She walked to the couch, sat down, and picked up a cushion. She caressed its soft tasseled fringe while she monitored her reaction to this revelation. Her heart had quickened but it was certainly not racing. There was really no need for concern here. After all, she and Stan represented only one chapter in Harry’s illustrious career. Harry would simply trot out a more detailed version of the by now well-worn raffle-ticket story: how Harry’s father, Elias, won the private lesson at Delaneys, gave the lesson to his son, first time the kid ever held a racquet, blah, blah, blah.
There would be no further revelations. Harry knew nothing. He’d been a kid, his eyes firmly fixed on his future. His readers wanted to hear what it was like to win Wimbledon. They wanted Harry’s secrets. Not his father’s secrets. Not Joy’s secrets.
She saw Elias Haddad’s handsome face: that slow, sensual wink. It used to make her blood run cold. She’d see him at an interstate tournament and think, Don’t you dare wink at me again, Elias. But sure enough he’d wink at her over the heads of their oblivious children. As if it were all just a joke. Well. She refused to be worried. She would put it out of her mind. It was all so long ago.
“No need to dwell on things,” her mother used to say. Everyone did far too much dwelling these days.
“I must let you go, darling,” she said briskly to Brooke. “I know you’re busy.” She could smell her dinner waiting for her. She replaced the cushion in the corner of the couch. “We’ll see you on Sunday, for Father’s Day. You can meet Savannah then.”
“She’ll still be there?” There was a crack of genuine distress in Brooke’s voice. “On Father’s Day?”
Joy lowered her voice and her head to the phone once more.
“Darling,” she said. There was a myth in Joy’s family, one that Brooke liked to perpetuate, and the myth was that even though Brooke was the youngest, and the one with the debilitating health condition, she was the most robust of the Delaney children, the least sensitive, the one who had her professional and personal life sorted, and that Amy, the oldest, who should therefore have been the most responsible, was the flaky, fragile one who was always getting her feelings hurt, but Joy knew better.
She knew exactly what lay behind the facades her children presented to the world. Yes, Amy had her mental health challenges, but she was as tough as nails at her core; Logan pretended not to care about anything but cared about everything; Troy acted so superior because he felt so inferior; and Brooke liked to present herself as the most grown-up of them all, but sometimes Joy caught the fleeting expression of a frightened child crossing her face. Those were the times Joy wanted to gather her six-foot-one daughter in her arms and say, My baby girl.
“Savannah won’t find somewhere to live by the weekend,” she told Brooke.
“No. Of course not,” said Brooke. She sounded flat and distant now. “That’s fine, Mum. This is a really kind thing you’re doing, and I’m glad you’re getting a break from cooking. I’ll see you Sunday. Love you.”
“Love you too,” said Joy, but Brooke had already hung up.
Joy went into the kitchen, where Stan had put three wineglasses in a row on the island bench: white for Savannah, red for Stan, a spritzer for Joy.
Savannah put a big green salad in the center of the table and angled the good shiny silver salad servers just so. Someone had given Joy those salad servers years ago and she’d never used them, as if no occasion was ever good enough, not even Christmas, but Savannah automatically used all the nicest things in Joy’s kitchen on a daily basis: the good placemats, the good glasses, the good cutlery, and consequently dinner each night felt festive and delightful. She had a knack for setting the table. Joy’s mother used to have that knack, and Joy had not inherited it. Tonight Savannah had even picked a little sprig of cherry blossom and put it in a tiny vase she’d found in the back of a cupboard.
“Music?” Joy held up her phone, head on one side. Asking this made her feel like she was maybe in her thirties, living in a share house like Amy. (She had never in her life lived in a share house.) Logan had helped her set up her Spotify account ages ago, but, like the salad servers, Joy hadn’t found the right occasion to use it until Savannah came to stay.
“Yes, please.” Savannah moved deftly behind her to pick up the salt and pepper grinders from the sideboard.
