by Kylie Kaden
‘Why? Because it makes the denial harder?’
He squared his jaw. ‘Can you just trust me on this one? Stay out of it.’
Hannah grabbed her sandals and stomped through the trees all the way to her car, yanked at the seatbelt so hard it locked up, and refused to release. She tried not to cry.
She’d come for answers, yet left with more questions, a thumping headache and wet knickers.
* * *
Will’s caginess, the lake and the memories it rekindled gave Hannah an unsettled feeling she couldn’t shake. Part of her felt an urgent need to reconcile all the ambiguity that was blurring the edges of her life, but she didn’t have the energy. She wanted to go home to a hot bath and a glass of red, but didn’t want to deal with Blake. She didn’t feel like facing her father and his old-fashioned opinions either, but it was the lesser of two unappealing options.
Molly stood on the front landing watering a pot of succulents and Hannah wondered, not for the first time, where she’d got her green thumb. Hannah certainly had no interest in being responsible for keeping anything alive other than herself. ‘Hey,’ Hannah greeted.
Molly grunted.
Hannah’s undies were still damp, had given her a wet patch and a wedgie.
‘You wet yourself at school today?’ Molly asked, only half joking. ‘You know they have things you can buy for that, now.’
‘Ha ha. How was school?’
‘Sucky. But no more than usual.’
Hannah didn’t believe her. Molly was like her father – always a book nerd, always open minded and wanting to please. ‘Dad okay?’
‘As okay as he gets.’
‘No more meals to deliver?’
‘All done.’
‘So, you can actually do homework now? Or you free to spend more time with Redhead Ed? I saw him hanging at the bakery – waiting for you, I take it?’
‘You mean Jake?’ Molly laughed. ‘Dunno.’
A stab of concern jolted Hannah. Was Molly sleeping with that douche? She was just a girl. Hannah realised Molly was already older than the age she started having sex. Maybe her father was right. Maybe she had started too young.
Hannah felt a knot in her throat, but she couldn’t let the opportunity slide. It was peculiar, this instinct she felt since she returned home. This fiery urge to care. She rested her hand on Molly’s sleek shoulder. ‘You know you can always come to me. If you have questions, or need anything.’
Molly shrugged, then realised the subtext in Hannah’s offer, and blushed. ‘Oh, God. We’re not doing it. Gross.’
Hannah felt a little better, and went inside. She heard horseracing blaring from the radio in her parents’ room, her dad egging on his favourite thoroughbred. She waved from the doorway and he gestured he’d be out shortly.
The hallway was a timeline of their family tree, with portraits dappling the faded walls: Hannah starting school; her mother’s hands on her shoulders, Hannah graduating university in her cap and gown. The opposite wall was crowded with Molly’s achievements: every school photo, every milestone. Hannah noticed a vacant hook. She stepped over to an old bureau of her grandmother’s that sat wide, gathering dust, at the end of the hall. It was full of family albums and old videocassettes despite the VCR jamming long ago. Hannah pulled open drawers, sorted under stacks of paper and found what she was looking for – a happy snap of her mother and family friend shaded by sombreros, sipping cocktails on the verandah of the cottage they’d shared with the Gardeners each summer. The photo showed Hannah and Andy sucking on watermelon over the sink in the background with sunburnt shoulders and cut-off shorts. Her mother looked even more beautiful than she remembered, her mouth wide in a natural, open smile. Hannah ran her finger over the dusty frame, the memories the image invoked tethering her to happier times in her childhood.
Hannah realised it wasn’t just her, curating her own image online like a publicist would for a footballer. Everyone moulded their lives by vetting their memories – highlighting some events by keeping reminders of people who left indelible marks on their heart, placing them prominently on display for all to see, while other unworthy parts of themselves were banished with the hope of being forgotten.
Her father had chosen to store that particular summer-house memory out of sight, but Hannah remembered exactly when it was taken down. And she’d never forget why.
Hannah dusted off the framed picture, and gently hung it back where it belonged.
