisions.”
“Maybe so, but I think it’s about time I started making my own.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s go talk to your dad and see what he can do, huh? I know Carver wants me to have nothing to do with him—”
“Me as well,” Tanya adds.
“But if putting up with his shit is what it takes to help your brother get his arse out of jail, then I’m all in.”
“Atta girl.”
***
Jon Carver is exactly where we left him, drinking in his armchair while his inebriated girlfriend snores on the sofa to his left. I walk into the lounge and stand where he can’t help but see me. Tanya follows me in and pats my shoulder before she takes a seat on the second sofa opposite Deb.
“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” His eyes never leave the TV.
“We need your help.” Damn that waver in my voice.
He turns his head and regards me before looking around me to eye Tanya. “What the hell would you want my help for?”
“Brett’s in custody,” she drops. “He got picked up for burglary.”
Their old man grumbles under his breath and turns his attention back to the TV with a sneer. “Stupid boy never did learn.”
“Learn what?” I snap, despite the sick fear slapping around in my gut. “He was sentenced for a crime you did last time, so what should he have learnt? Not to trust his father?”
Jon’s eyes go wide, his shock at being spoken back to clear as day in the way his head rears back. “Excuse me?”
“You did him wrong last time, so how about you try and make up for that by helping him this time.”
“Why would I help the useless little shit? He couldn’t even hold down a job, for fuck’s sake.” He leans forward in the chair, one hand braced on the rolled arm as he pops an elbow out.
Tanya rises behind me and comes to stand at my side. “Because you owe it to him, Dad.”
“I owe him nothing,” he roars, his face growing redder with every passing second.
“Bullshit. Who carried this family when you were out of work, huh?”
“It’s the least he could do for dragging our name through the mud. It’s his fucking fault I can’t get work. Nobody wants the father of a thief on their payroll.”
“You’re fucking unbelievable,” Tanya hollers, making Deb stir. “Can’t you just for once in your life accept responsibility for what a disappointment you are? Brett has one charge against his name, before this. How about you? How many you up to now? Did it ever occur to you that you’re the reason why nobody wants to hire him?”
Jon shoots out of the seat with enough speed to knock me back as he charges Tanya. She screams as his hand connects with her face, covering the immediate welt with her shaking fingers. My heart stampedes in my chest as I watch him pace like a caged animal, his nostrils flaring while he seemingly considers hitting her again.
“What’s going on?” Deb asks as she sits up, hair askew and make-up smudged.
“Go clean yourself up, you filthy slut,” Jon bellows.
She slips off the sofa and scurries up the hallway to presumably do just that.
“You’re a fucking wanker,” Tanya sobs from her position cowering against the sofa. “You’ve never done a thing to help this family. You’ve never been a father. You’re just a bully who got himself stuck with a bunch of kids he never wanted.”
“Oh, and you’re just waking up to that now, are you?”
“Fuck you.”
“I should have fucking drowned you as a baby,” he yells, his face inches from Tanya’s.
“Stop it!” I scream.
Both of them shut the hell up and spin to face me, stunned.
“Just stop it! Why do you do this to each other?”
“Who the fuck are you to come in to my house and tell us how to behave?” Jon’s thick hand wraps around my throat, shoving me back into the armchair behind me so that my legs buckle over the seat and I fall into the cushions. He presses harder, pinning me to the seat by my neck as I scrabble my hands over his unrelenting wrist. “Who am I?” I choke from under his grasp. “I’m just some stupid fucking girl who’s gone and fallen in love with your son.” His eyes widen a fraction, and his hand relaxes a little. “You know, the useless kid?” I continue. “He’s not to me. He’s the only reason I’m still fighting to make it through this shitty thing called life. He is my life and I need you to get it back.”
Jon turns to Tanya and frowns. “Is she for real?”
I catch what I assume is a nod in my peripheral vision.
“My son?” he asks. “My son has helped you? For what? What has he got out of it?”
“Nothing,” I whisper, the restriction on my neck enough to still make breathing difficult.
He lets go with a sigh and reaches down to grab my hand, jerking me up to my fe
et. “Why do you think I would be able to help him?”