“This pasta looks delicious, Savannah,” said Stan. He would never have said, “This looks delicious, Joy,” about something Joy had cooked, although occasionally he might grunt, “Looks good,” as he picked up his fork. Stan’s formality was just like the good crockery and cutlery. It added a nice sheen to the night.
He winked at Joy—just a loving, husbandly wink without subtext—and she thought about his hands on her body last night, his voice low in her ear, and as the first notes of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” filled the kitchen, Joy let any thoughts about Harry’s memoir and her worry about Brooke fade away as a deep sense of contentment spread throughout her body, as blissful as an extra-strength Tylenol.
Chapter 14
NOW
“Did you kill your wife, Mr. Delaney?”
“Eh?” The old man, huge and hunch-shouldered, with reddish thumbprints under his eyes, lifted his bald head, seemingly bewildered by the question. “What’s that?”
The baby-faced journalist in a natty suit and tie shoved a chunky microphone toward his mouth. “Did you have anything to do with your wife’s disappearance, Mr. Delaney?”
The old man stood on the front lawn of his suburban house, shoulder to shoulder with his four adult children, surrounded by a semicircle of journalists and camera operators. The journalists were all young, in smart-casual brightly colored clothes, no patterns, solid colors, sharp shoulders, their faces smooth and opaque with makeup. The camera operators were older, all men, with ordinary, impassive faces and weekend hardware shopping clothes: jeans and polo shirts.
“Mr. Delaney?”
“That is defamatory. Get away from him, you parasite!” It was one of the old man’s daughters who spoke. She slapped the microphone. A swift, smooth backhand. She was a tennis player, apparently. They all were.
One of her brothers stepped forward, a protective arm in front of his father’s face.
But the other two siblings said and did nothing; they appeared instead to take tiny steps away from their father, and the internet saw.
Minds were made up. Two of his children think he did it.
Chapter 15
Concerns are growing for a Sydney woman who has not been seen for ten days. Police have today launched an appeal for information on the whereabouts of retired tennis coach Joy Delaney.
The 69-year-old was reported missing by her adult children, and officers have been unable to locate her. Family members say they received a text message on Valentine’s Day described as “out of character.” It is believed that she may have been riding a green bicycle with a white wicker basket.
A search of local bushland and bike tracks involving more than one hundred volunteers from the local community has found no sign of her. Police are requesting that anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage in the local area please come forward.
A silver Volvo has been seized as part of the investigation and will be tested forensically over the next few days.
Investigators are keen to talk with a former visitor to the family home, Savannah Pagonis, who may have important information. Police have stressed that Ms. Pagonis is not a suspect or a person of interest. “Any piece of information, no matter how small or seemingly trivial, could prove crucial at this point,” said Detective Senior Constable Christina Khoury.
The missing woman’s husband, Stanley Delaney, is helping police with their investigations.
“Helping police with their investigations,” murmured Teresa Geer as she carefully cut out the article from that day’s paper with the big kitchen scissors, as was her habit, even though her children teased her for it. It was strange how everyday habits like clipping newspaper articles had sudd
enly become antiquated.
She couldn’t decide if she would show this clipping to her daughter when she got back home from her appointment. Obviously Claire would have already heard that her ex-husband’s mother had gone missing.
It would be worrying and confusing for her. There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don’t want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don’t want tragedies for them either. Then they got the upper hand.
Damn those Delaneys. Teresa had once been fond of the Delaney family, but that had all changed in an instant five years ago. She would never forget her daughter’s shattered face when Claire told her what Troy had done.
Not only had he broken her heart, but it was all Troy’s fault that Claire was now married to an American—a nice American, but an American who lived in America.