Chapter 26
40 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
Abbi stared at the pesky cursor, rudely blinking on her screen. She was only five hundred words into an eight-hundred-word feature with a deadline to meet and three proofreads to do, and she had barely slept a wink last night with Eadie up with a tummy ache. So when she got a text from Hannah inviting her to coffee, having her pry into the state of her marriage was the last thing she needed, but her fingers had replied, Okay. If something was up, she’d rather find out about it instead of inventing something worse.
What did she know?
Locals huddled around the good coffee van as surfers showered the salt off their wax-bubbled boards. Abbi scanned the picnic area for Hannah, distracted by the line of Kombi vans and Maui motorhomes parked on the front under the palm trees. She was glad to see tourism on the rise. Her attention left the climbing fort full of kids wearing zinc and rashi vests, and found Hannah waiting on the park bench.
‘Sorry I’m late!’ Abbi chirped, as she slid in next to her friend.
Hannah looked like she was dressing for a boardroom, not a classroom. She handed Abbi one of two takeaway coffees, as if that justified the rendezvous. ‘Thanks for meeting me, Abs. I’ve only got an hour till I’m relief-teaching again.’
Abbi tried honesty for a change. ‘I was a little surprised – you haven’t really asked to hang out without the blokes.’
‘Blake mentioned you and Will were having problems. I just thought you might need a friend.’ Hannah’s eyebrows squished together and she patted Abbi awkwardly on the back, as if she were a labrador. ‘How are you coping with things?’
Abbi flattened her skirt, stretched her back and felt bad for questioning Hannah’s motives. ‘Shithouse, but thanks.’ She sipped the coffee Hannah had given her and it tasted bitter and burnt her tongue. Hannah did look sincere.
‘Can I help with anything? I could bring Eadie home after school if you have to work late – I know Will was rather hands on, so …’
‘It’s fine. Eadie’s the only good thing I have at the moment. I need her to feel normal.’
They made small talk, until Abbi became impatient. ‘Was there something you wanted to talk to me about, Han?’
Hannah sat up straight like she needed extra breath in her lungs for what she was about to say. ‘Abbi, there is something important I need to …’
Oh, God. What does she know?
Hannah’s eyes clicked with hers, her gaze steadfast. ‘You and Blake. I mean, has anything ever …’
Abbi groaned and slumped her shoulders, but was partly relieved. ‘Not this again. No. I’ve told you that.’
‘Not ever?’
Abbi glared. ‘We’ve never done it, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Hannah calmed. She slowly sank back on the chair, still focused on an imaginary point on the ground. ‘I’d understand, if you had.’
Can you smell something? I think it’s bullshit.
‘He’s not your blood relation. You didn’t grow up as siblings. I’m not blind, there’s attraction between you two. Did he ever try to back at school?’
Abbi exhaled, adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder. ‘I think you should talk to Blake about this.’
‘I did. He refused to say a word, which only makes it worse.’
‘With all that’s happening, Hannah, does it matter?’ Jesus, we hid a body together, who cares if we made out as teenagers? ‘I mean, God. It’s ancient history.’
Her face went soft in resignation. ‘You hav
e, then, in the past?’
Abbi swallowed hard. ‘No. Well …’ It was half true. ‘You really want to know?’
Hannah nodded.
Abbi sighed. There was no avoiding this. And really, was there any shame in what adolescent fumblings were attempted, rejected, advanced, twenty years ago? ‘I used to sneak into his room.’ She wasn’t sure why she felt embarrassed, even now, half a lifetime on. It was perfectly legal, consensual, even if morally questionable. Was it Blake’s shame rubbing off on her? Or was it that now, as a parent, as an adult, she understood? ‘We were sixteen. I was mixed up, curious. It’s not like we grew up together, he wasn’t my real brother. Whatever attraction I thought I felt didn’t seem any less appropriate than liking the new guy at school.’
Hannah’s face was pale.
Abbi looked out at the rolling sea. One of the Kombi campers was skulking to the shower with a towel and toiletries. ‘The difference was that he slept in my house. He was always there, attentive, willing.’ She flattened her skirt with the palm of her hand. ‘I’m not proud of it. I was a tease, really.’
