Apples Never Fall

by Liane Moriarty

  “Mum says she’s noticed that people always expect sparkling water these days,” said Logan as she got out, the salad bowl under her arm, the gift balanced on top of the cling wrap.

  “There are no people coming. It’s just us.”

  “Just us.” Logan paused. “And Savannah. Our new friend.” He looked back at the car. “Where’s Grant?”

  He’s got a bad cold. He’s sick with a cold. He’s very sick with a very bad cold.

  “We’re having a trial separation.” She really needed to work on strengthening her lying muscles.

  Logan blanched. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry.” He took a step toward her as if he was going to hug her, but they weren’t a hugging family, so he didn’t know how to complete the move. “That’s terrible news. That’s quite a shock.” He ran his palm along the side of his jaw. “Are you okay?”

  “Well”—Brooke shifted the salad bowl onto her hip—“he hasn’t died.”

  “Still. It’s a shock.” He seemed genuinely, properly upset. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “I didn’t either.” An understatement.

  “Mum loves him,” said Logan. She could sense him trying not to sound accusatory, but it was as if Brooke had broken one of their mother’s favorite belongings and he didn’t want her to feel bad about it, but he felt bad for their mother.

  It was true that Joy and her only son-in-law seemed to have a special connection, and that Grant made a point of being especially charming with Joy, and Joy went along with it, but Brooke had always wondered how much her mother was truly falling for Grant’s charm offensive. Her mother, unlike Brooke, was a fine actress. She’d had all those years dealing with the parents of the tennis students, making them feel like their children were all remarkable.

  Brooke put the salad and gift down on the hood of her car so she could irritably scratch her nose. “It’s only a trial separation. We might get back together, so I’m not telling anyone yet. I don’t want to upset Mum and Dad unnecessarily.”

  “Good idea.” Logan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, chewing on the inside of his mouth, like he used to do before a match.

  “How’s Indira?” asked Brooke.

  “Yeah, that’s the thing,” said Logan uneasily.

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s the thing’?”

  She squinted at him. Then it hit her. They all should have seen it coming. Five years was about right. Long enough for the family to forget Logan’s track record of serial monogamy, long enough for the girl to become part of the family, and his girlfriends were always so lovely.

  This was why he was so upset about her and Grant. He didn’t want their mother to have to deal with simultaneous breakups. All her children would be single. All possible grandchildren swept off the table in one fell swoop. It would knock her for six, as their father would say. He hated cricket, but liked that particular sporting colloquialism.

  “Oh, Logan,” she said. “For God’s sake.”

  “Well, you can’t talk,” said Logan.

  “I can so talk, I’ve been with Grant for ten years. We got married.”

  “Exactly,” said Logan. “So that makes it worse. You made a proper commitment.”

  “And you didn’t,” said Brooke. “Is that what Indira wanted? Was she waiting for you to propose?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Logan. “I asked her once if she wanted me to propose and she just laughed.”

  “You’re not meant to propose to propose, you should just propose.”

  “She’s a feminist.”

  “So what? Did she want babies?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so?” Brooke threw up her arms. “I bet she wanted something you weren’t giving her.”

  Logan gave his infuriating right-shouldered shrug.

  You could never argue properly with Logan because he didn’t care. The angrier you got the calmer he’d become. His laid-back philosophy probably charmed his partners for the first five years and then one day they lost their minds.

  Brooke’s eyes filled with stupid tears. “She did all that beautiful graphic design work for me and didn’t let me pay a cent.” She should have insisted she pay her.

  “She was happy to do it,” said Logan. The shrug. Again.

  “That’s not the point, Logan.” She surprised herself by suddenly shoving him, quite hard, in the center of his chest with the heel of her hand, like she was a little kid again. He didn’t budge. His core strength was excellent, even though he never worked out. Maybe he’d known it was coming, even if she hadn’t.

  “That all you got?” he said. It seemed to have cheered him up.

  “I’m sad,” she said. “I’m really sad about Indira.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sad about Indira too, and I’m sad about Grant. But life goes on. We live to play another day.”

