Was this girl really going to block her from entering her own childhood home?
“Hi there.” Simon leaned in front of Amy. “I’m Amy’s boyfriend. Sorry to be a pain, but could I come in and use the bathroom? I’ll be very quiet if everyone is asleep.”
He didn’t really think he was her boyfriend just because they’d slept together twice, did he? She gave him a look. He winked.
There was a beat. Of course Savannah knew Amy was single. She knew everything about Amy’s family although they knew virtually nothing about her. Savannah tapped a fingertip against her lower lip, almost as if in parody of Joy, who did the same thing to indicate skepticism.
If Savannah denied Amy’s “boyfriend” this valid, ordinary request, she would kick down the door.
“Come in.” Savannah opened the security chain with an upward flick of her finger, opened the door, and stood back, as if she lived there, which technically she did, but temporarily. Supposedly.
There was just nothing guestlike in her behavior.
Steffi, the traitorous hound, sat at Savannah’s feet as though she were Savannah’s beloved pet, and politely cocked her head at Amy like they were meeting for the first time.
Once again, Amy registered how the house felt perceptibly, but pleasantly, different, as it had on Father’s Day. It was like it had been styled by a clever real estate agent for inspection by potential buyers. There were flowers on the sideboard in a vase that Amy had never seen before. All the family photos on the wall were the same, but they’d been straightened, or dusted, or polished so that all those familiar shots of their childhood were suddenly thrown into sharp relief.
Simon held out his hand to Savannah.
“Hi there. I’m Simon Barrington,” he said in a loud, showy voice, completely unlike his own. “So pleased to meet you.”
She took his hand. “Hi. I’m Savannah.”
“Savannah…?” He kept holding her hand, waiting for her surname, like someone’s embarrassing uncle.
“The bathroom is this way,” said Savannah.
“I’ll show him the bathroom,” said Amy, and she knew she sounded thirteen. Then she said, “Well, but you know, what actually is your last name, Savannah?”
Because how were they going to secretly investigate her if they didn’t even know her last name? Did their parents even know it? They may never have even asked and had probably never bothered to google her, just blithely believing every word she had to say.
“It’s Pagonis,” said Savannah. “Savannah Pagonis.”
The cut above her eye had completely healed, and she was wearing just a touch of makeup, and there was a kind of creamy, settled confidence to her, as if she were wearing her own clothes in her own home and Amy and Simon were unwelcome guests who she would soon be sending on their way. Amy’s mother’s clothes didn’t look wrong on her. They looked exactly right. She was a younger version of Joy. She could be Joy’s daughter. Joy had probably dreamed of a pretty feminine little daughter like this. Amy and Brooke had talked about this over the years: how their mother sometimes made them feel huge, like big lolloping orangutans.
“Oh, that’s unusual. How do you spell that, Savannah?” asked Simon. It was like watching an accountant perform in an amateur community production. He was terrible, but so adorably committed.
“P-a-g-o-n-i-s,” answered Savannah, eyebrows arched.
“Huh,” said Simon. “Is that, let me guess, Greek?”
“Apparently,” said Savannah shortly.
“Savannah Pagonis,” repeated Simon. “I bet people never spell it correctly. I hope your middle name is something simple. Like Anne? Marie?”
Amy looked at him admiringly. His delivery remained forced and theatrical, but the strategy couldn’t be faulted.
“You guessed it, it’s Marie,” said Savannah. “Do you want me to spell that too?”
Could he really have guessed it that fast? Or was Savannah just going along with it to shut him up?
“It’s my mother’s name,” said Simon. “Marie is very popular as a middle name.” He opened his mouth to ask another question, and Amy took him by the arm. Next he’d be asking for her date of birth and tax file number. If Savannah did have evil plans, Amy didn’t want her feeling compelled to fast-track them.
“The bathroom is this way,” she said.
“Wait, is this you?” asked Simon in his natural voice. He’d stopped in front of a photo of Amy triumphantly holding up a tiny trophy with both hands, racquet resting against her thigh, big Wimbledon-winning smile, even though it was just the Under 9s regionals.
“Yes, that’s me,” said Amy.
“You were so cute,” said Simon. He kept standing there, examining the photo. “I didn’t know you played tennis!”
“Yep,” she said.
“I play a bit of social tennis,” said Simon. “We should have a game sometime. You’d probably beat me.”
“I would definitely beat you,” said Amy. She pointed down the hallway. “Second door on the left.”
Simon looked at her blankly, forgetting his ruse to get inside.
“Bathroom?” Amy reminded him.
