Flesh & Blood

by A. E. Dooland

  That struck her. “Okay,” Bree forced out of her lips, even though clearly she was anything but okay.

  Mr Dejanovic passed his hand over his face as he looked from her to me; he was sweating a little. “I apologise that you saw this,” he said to me, “and I apologise that I can’t stay. I can’t stay in here, I’m done. I work 100 hours a week and I have no energy to chat to strangers. Good night.”

  Bree opened her mouth. She looked like she might be about to cry. “Don't you want to finish your dinner?” she asked in a tiny voice as a last, desperate appeal to him. “I can bring you a tray. Won’t you be hungry if you don’t?”

  He looked sharply at her. “What, this?” he said, tapping his plate. “Where’s the meat? There’s no substance! I’ll be hungry even if I do finish it. Why would you even cook something like this?”

  Her lip was quivering. “W-Well you can’t have something too filling for main or there’s no room for dessert, and I thought it was really pretty…”

  He sighed heavily. “Pretty isn’t enough, Briana,” he said with gravity. “Not for a meal, not for anything. Good night.” With that, he tossed his napkin on the table and stormed out, muttering in Serbian.

  We listened to him stomp down the hallway into the front room, and then sigh loudly with relief as a chair creaked and he turned on the news. The sound of a news reporter’s voice giving the traffic report drifted into the dining room, but otherwise, the house was silent.

  Bree stared at the dining table with her eyes veiled; at the beautiful decorations her parents hadn’t admired, the carnage of half-eaten dinner they hadn’t liked, and the now-empty chairs they’d left. She reached out and plucked a delicate carrot rose off the tangle of noodles on her plate. Half of its perfectly crafted little petals had been snapped off by the serving tongs.

  My heart was still pounding as I stood up slowly from my chair. “I’m sorry, Bree,” I said softly, approaching her. “It was beautiful. It was.”

  Her eyes were unfocused as she looked at the carrot. “I got the dish to look exactly like the photo on the website. Like, exactly, and I’ve never even had like formal training or anything. I thought for sure they’d see my food and be like, ‘Wow, where did you buy this?’ and then they’d both be so impressed when they found out that I made it all by myself. Maybe they’d even ask for seconds.” Her face hardened. “But they didn’t. Of course they didn’t.” Tears spilt down her cheeks and she wiped them away on her wrists, walking away from me and over to the table. There, she started silently picking up plates and cleaning up.

  I stopped her with a gentle hand. “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t look at me. “Well, no one’s coming back here, are they? I’m clearing everything away.”

  After what they’d just done? “Why?”

  “Because it won’t happen magically by itself, and if it doesn’t happen, all I’ll hear about the next time I see them is how I don’t clean up after myself and I’m a terrible person.” She slumped. “Not that they don’t think that anyway.”

  I took a step towards her and put my hands on her shoulders. “Fuck them, Bree,” I said quietly. “Fuck them. Leave the mess. Let’s just go.”

  She shook her head and continued to clean up. I helped her anyway, and then we carried the leftovers into the kitchen. I expected her to put them in the fridge, but she just unceremoniously dumped the whole casserole dish she’d worked so hard on—with its intricate little carrot flowers and beautiful colours—into the bin and closed the lid. She went to do the same to the four little tarts she’d made, but I rescued them.

  “Other people will like these,” I told her. “Let’s not waste all your work.”

  “It’s already wasted,” she said, but didn’t insist on throwing them away.

  She grabbed her bag, and as we headed past the shut living room door, Mr Dejanovic called out something in Serbian.

  Bree’s jaw tightened. “I did clean it up!” she yelled through the door, and then walked past me out into the front yard and didn’t stop until she was inside my car. I climbed in after her.

  I didn’t try to comfort her until Christmas Court disappeared far behind us. She was staring out the window, the streetlights moving across her face as tears silently rolled down her cheeks.

  While we were waiting in traffic, I touched her knee. “I'm sorry it didn't work out.”

  I saw her eyes close in the reflection. She shook her head. It was a moment before she spoke. “The more I think about it…” She looked down at the tarts on her lap and exhaled. “Like, what did I honestly think would happen?”

  Keeping an eye on the traffic, I watched her.

  “I was telling myself things are better now, and, you know, Andrej is working and I don’t think he’s gambling at the moment… And we always used to have nice dinners. I just thought that maybe…” Her face crumpled. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Everything is still as fucked as it was, and here’s me ‘with my head in the clouds’ or whatever Dad says about me, all like ‘Oh, let’s have a dinner party! You can tell my racist fucking parents how trans you are, nothing could go wrong!’” She scoffed at herself, her jaw set. “How fucking stupid does that sound? He’s right. They’re all right. I’m stupid,” she said harshly, fresh tears shining in her eyes. “I’m stupid. I’m so fucking stupid. What did I think would happen?”