  That’s what their father used to say when they lost. Nobody found it especially motivational.

  Logan lifted his keys to go and then stopped as he remembered something. “So, guess what Savannah baked for today.”

  “What?”

  “Chocolate brownies.”

  “Oh my word,” said Brooke. Now she was using one of their mother’s favorite phrases.

  “It’s not funny,” said Logan. “Mum just hissed at me, ‘Logan, this is not funny.’” He looked over her shoulder. “Here’s Troy. Watch him park me in.”

  As predicted, Troy parked his gorgeous, shiny McLaren with a slick one-handed spin of the wheel directly behind Logan’s car. He saw his siblings and smiled that radiant smile that could buy him anything: women, refunds, forgiveness.

  Brooke smiled back helplessly as Troy leaped from the car with the glittery confidence of a movie star arriving at the premiere of his own movie. He carried a bottle of wine and a small beautifully store-wrapped gift.

  “Love the new car,” she said. She didn’t envy much about Troy’s life except for the luxury cars, which were replaced with the same regularity as the luxury girlfriends. She shot her dowdy old Ford Focus a resentful glance. It had a persistent problem with the air-conditioning and had recently begun to emanate a deep, pained groan each time she turned the steering wheel, but there was no way in the world she could justify a new car right now.

  Troy jerked his chin at Logan and gently cuffed Brooke on the back of her head. “How are you, baby Brooke? You look great. Are you wearing lipstick? Mum will be thrilled. It’s maybe just a little smudged there.” He pointed at her lip.

  She swore, licked her thumb, and wiped it away.

  “How’s the physiotherapy business?” asked Troy.

  She rocked her palm in a so-so motion. “Why do you look so good?” she asked. “You’re glowing. It’s annoying.”

  “Just healthy living, Brooke,” said Troy. “Spot of microdermabrasion. Bit of tennis to keep me active. You should try it. Great sport.” He looked at Logan’s keys. “You going somewhere?”

  “Mum says I need to get mineral water,” said Logan. “Probably for you, now I think about it.”

  “Great. Could you make it Voss?” said Troy. “That’s my preferred sparkling.”

  Logan didn’t even bother to fully roll his eyes. “I can’t get out now anyway. You’ve blocked me in. You go get your preferred sparkling yourself.”

  “How’s the newest member of the family doing?” Troy looked toward the house. “Have you met her yet, Brooke? Savannah.” He said it as if it were an exotic foreign word.

  “Guess what she baked today.” Brooke stole the moment from Logan. She so rarely had the chance to be wicked with her brothers. It was normally Amy and Troy sitting in a corner, making snarky comments and obscure pop-culture references.

  Troy considered the question. His face changed. “Not brownies.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Logan. They all watched as an unfamiliar car slowly circled the cul-de-sac with Amy in the front seat talking anima
tedly to the car’s driver, a young man who was laughing uproariously and not really keeping his eye on the road.

  “Has she got another new boyfriend?” asked Brooke.

  “It’s an Uber.” Logan pointed at the sign on the back window.

  “He might be a new boyfriend by now. Didn’t she meet the last one when he served her at JB Hi-Fi?” said Troy. “The one who fixed Mum’s computer? I liked him. He added value.”

  The car stopped, the driver hopped out and rushed around to open Amy’s door like he was a chauffeur, and Amy emerged, tangle-haired and bright-eyed, dressed like she’d just got back from a grotty but glorious music festival. She was laden with objects: an oddly shaped, badly wrapped present, a bunch of sunflowers, a baking tray with a flapping sheet of aluminum foil, and a Happy Father’s Day helium balloon that fluttered above her head.

  “Hello!” she called out to her siblings as she hugged the Uber driver goodbye. She didn’t hug her siblings, just her Uber drivers. The guy had probably shared something deeply personal with her that he’d never told anyone before. People sensed that Amy offered the possibility of redemption.

  “Does she look hungover?” muttered Logan. “It will be worse if she’s hungover.”