When Troy and Claire had been married they had lived one of those hybrid lives where they continually traveled back and forth between the US and Australia, as if New York and Sydney were merely a bus ride apart. That’s how Claire became friends with a Texan girl in New York called Sarah, who eventually invited her to her wedding a year after Troy and Claire split up, which was where Claire met Sarah’s divorced brother, Geoff, and there was nothing wrong with Geoff, except for his address. Austin was a very fun and friendly city, but so was Sydney! Her new son-in-law just smiled when she pointed that out. He wasn’t quite as interested in her as Troy had been. Troy had been kind of flirtatious with her. Teresa had enjoyed his flirtatiousness. It upset her now to remember that. They’d all been hoodwinked. Geoff was no Troy. He hated flying. He didn’t want a hybrid life. He wanted a life where Claire saw her Australian family maybe once a year. Claire was back in Sydney now, staying in the spare room, which was wonderful, but once she got back on that plane, Teresa might not see her only daughter for months.
So thank you for nothing, Troy Delaney.
She pushed the point of her scissors against the headline of the newspaper article: CONCERNS GROW FOR MISSING WOMAN.
His damned mother would choose to disappear right now, of all times.
She had liked Troy’s parents. They were just an ordinary, down-to-earth couple, like her and Hans. She had imagined them all being grandparents together. Surely she would have noticed if there had been cracks in their marriage that could have led to … something catastrophic. But that was five years ago, and maybe every marriage had secret cracks that could turn into chasms.
She laid down the scissors and crumpled up the carefully clipped newspaper article into a ball. She wasn’t going to say a word to Claire about her former mother-in-law unless she mentioned her first, and then she’d tell her that yes, it was upsetting, but she must try her hardest not to be upset. The Delaneys were nothing to do with them anymore.
If only that were true.
Damn that Troy Delaney.
Chapter 16
LAST SEPTEMBER
Troy Delaney watched the streets of his childhood glide by from the passenger seat of Logan’s car: lush lawns, sharp-edged hedges, ivy-covered brick walls. A postman on a motorbike slid a single letter into an ornate green letterbox, a magpie swooped violently toward a cyclist’s helmeted head, a dog walker trotted after three little designer dogs, a young mother pushed a double stroller. There was nothing wrong with any of it. There was nothing to complain about (except for the magpie, he hated magpies). It was all perfectly nice. It was just that the unrelenting niceness made him feel like he was being lovingly suffocated with a duvet.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the cacophony of noise and canyonlike streets of New York, where he’d been twenty-four hours earlier, but it was like Sydney suburbia canceled out New York’s existence. Now there could be nothing else but this: this soft, bland reality, his older brother driving, a tiny, smug grin on his unshaven face, because Logan knew Troy didn’t want to be here.
“Love the scarf, mate,” he’d said, predictably, when he saw Troy, who’d worn it just to annoy him. “You look really intimidating.”
“Pure cashmere,” Troy had answered.
“This is really very kind of you guys,” said a low female voice from the back seat.
“It’s not a problem.” Troy turned and smiled at the girl sitting composedly behind them in his brother’s shitbox of a car.
Savannah. His parents’ bizarre little charity project. She sat upright, her hair pulled back in a schoolgirl ponytail to reveal slightly protruding, tiny ears, like an elf’s. Her pale face was makeup-free. She had the kind of thin, bony body and hard face that speaks of addiction and the streets. There was a nearly healed cut over one eye with faint purplish bruising, and Troy tried to feel the sympathy she obviously deserved, but his heart was as hard and suspicious as an ex-girlfriend’s.
Troy’s parents had no idea that being abused didn’t automatically make you good. Savannah could be a petty thief, a psychopath, or just an opportunist who had seen their big house and soft, elderly, innocent faces, and thought: Money.
He and Logan were “the muscle” in case the boyfriend showed up. Troy covertly checked out his older brother, who didn’t have a gym membership but still looked gallingly buff, although he’d stacked it on around the belly. He wondered what Logan could bench-press if he could ever be convinced to bench-press.