“Ah yes! Thank you, Amy!” He returned to his loud, overly enunciated tone.
When he left, Amy and Savannah looked at each other. It was the oddest feeling. Amy was in the home where she grew up, with photos either side of her attesting to this, and yet she still felt like Savannah was the host. She couldn’t seem to find the right balance between two indisputable facts: Savannah should feel grateful to Amy because her family had given her shelter in her time of need. Amy should feel grateful to Savannah because she was taking care of her parents, and doing a better job than any of the Delaney children ever would or could.
“I’ll just pop my head in the door and see if Mum is still asleep,” said Amy.
A complicated expression crossed Savannah’s face. “Sure. I’ll get back to the kitchen. I’m in the middle of making minestrone. Sing out if Joy needs anything.”
Sing out if Joy needs anything.
Because I am the one who can provide your mother with everything she needs.
Sing out was a Joy phrase. This girl was a mini Joy.
The besotted dog pattered off on Savannah’s heels.
Amy resolutely turned her head the other way as she walked past her old bedroom where Savannah now slept. Selfish! Childish! No one else in the family still considers any room in this house “their bedroom”! She heard the toilet flush as Simon completed his fake bathroom visit.
She pushed open the door of her parents’ bedroom. It smelled as it always had: a comforting mix of her mother’s perfume, her father’s deodorant, and the old-fashioned furniture polish still used by Good Old Barb and Amy’s mother when they cleaned together.
Her mother lay on her side facing away from the door, the covers pulled right up over her shoulders. Her hair—which brought her so many compliments—was mussed against the pillow. Amy tiptoed to the end of the bed. Her mother was asleep, breathing steadily, one hand curled up near her lips so that she seemed to be kissing her knuckles. She had told her children this was because she had sucked her thumb as a child, and it still gave her comfort to have her banned thumb close to her mouth.
The lines on Joy’s face looked like crevices. Amy breathed fast as that old familiar terror gripped her. All children feared their parents dying. Except Amy had once been so consumed by her fear that she hyperventilated, and had to breathe into a paper bag, and the babysitter had to call Joy and Stan to come home fast because this kid was weird.
She wondered what would have happened if her mother had died when Amy was a child. How could the reality of grief be worse than her imagining of it, when she had imagined it so very, very hard? How would she cope now, when her parents inevitably did die, as parents inevitably did, and you had to be so grown-up and mature about it? How did people cope with ordinary, predictable tragedy? It was impossible, insurmountable …
“Amy?”
/> Her mother opened her eyes and sat up. She put on her glasses from her bedside table, smoothed down her hair, and smiled. “Amy? You’ve caught me napping.”
“It’s good that you’re napping, Mum.” Amy breathed slowly in and out. Her mother wasn’t going to die for decades. “You’ve been in hospital. You should be resting.”
Joy waved her hand dismissively. “I took my last antibiotic this morning. I’m fine now. I just get tired in the middle of the day. Come here.” She patted the side of the bed. “Give me a hug.”
Amy went and sat next to her, and her mother hugged her fiercely.
“You look especially beautiful today, darling. I wasn’t so keen on the blue hair at first, but now I think it really makes your eyes pop.”
“Thanks, Mum, although I guess they’d pop more if my eyes were blue. You should dye yours blue.”
“Narelle is in charge of my hair, and I don’t think she’s keen on blue.” Her mother stifled a yawn. “Why are you here, anyway? Where’s Savannah? Where’s your dad?”
Savannah before Dad.
“Savannah is making you soup, and Dad is asleep in front of the television.”
“He has this idea in his head that he never naps,” said her mother. “He just ‘briefly closes his eyes.’ Will you please pass me my hairbrush?”
Amy got up and passed her the heavy silver embossed hairbrush that had always sat on her mother’s dressing table since Amy was a child. Her mother had received it when she won a district tournament as a teenager, back when “brush and comb” sets were common prizes for female competitors, while the men got cigarette cases. Amy still coveted that brush. It looked like something a princess would use.
“You visited the hospital. You didn’t need to come again.” Her mother used swift movements to brush her hair back into its smooth white bob, so that the frail old lady vanished, to be replaced by Amy’s trim, senior citizen mother, wearing a long-sleeved cherry-colored jersey. She threw back the covers to reveal her vulnerable little legs in tracksuit pants. “Have you seen Brooke? How do you think she’s coping with this separation? I couldn’t tell when she visited. Do you think Grant left her for another woman?”
“No,” said Amy. “But I think he’ll move on to someone new with lightning speed.”