  “Go help her carry the brownies.” Troy nudged Brooke.

  “I’m leaving,” said Logan. “I don’t want to be here when she finds out.” He held out his hand to Troy. “Give me your keys.”

  “I’ll drive you,” said Troy. “I’m scared. She has that fragile look about her.”

  “Don’t you dare ask if she’s off her meds,” said Logan to Troy.

  “I haven’t said that in years,” said Troy, offended. “No one says that anymore.” He winced. “Do you think she is?”

  “Do not leave me,” said Brooke. It wasn’t so funny anymore, now that she could see Amy actually carrying her tray of precious brownies. Now it was kind of stressful, and mean, and Brooke felt personally responsible.

  She swung back and forth like a pendulum when it came to Amy. Growing up, she and her brothers had believed Amy to be a drama queen, who felt the same things everyone felt but chose to make a bigger deal of them. They made fun of her. At times they got angry with her when she held them up or stole their mother’s attention. How could you tell what was truly going on in her head? Brooke got depressed, she got anxious, but she still managed to get herself out of bed each day. It was a choice, surely? There was no need for Amy to lean into her feelings with such gusto. But then a university friend got diagnosed with depression and described it to Brooke as a kind of half paralysis, as if all her muscles had atrophied, and Brooke had a sudden memory of Amy eating cereal in slow motion, swaying like seaweed under water, and she realized she was offering this friend more sympathy and understanding than she’d ever given her own sister. These days she tried hard to see Amy with objective, compassionate eyes, but it was hard, because this was still her big sister, her bossy, charismatic sister, who used to call Brooke her “peasant.”

  “What are you all doing milling about out there?” Their mother opened the front door and called out from the front porch. She wore a tea dress with a cardigan, as if she were hosting a garden party, and she was in hectic, pink-cheeked “we have special guests” mode. “Come inside, all of you! Forget the mineral water, Logan, Savannah says we don’t need it.”

  Troy said, “Oh, well, if Savannah says we don’t need it.”

  “Hurry up!” Joy beckoned impatiently. “Your father is wondering where you all are! Is Grant coming separately, Brooke? I hope he’s on his way. I think Savannah is ready to serve.”

  “What don’t we need?” trilled Amy.

  “Brownies,” said Troy.

  Amy’s smile vanished. “I beg your pardon?”

  A familiar constellation of flashing dots appeared in Brooke’s peripheral vision.

  Chapter 23

  “Well, this has been a very special Father’s Day,” said Joy. “Very special.”

  She sat at the head of her beautifully set dining room table, like a woman in a magazine or a television show. Savannah had picked yellow freesias from the garden and put them in a water jug, and they looked perfect.

  Joy’s head felt a little swimmy. She thought maybe she’d drunk more wine than she was used to drinking at lunchtime. Savannah kept refilling everyone’s glasses, like a waitress. In fact, Savannah had spent most of the lunch on her feet, no matter how many times people suggested she sit down, or offered to help. Eventually everyone gave up and let Savannah serve them an incredibly delicious lunch: lemon and rosemary roast chicken, roast potatoes, and a green salad with walnuts and goat cheese. (Poor Brooke’s salad looked positively wilted in comparison.) It was quite remarkable that this level of quality had been produced in Joy’s kitchen. What must her oven think?

  Savannah had served their lunch efficiently, without that whirling, feverish Oh I nearly forgot the bread rolls, up-and-down-and-up-again thing that Joy knew she did whenever she hosted, and Joy’s greedy family had gobbled everything up and accepted offers of seconds.

  Now everyone had a cup of tea or coffee in front of them, along with their glasses of wine, and there were two plates of brownies on the table. Every person at the table had carefully, fairly, taken a brownie from each competing plate.

  Even Steffi had been waited upon by Savannah like one of the Queen’s corgis. She sat now in the corner of the room curled up on an old cushion that Savannah had set up for her, her head resting on her paws, occasionally licking her lips and thumping her tail with the happy memory of the various morsels and scraps that Savannah had convinced her tasted better than paper.