“Provide an alibi. Say he was here talking to you when it happened.”
His eyes flash with anger again, and I wince, turning my head in preparation for what he’s going to deal.
“You want me to lie?”
“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?” I say calmly, trying to show I’m not being a smartarse, merely stating the facts.
Jon heaves a heavy breath and places both hands on his hips. He looks between Tanya and me, a frown deep in his brow, and turns to pace.
My breath comes short and tight as I watch him move around the room, resting every so often before he jerks from his spot and marches off again. Seconds stretch into an infinite abyss of time as I wait on his answer.
He looks to Tanya who settles onto the edge of the armchair, hands clasped between her knees. Something passes through his gaze. Regret? Resolve?
“No.”
Resignation.
“I can’t.” He shakes his head vehemently, turning his focus back to me. “I won’t.”
Carver was right. To even mention this man in the same sentence as the word “family” is a fucking joke. “What kind of father are you?” I whisper.
He stares at me pitifully, shifting his focus warily to Tanya before he answers. “One who should have known when to quit.”
I stare at him for an absurd amount of time, trying to work out what the fuck goes on in a man’s head for none of it to matter: the first glimpse at your baby when they’re born, the precious memories of milestones achieved as your child grows, and the knowledge that your offspring holds a ridiculous amount of unconditional love for you… no matter how big of an arsehole you might be.
How can he just leave his only son to fight alone? Whether Carver did it or not doesn’t matter anymore—Jon should want to help regardless. For everything Carver’s done. For everything Jon’s neglected to do.
“There aren’t words to describe you,” I seethe, backing out of the room.
The bastard smiles maliciously at me, shaking his head slowly while Tanya stands to join me. “You must have had me pegged all wrong in that pretty little head of yours, huh?”
“I must have.”
“Come on,” Tanya urges, taking me by the arm. “We’re clearly not going to get anywhere with him.”
She half leads, half drags me out of the house and to where the car waits in the driveway. I pace around to the passenger door and open it, only to slam it again when I realise that being cooped up in the confines of the vehicle again is the last thing I want to do while this rage burns a vile trail through me.
“I can’t believe he won’t even go down and talk to him.”
Tanya watches sympathetically over the top of the car as I pace the gap between the Falcon and the fence. She folds her arms on the roof and rests her chin on her forearms. “I don’t know why I thought this time might be different, either.”
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?” I stall my movements, eyeing her.
“Every time we’ve turned to Dad for help or guidance he’s shot us down.”
The remorse in her eyes softens my foul mood. I lean on the car, mirroring her stance. “Carver said you and him had to arrange your mum’s funeral on your own.”
“Yeah.” She sighs. “But in all fairness, I think we got it done easier without Dad getting in the way.”
“Still....”
She lifts her gaze to find mine and smiles weakly. “It’s about as shitty as your parents kicking you out, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She taps the roof with a flat hand and steps back. “Where to, Miss Daisy?”
I shrug, opening my door and dropping in at the same time as her. “I guess back to the motel, please.”
Tanya pauses, hands on the wheel, before she turns the car over. “I’m sorry we can’t offer you anywhere to stay, Meg.”
“Not your fault.” I’m not sure I could withstand the pressure cooker her father creates right now. Especially after he’s so blatantly abandoned his kid. Bastard.
The question remains though: where was Carver that day if not with his dad? And why would he lie to me about it? What does he have to hide? Only one way to know for sure.
“They won’t let you visit Brett until he’s had his preliminary hearing,” Tanya states, backing out the drive.
“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
She flashes me a smirk as she shifts the car into gear. “It was written all over your face.”
“I need to know where he was, why he lied to me.” Resting my elbow on the door, I sigh. “I need to know if he really did it.”
“So do I, honey. So do I.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Even the sun knows not to show its face today. I wake in the motel room with Tanya on the bed beside me for the second morning in a row. She’s hung out since dropping me off in the early hours of Sunday morning, probably as reluctant to go home as I am to be alone. The entire day yesterday was spent watching shitty movies on the small flat screen in the motel room, and grazing the three pizzas we’d ordered in as comfort food. We talked about mindless things to keep our focus off Carver and what today brings: her friends, what I’d planned to do after school before all of this happened, right down to where she shops online for most of her clothes. Not that any of it really helped.