  The light went green, so I kept driving. “You’re not. Don’t blame yourself for trying to—”

  “—I am stupid, Min,” she said in this empty voice. “I am. I spent like a whole fucking week talking them into this, with them telling me no and that it was a bad idea, and what ends up happening? It ends up being a bad idea just like they said. Like, who was I fucking kidding? Of course it was a bad idea, just like all of my ideas. I’m a fucking idiot. I never get anything right. I fuck up everything, everything I try, because I’m a fucking dumb blonde with an IQ of like 5. Why the fuck would this be the exception in a—”

  “—you’re getting really good marks,” I tried to point out; it was awful hearing her talk like this. “Would someone with an IQ of 5 be able to—”

  “—only because you guys are helping me with everything!” Bree said, looking at me. “As if I could do it without you! And even though you and Sarah and Gemma all have IQs of like a million, I still can’t get over 80% on anything because I’m so fucking—”

  I pulled over and put the car into park. “—Stop!” I told her, twisting my body towards her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Stop, Bree. Stop. You’re not stupid. You know you aren’t. You tried to do something nice for your family and it didn’t work, that doesn’t make you stupid.”

  Her face crumpled. “Then why are they so horrible to me?” she asked, her breath beginning to come in sobs. “Why?”

  I made her look at me again. “It’s not you. None of it’s you. There’s just a lot going on and some people don’t handle it well.”

  She shook her head. “Dad told me to start paying board: he knows I can’t, so he’s basically kicking me out. He wouldn’t care if I never came back. Like, he actually wouldn’t care. And it’s so awful, because I can still remember when I was little and we used to lie on the grass in the backyard and look up at the sky, pointing out cloud animals together. He used to smile at me and I’d be able to feel it, like, my big, scruffy dad who loved me and would do anything for me…” She was struggling to get the words out. “Now he thinks I’m stupid, and lazy, useless, and he doesn’t care at all about what happens to me.”

  I wrapped my arms awkwardly around her in the seat and kissed one of her wet temples. “Other people care about you, Bree.”

  Despite that, she kept sobbing. “Is it awful that I want them to? I want them back. I want my mum and dad back, I want them back, to when Mum used to sit us on her knee and tell us about how when she was a little girl, she used to watch smuggled Hollywood movies and dream of moving to the West and having a beautiful two-storey house and two children, a girl
and a boy. We were her dream, and her eyes used to fill with tears as she told us that, and she’d sit in the garden and look up at her beautiful dream house while we played on the swings. The way she looked at us: I want that back. I want them back, Min.” She looked up at me with those big blue eyes.

  My heart broke for her. “Stress makes people do horrible things, Bree. Maybe once the house is sold…?”

  Bree didn’t look very optimistic. “They’ve changed,” she said, leaning her head back against my arm as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “I mean, what sort of parent does all that stuff? Parents aren’t supposed to be like that. They’re supposed to be trying everything I cook, saving magazine cuttings of recipes they think I’d like, and telling me I can grow up and be an amazing chef in a world class restaurant if I want to.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  She shrugged loosely. “I don’t know what I want. But it shouldn’t matter, should it? They should be telling me I can be whatever I want to be, and that I should reach for the stars.”

  I felt her on that one, I really did. I leant my cheek on the crown of her head.

  “I’m going to do it anyway,” she said in this tiny little voice, through her tears. “I don’t care what they say, I’m going to reach for them anyway. I’m never going to be angry and bitter and horrible like they are. I’m never going to be like that, no matter what happens to me. Even though they think I’m fucking stupid and hopeless, I’m going to get my HSC. I’m going to show them when I’ve gotten it. And then, who knows? Maybe their stupid daughter will go to uni as well. I’m going to do all the things I want to do, and I’m not going to give up on that. And when I have children—I’m going to have so many children, so many beautiful little children—no matter who they are, no matter what they do, no matter where they are in the world, they’re always going to know that their mummy loves them, that she’s thinking about them, and that she’s so, so proud of them.”

  “I’m proud of you,” I murmured to her, but either she didn’t hear, or it didn’t comfort her. And why would it have? It was her parents that she wanted to be proud of her, and they weren’t. And boy, did I know exactly how that felt. I put my arms all the way around her and just hugged her, holding her until she stopped sobbing. Then, we drove back home.

  Sarah spotted us as we came in, but quickly noted Bree’s expression, pulled a ‘whoa’ face, and gave us a wide berth. We went straight to bed, anyway, because neither of us had any energy for anything else, and Bree didn't want the other two to see her crying.

  I felt so helpless, listening to her sob into the pillow and feeling her chest heave. “Is there anything I can do?”

  ”You could make me not be such a screw-up,” she managed, and then shook her head. “Just hug me. It feels better when you're hugging me.”

  I followed her instructions, snaking an arm under her neck so I could pull her back against me and just envelope her in my arms and against my body. She snuggled back into me, exhaling at length. I felt her relax somewhat. I did, too.

  She took a breath. “I’m kind of glad you didn’t tell them and that they didn’t know what Andrej meant.”

  I opened my eyes. “Yeah?”

  I felt her ribs fall as she exhaled. “Because they’re awful and they’d judge you, and they’re not fucking allowed to. You’re the only person who actually cares about me, who always makes me feel better, and it’s not fair they’d take the fact you’re trans and just, like, use it to decide there’s something wrong with you and you’re not good enough.”