How would they handle it if this guy did make an appearance? When Troy was in his “angry young man” stage he would have relished the opportunity to hit someone with justice on his side, to defend a wronged woman, to blow off all that angry energy, but he no longer walked around with his teeth clenched as tight as his fists, looking for someone to blame. That stupid angry kid no longer existed. Now the thought of being involved in a physical altercation seemed grotesque.
He gripped his fist, watching his knuckles. Did he still know how to hit someone? What if everything went pear-shaped and he got charged with assault? He imagined a twenty-year-old cop handcuffing him and leading him away, hand firm on the back of his neck. To lose control of his life would be unbearable.
If he got arrested he’d no longer be able to travel back and forth between Sydney and New York. He knew how lucky he was that he didn’t have a youth criminal record to cause difficulties at the borders, which he sailed through with such ease and regularity. It was all thanks to his mother that he’d been let off with a caution when he’d got caught with cannabis during his “entrepreneurial days.” She’d arrived like the cavalry, following a phone call from Troy’s girlfriend at the time, and launched a full-on Joy Delaney charm offensive that had taken down the older of the two police officers.
Troy had just ten minutes earlier made a profitable sale to the school captain of an “elite” school, which meant he had a lot of cash on him but only a small amount of drugs: small enough that he could argue it was for personal use. Troy could tell the younger officer badly wanted to charge him, that he represented something that guy couldn’t stand. “Your luck won’t last forever, mate,” he’d said to Troy, hatred in his eyes.
“Don’t talk to me, don’t even look at me,” his mother had said, rippling with fury, on the drive home.
His mother was also the one who’d somehow magically convinced Harry Haddad’s father not to call the police when Troy punched the kid in the face for cheating.
“If I’d been there I would have called the police on you myself,” Troy’s dad had said.
“Your dad would never have done that,” Joy had told him in private. “He’s just upset.”
But his dad had said those words and never taken them back.
Apparently Harry Haddad was going to release an autobiography next year. Troy wondered if he’d include the story of how his first coach’s son jumped the net and nearly broke his nose for cheating. Presumably not. Didn’t fit with his wholesome brand. Troy wouldn’t be reading the fucker’s book anyway. He hated Harry for dumping his father even more than he hated him for cheating.
Troy shifted in his seat, kicked at an old Subway wrapper
caught on the tip of his shoe from the floor of Logan’s car, and for no reason at all found himself considering what had happened in New York, even though he had not given his brain permission to consider it—in fact he had expressly forbidden himself to think of it again for another twenty-four hours.
His ex-wife had met him for a drink and presented him with an ethical dilemma so excruciating he thought it might have given him an instant stomach ulcer. Did people still get stomach ulcers? Nobody seemed to talk about them anymore. The word “ulcerate” seemed appropriate for the sensation he experienced at that moment: like a tiny cyst had burst and flooded his stomach with corrosive acid.
“This is not about evening the score,” Claire had said with a tremulous smile, after she’d taken a sip of an overpriced, overaccessorized cocktail. She’d flown in from Austin just to talk to him.
Logan turned onto the highway and stopped at the first traffic light. A dead bat hung from the power line. Whenever Troy left his parents’ place he got a red light here, and thought, I always get a red light here, and then he looked up and thought, Isn’t that dead bat always there? He got trapped in a permanent loop of pointless thoughts.
Further down the road a bus had stopped and a handful of people disembarked. Troy saw an ancient old lady totter toward the bus stop, face desperate, arm raised. She reminded him of his long-dead grandmother, who’d drunk too much and was spiteful to his mother, but Troy had adored her. She had a scar from when her husband, the grandfather Troy had never met, threw her across the room. She wore the scar with pride, like a tattoo she’d chosen for herself. “I threw that bastard out of my house,” she told her grandchildren. “I said, ‘I never want to see your face again.’ And I never did.”
The last passenger emerged from the bus. The old lady picked up the pace.
Troy reached across Logan and banged his fist hard on the horn to get the driver’s attention. Too late. The doors slammed shut. The bus took off. For fuck’s sake.
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