The smell of Carver on the sheets, the memories of our first night shared here.... If I thought mourning Den was hard, this is something new entirely.
With Den, I know he’s gone. I can let myself cry it out because there’s no changing what happened. It’s final, and I have no choice but to make peace with that.
But the void from Carver?
The hope—it’s poisonous. It keeps the wound fresh, not allowing me to resolve this in my mind. Not when the outcome could go two very different ways. It’s infinitely worse knowing that there’s equal chance he could come home with us on bail today, or be remanded for God only knows how long behind bars awaiting trial.
The preliminary hearing is this afternoon at the small courthouse in Whitecaps. At least he hasn’t been transferred to the main court in the city. I can’t deny that I’m hoping it’s an indication of how non-severe they see his case to be. It’s all up to the judge today whether he’s granted bail awaiting trial or not.
“You’ve gotta eat, honey.” Tanya gives my plate of toast a nudge to draw my attention away from my thoughts.
“I know.” I pick up a piece of the jam-covered bread and stare at it. “I just can’t wait for today to be over.”
“Me either.”
We eat in silence, sharing the small round side table in the corner of the room. I’ve got a shift at the supermarket tonight, but I know already I’ll be useless at it. Thank heavens my next exam isn’t until tomorrow. Still, my mind’s going to be elsewhere no matter what the result this afternoon. If Carver’s out, I’ll want to be with him, and if he’s remanded, I’ll be a right fucking mess.
I could call in sick and take the day off work, but I know I won’t. If I’m to make it on my own I’m going to need money, and there’s only one way I can get it: work.
Tanya watches as I stand and work my way around the room, pulling open the drawers and cupboards one by one. “What are you looking for?”
“Some paper and a pen I could use.”
She points over to the bedside table. “Try beside the phone. What do you need it for?”
“I want to work some things out, like a budget and that.”
“Random.” She pops the last bite of her toast in her mouth and stands from the table, plate in hand. “Can I help at all?”
I want to say no; I’m so sick of having to be helped with everything. Still, she’s more or less managing this “adulting” thing how I’d like to, and knows what to expect. “Yeah, probably.” I draw up a header at the top and start writing down the expected costs of living on my own. “I’ve got rent, food, power, phone, and clothes. What
else?”
“Insurance for your things,” she says. “And are you going to buy a car?”
“Probably not.” Public transport goes most places around here.
“Well, even so, you’ll need to allow bus money.”
I add that in.
“And savings. You have to save for the unexpected. Doctors, time off work, that kind of thing.”
I nod, adding the final expense to the list. She helps me work through the average amounts I should expect to need to set aside, and when I tally it up I could cry. The amount required is twice what I earn.
“I’m never going to be able to do this.” I drop my head to the table between my folded arms. “Urgh.”
“Did you factor in benefits?”
“Huh?”
Tanya nods with a small smile on her pink painted lips. “I know some people think benefits should be treated like a dirty little secret, but they’re there to help people like you get a head start.”
We spend a good half hour scrolling through the calculators on the government website that estimate what I can expect to get in assistance. If I wasn’t turning eighteen in a couple of weeks, I’d do a lot better, but what they offer is at least something to help me keep afloat… as long as I can find rent cheap enough.
“I might have to room with someone,” I say, scrolling through the listings for rentals in the area on my phone. “Whitecaps is more expensive than I thought.”
“Why do you want to stay around here, though?”
I stop scrolling and lift my head to cock an eyebrow at her.
“Right. Brett.”
“Mm-hmm.” Everything listed is at least fifty dollars more than I could afford a week. “How the hell do people do this?”
She shrugs. “I guess they want it bad enough. Or,” she sighs, “they do what I do and put up with living with their parents to save on costs.”
“Do you pay board there?”
She snorts. “Yeah. Brett and I both do, but if we’re honest about it, it’s our money that pays the mortgage and keeps the power on.”
“Does Deb not pay anything?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”