  Stan sat at a strange sideways angle at the other end of the table from Joy, trying to avoid the bobbing Happy Father’s Day balloon that Amy had tied to the back of his chair. Every now and then it brushed against his face and he batted it away like a fly, which was normally the sort of thing that would eventually make him lose his temper, but he was still in a remarkably good mood: expansive and chatty. It was either the revival of their sex life or the change in his diet since Savannah had taken over the cooking. If Savannah hadn’t turned up he would probably have spent this Father’s Day privately obsessing over Harry Haddad’s comeback.

  Joy’s children, on the other hand, were not at their best. Joy wanted to say to Savannah: They’re normally much nicer than this!

  She’d been looking forward to Savannah seeing her children all together, in the same way that she would feel about any new friend meeting her children. But today, nobody had much to say, although they had been polite and complimentary about the food, thank goodness; they all sat in a similar fashion, their shoulders rounded, backs hunched, especially when compared to Savannah, who sat so upright, like a small, well-behaved child. Her posture was beautiful.

  Joy scanned her children.

  Amy was sulking about the brownies and pretending not to, and needed her hair brushed.

  Logan seemed to have entered a kind of dissociative state, staring vaguely into the distance. If he behaved like that too often, Indira might get impatient and leave him. Joy wished Indira was here today. She was a breath of fresh air, and she would have been polite to Savannah.

  Troy, normally the life of the party and the one to cajole Amy out of her moods, seemed preoccupied and not quite as handsome today.

  Meanwhile Brooke was dead-white and wearing a shade of badly applied lipstick that did not suit her at all. Joy worried that a migraine loomed, and also, where the heck was Grant? Brooke said he had a cold too, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence that both Indira and Grant would be sick, and as far as Joy could remember that man had never even had as much as a blocked nose. He drank those awful green smoothies.

  Brooke was a terrible liar. Could Grant have run off with another woman? Joy had always nursed a secret, never-expressed fear (except to her hairdresser, Narelle) that Grant might have an affair. He wasn’t especially good-looking but he was very charming and chatty, and Brooke woul
d insist on keeping her hair so short. Narelle agreed that a longer style would soften Brooke’s sharpish features.

  “Why is today so special, Mum?” asked Brooke.

  It was special because Joy hadn’t had to do a single thing except hand over her credit card and turn up, but obviously she wasn’t going to say that to her children.

  “I don’t know,” said Joy. She took a bite of Amy’s brownie, put it down on her plate, and then took an equal-sized bite of Savannah’s brownie. Savannah’s was better, sad to say. “It just feels special.”

  “Maybe it’s the abundance of brownies,” said Troy.

  His father chuckled and Troy looked pleased with himself.

  “Troy.” Joy put a warning finger to her lips and shot a look at Amy.

  “Mum, please. I am not upset that Savannah made brownies,” said Amy. “For God’s sake.” She tipped back her head and drained the last drops of her (second) glass of red wine and wiped her hand across her mouth like a small child drinking a glass of milk. She looked around the table. Her words were starting to soften and slur. “Is that what everyone thinks? That I’m upset about brownies?”

  “Absolutely, categorically not.” Troy sat upright and looked mock-serious. “Why would we think you would be upset about brownies?”

  “But I am honestly not upset!” cried Amy, looking very upset. “And by the way, Savannah, your brownies are delicious. The sweetness is just … perfecto!” She kissed her fingertips. “If we were rating this brownie at work it would be what we in the business call a hero product.”

  “Amy tastes food for a living,” said Joy, hoping to change the subject. She was mystified as to how Amy had managed to trick people into paying her to eat. On “pasta days at work” Amy didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. “So she knows what she’s talking about.”

  “I think your brownies are very good,” said Savannah to Amy. She took a tiny bite. She ate like a mouse. That first night, when she’d eaten that huge plate of leftover casserole and two bananas, had been an aberration. “Much chewier than mine. I left mine in the oven for too long.”