‘Jesus, Abbi. Stop, I’ve changed my mind.’ Hannah raised her hand in protest. ‘No, tell me.’ Her expression belied her words.
‘It was a long time ago. Do you really—’
Hannah squared her shoulders. ‘I’m sure.’
Abbi nodded. ‘I used to sneak down the hall, after Mum was asleep. We’d talk mostly, a bit of first-base stuff, you know, we were kids. It was kind of like practising on your pillow, that’s all.’ Abbi figured if she dazzled Hannah with detail about irrelevant stuff, the Trevor Adler issue would get buried. ‘But Blake … He hated himself for it. Saw it as a betrayal of Mum. That it just wasn’t right. He didn’t see me as a sister then, but the world did, or at least, Mum did. She made him sleep in the den and locked the outside of his room once he was asleep, like he was the problem.’ She swallowed. ‘But I was.’ Abbi paused, all the confusion returning. ‘Later, when things got heated one time, he made me promise we’d never be like that again. That we’d be brother and sister from that day forward, because that was forever. Because that was what we were supposed to be.’ Abbi wanted to make it clear to Hannah that she was not a risk she had to manage. ‘And we never have.’
‘But wanting to is just as bad, Abbi. It’s just as dangerous.’
‘But I don’t. Not for years. I don’t want anyone but Will. And Blake doesn’t want anyone but you. He never has since you started showing interest in him. He was just pretending to live … without you.’ The two women sipped their coffees, a little uncomfortable with the intimacy. ‘Wouldn’t that have been weird – if we’d both lost it to the same bloke.’ Abbi shuddered. ‘Now that would have given us something to talk about.’
‘Blake wasn’t my first,’ Hannah admitted. ‘I know I told him that, and you, but he wasn’t.’
Abbi racked her brains for another Hannah-deflowering contender. She’d been a wall away when the two of them were definitely doing something in her house at seventeen. She assumed that perhaps her first was some Parisian she met while on exchange. The timing was right. Abbi felt offended. Hannah never told her, despite their friendship being at its peak back then. She waited for Hannah to elaborate, but, disappointingly, she didn’t.
Abbi placed her hand over Hannah’s. ‘I know it’s muddy, this thing with me and Blake. I know it must drive you batshit crazy – it would do my head in if Will had a close female friend – but you’ve got to believe me when I say I wish you two the best. This thing Will and I are going through has nothing to do with me and Blake. I love my husband. I want nothing but happiness for Blake.’ She squeezed Hannah’s hand. ‘And for you.’
Abbi gained a sense of comfort from the realisation her words were true, that she did want Hannah to be happy. She felt relief that perhaps she wasn’t the lowlife she had started to believe she was.
What Abbi failed to tell, was that Blake was the first boy she kissed. And it didn’t feel bad. It didn’t feel bad at all.
Chapter 27
40 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
Insomnia. It had never been a problem for Abbi, before. The rare night she didn’t fall asleep in Eadie’s bed, a battered copy of The BFG open between them, she and Will would squish into their two-seater, balancing cups of tea on their knees, his arm a comforting weight on her shoulder, and fall asleep binge-watching their favourite series. But tonight, with Will gone, like a strategy to plough through the awfulness that was life without Will, she yearned for sleep. She folded washing. She unloaded dishes. She packed Eadie’s bag for the following day, even exorcised the saggy zucchini from the fridge. The minute she stopped, the thoughts rolled in.
Will’s wallet and keys weren’t on the bench. His giant shoes weren’t by the door.
What if he’s never coming back? What if he can’t live with what he’s done?
Honesty was the antidote to most things. That’s what he told her the day they’d met. That’s what he lived by. The comfort that knowledge was the most precious thing Abbi had. It eased her anxiety. It fortified her confidence. It simplified life like a child. Life became blissfully uncomplicated, so Abbi kept her end. She’d converted to his religion; truth-telling, above all. Even after confessing to Will, lies trespassed, hiding in corners, leering at her. Blake still knew nothing of the real crime he concealed.
The wind pressed against the glass, cloudy from salt-spray, rattling the casement window in the frame as Abbi sat and drank. More rain.
Rain. Fresh, natural, life-affirming rain.