  I chuckled. “Especially when they could just speak to my mum who doesn’t even know I’m trans and get a whole lot of other reasons why I’m wrong and not good enough.”

  Bree turned her head back towards me. Her eyes were still red, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “You are good enough,” she told me quietly. “No matter what she says. You’re perfect.”

  Unexpectedly, that hit me solidly in the chest and made my eyes water. I blinked the tears away. “So are you, Bree. Don’t listen to your family. Keep your head in the clouds.”

  She turned over to face me, gathered herself in my arms, and then we made another attempt at falling asleep.

  Despite everything, I eventually slept okay after that. I don’t think Bree did for a long time, though, because when I woke up in the morning she was still fast asleep and didn’t even stir when I got out of bed and got dressed. Her hair was a total frizzy mess, too, and that only happened when she tossed and turned a lot at night. I tucked the doona carefully around her shoulders so she wouldn’t get cold, and stood back.

  Her eyes were still a bit puffy. That set my teeth on edge; what kind of parent freely made their daughter cry like that? I got it: they were tired from working long hours in a futile attempt to keep the house. But I bet Bree would have traded a thousand beautiful houses for another summer lying on the grass and looking up at the clouds with her dad.

  All this thinking about terrible parents made me remember my own, and on my way out into the living room, I took out my mobile with the intention of dealing with whatever Mum had to say to me this morning.

  When I unlocked it to deal with the flashing LED and the little red ‘4’ on my screen, though, the browser was still open and on the Cloverfield login portal for Bree’s results. I immediately felt brighter.

  Perfect! I thought, dismissing the messages to worry about later. I could surprise Bree this morning with her great results just to hammer home how wrong her parents were about her. That would cheer her up.

  I entered the information just like Bree had and then tapped submit, but nothing happened. Nothing happened when I opened my laptop and tried on there, either. I was entering everything right, so maybe it was broken? I glanced at the bottom of my screen: 8:02am. I’d have to wait until business hours to give them a call.

  I got up to make myself some tea while I was waiting—mainly so that I could curl my fingers around the warm mug to stop them from freezing and falling off—and noticed two of the tarts were missing from the fridge. That was a good sign. If Sarah was going to forge through her terrible morning sickness and attempt a tart, she must have thought they looked pretty good. I would have to show Bree.

  I took my warm mug back to the table and sat in front of my laptop, spending the hour reading over the guidelines for my research proposal for uni. I kind of liked the fact they called developing new techniques, practising my skills, and exploring topics through art ‘research’. I’d never really thought much about the legitimacy of art before—thanks to Mum for always being so dismissive of it.

  I was still stuck imagining all the things I was going to paint when it hit 9am. I tried the portal one more time, and when it didn’t work, I figured I should call the school. The number was on their website.

  It only rang a couple of times. “Cloverfield Ladies’ College, how may I direct your call?”

  That was quick. “Um, to whoever I speak to about the access portal not working.”

  “Oh!” the woman said. She sounded young. “I might be able to help you with that. What’s wrong?” I explained it to her, and she said, “Are you sure you’re entering the right student number?” We went through her usual checklist of what might be wrong, but she wasn’t able to figure it out. “Maybe it’s only a problem with her account,” she suggested. “What’s her name?”

  “Briana Dejanovic,” I said. There was a long pause, so I elaborated. “Which is D-E-J—”

  “—it’s okay, I know who she is,” she said, and then there was another pause. “Um. Okay. I’m sorry, but Briana will actually need to come into the registrar’s office in person to collect her results.”

  My stomach dropped into my feet. “Oh... May I ask why?”

  “I’m sorry, we can only discuss it with Briana or her parents, and only in person.” When I went to ask her another question, she cut me off. “I’m sorry. If Briana is able to come into the office, we can explain exactly what the problem is.”

&n
bsp; Since she wouldn’t budge, I thanked her and then hung up.

  Shit.

  I stared down at the little access portal on my screen and then locked it. I didn’t need the office to explain exactly what the problem was: Bree’s marks were being held hostage. And if Bree’s marks were being held hostage, it was because the school wanted us to hand over something first. And given that Bree said her parents hadn’t been able to pay her school fees in two years, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to join the dots and work out what was going on here. Bree had warned us all along.

  I put my head in my hands for a second. But seriously: now? Halfway through the fucking year, after Bree had done all of that hard work night after night, month after month? After we all had? It seemed so cruel to get Bree’s hopes up, to let her hand in all her assignments only to pull this, and now.

  They’d better not kick her out, I thought, remembering last night. Fuck, they’d better not kick her out now.

  TWENTY

  Cloverfield was as grand as I remembered it, with its big old buildings and manicured gardens. The huge oak trees out the front of the grounds had shed the last of their gold and orange leaves all over the lawns, and there was a groundskeeper faithfully raking them up. Aside from that groundskeeper it was quite empty, and as I walked into the school, the odd staff member I spotted were all wearing casual clothes. That made me self-conscious, because I’d put on a full suit. I wanted to make a good impression on whoever I needed to speak to about Bree.

  The reception was well signposted, and I followed all the arrows through ornate buildings until they pointed towards some huge double doors. Heat blasted me as I walked inside.