The same damn rain that swelled the lake, filled the estuaries, flushed that stupid body out into the stupid ocean that she’d stupidly let out of her sight because of that boat, which reminded her: she never did quite work out who was in that tinnie. Could someone have seen her out on Trevor’s jetty, or her and Blake carting a body around moments before? She’d seen Catfish in a similar dinghy weeks after the festival, but couldn’t quite find an acceptable way to ask if he’d, by chance, noticed her dumping his brother’s body. She’d walked down Trevor’s jetty since, noticed the crab pots were gone. Was that all Catfish was after? She also felt nervous about the disappearing bloodstained hoodie. Deciding to wear her husband’s hoodie that night could send him to prison, unless she could work out where it was.
As Abbi poured dregs of wine into her glass, laughter raced up her throat like a carriage on a roller coaster: unstoppable. It sprayed out her mouth. She grabbed a tea towel and dabbed the drips from her lips, still giggling at the ridiculousness of her life. That she’d spent months skulking around the truth to keep her family together, held on so tight that she’d strangled them in the process. One breath later, her laughter turned to sobs.
Abbi stomped up to her bedroom closet, returned a moment later with a scuffed suitcase full of old letters and photos. She fumbled through, flicking between scenes from the past, scribbled notes of love, ticket stubs, snippets of time frozen in ink on paper. She opened her senior magazine and was greeted with fresh-faced Hannah and their friends all dressed like Gwen Stefani at a school disco. A postcard from Hannah of the Eiffel Tower fell from the pages onto the bench. It was postmarked February 2002 – year twelve. Abbi tossed it back in the case before noticing the postage stamp commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee, which seemed strange for a French stamp. She took another look and saw it was Australian. She couldn’t explain it, but guessed Hannah must have sent it from the airport just before she left, just to rub it in. Abbi shoved all her precious memories back in the suitcase, and opened another bottle.
A faded photograph, rounded at the corners, peeked out from behind a pile of Eadie’s baby cards. Abbi was tucked under Will’s protective arm near the Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Haiti, a background of rubble, her eyes fixed on his, adoringly. Her life had changed during those heady, early days. Abbi couldn’t go back to her clueless, pre-Will life. She still recalled Blake’s reaction, six years earlier, when she told him she’d quit her jo
b at the bar and volunteered to work for the Red Cross to follow a one-night-stand. ‘You are fucking mental,’ were Blake’s exact words. ‘It’s impoverished. You don’t even like camping.’
It was recklessness that might have blown her chances with the best man she could ask for. Yet Abbi believed it was that same recklessness, that same ability to act on a whim, that drew Will to her, at the start.
* * *
Abbi had vomited copiously in the toilet of the Qantas 727 the Red Cross had chartered to transport the aid volunteers to Haiti. The other passengers put it down to nerves: the fear of the devastation they were all about to witness, the demands she was about to face – and it was, in part. But it was seeing Will again that had, pathetically, terrified her. What possible explanation would she give him for flying across oceans to see him? Because he was kind enough to send her an earring she’d left before her walk of shame from his apartment? Blake was right. This wasn’t like when she got a tattoo, or died her hair purple. She must have finally lost the plot.
It had been months. She’d only seen him once in her life, but she spotted him from fifty feet: that giant quality he lumbered around like luggage. As Abbi watched him calmly assess each patient, lying in lines on top of white sheets in the dust, she’d wondered how those large fingers managed such teeny stitches, such precise procedures. She thought back to the way those fingers had feathered up her thigh, the way he’d held her that night, each swell of her body filling the hollows of his.
Abbi had passed the wreckage of Notre Dame de l’Assomption – the main cathedral in Port-au-Prince – on her way to the village. Yet still, kids had continued to play soccer in the streets. The shock had begun to wane. Life after January 12, the day the goudou goudou had taken form. The Hôpital Sacré Coeur near Milot housed sick locals in hallways. Within days the local schools had taken the overflow but quickly filled with patients with extremity injuries, lacerations, fractures, and amputations with associated dehydration and anaemia. Thankfully, the cholera breakout had been contained.