“Do you remember when Brooke was a little girl?” said her mother. “And every year she fell in love with a new boy in her class?”
“I do,” said Amy. “She was very cute.” Brooke used to write love letters to boys. It was hard to imagine now.
“I was just thinking about that,” said Joy. “For some reason. She used to be so passionate, and then it felt like growing up just … flattened her. Those damned migraines.” She frowned and put a hand to the side of her mouth and whispered, “I feel like Grant kind of flattened her too.”
Amy put a hand to the side of her own mouth and whispered, “Me too, Mum.”
“We might get her back,” whispered Joy.
“We might,” whispered Amy.
Joy’s eyes danced, and she spoke again at her normal volume. “Anyway. Thank you for coming. I know how busy you are but you don’t need to worry about me because I’ve got Savannah!”
“Yes, you do,” said Amy, deflating.
“She’s doing everything! I don’t need to lift a finger. I’m treating her to a shopping day tomorrow to thank her.”
“A shopping day.” Amy shuddered at the thought. “That’s nice of you.”
“It’s not nice of me! It’s the least I can do for her. Do you know—I can’t remember the last time I cooked a meal?”
She said this as if it were something to be marveled over.
Amy couldn’t remember the last time she herself had cooked a meal either, unless heating up leftover Uber Eats in the microwave counted. Brooke had mentioned that their mother was obsessed with the fact that she didn’t have to cook anymore.
“It’s like she’s had this secret loathing of cooking all these years,” Brooke had said. “Once Savannah moves out we’ll have to do something about getting her help.” She’d paused. “If Savannah ever moves out.”
“How much longer do you think Savannah will be staying for?” Amy asked her mother.
“Oh, gosh, we’re not even thinking about that right now. I need her,” said her mother. “For example, who would have cooked for your father when I was in hospital?”
As if that—her father’s dietary requirements—was the most significant thing about her hospital stay.
Amy said, “Well, I guess we would have. Or he could have got takeaway, or he might even have cooked for himself.”
“Very funny,” said Joy. “Anyway, I’m sure she will want to be on her way soon. I don’t want to take advantage of her. She’s doing so much now that I feel like we should actually pay her some sort of a wage.”
“Like a live-in housekeeper?” said Amy.
“Imagine that,” said her mother dreamily.
“The thing is, if you were employing a live-in housekeeper, you would get references, so I’m just thinking—”
“Well, obviously I’d never get a real live-in housekeeper!” said Joy.
“I’m just saying that we don’t really know that much about Savannah,” said Amy, and she lowered her voice and looked toward the door.
“I actually know lots about her,” said Joy. “We’ve had some long chats while I’ve been recuperating. Do you know—and I find this just so interesting, so fascinating!” Joy’s face lit up. “Savannah has something called highly superior autobiographical memory.” She ticked off each word on her fingers as she said it. “She can remember whole days in her life with a degree of detail that you and I, ordinary people, would find impossible.”
“Really?” said Amy skeptically. She bristled at the way she had been lumped into the category of “ordinary people.” She herself felt she could remember events from her life in quite significant detail, thank you very much. “She’s actually received a diagnosis of that?”
“Well, I don’t know, I don’t know if you get diagnosed with it, I don’t think it’s an illness, as such, although she did say it’s both a blessing and a curse, because while it’s nice to remember the good events, she said she also remembers the bad ones, and, as we know, she has not had a normal happy life—poor girl.”
“Huh,” said Amy.
She took the hairbrush that her mother had left sitting on the bed in front of her and replaced it carefully on the dressing table, then she went and quietly closed the door and sat back down again.
“What is it?” Her mother sat up straight and propped a pillow behind her back. “What’s happened? Has something bad happened?” Panic flooded her face. “Dammit, I thought that new counselor was helping? I thought you were good at the moment!”
“I’m fine, Mum,” said Amy testily. Why did her mother always assume there must be some crisis or other in Amy’s life? She registered the irritated dammit that accompanied her mother’s panic. Her mother would never shout, “Stop being so ridiculous, Amy, pull yourself together!” like she had done when Amy was a kid—she now knew all the correct supportive modern things to say about mental health—but Amy knew that there was an unconscious part of her that still wondered if Amy did indeed need to just stop being so ridiculous and pull herself together. Amy was like a defective household appliance that would never be replaced but that everyone knew could break down at the most inconvenient of times.
“So what is it?”
“Logan called me today. He saw a rerun of a documentary on television, and it was about domestic violence, and the girl on it told almost the exact same story that Savannah told him about her boyfriend—he said it was virtually word for word.”
Her mother knitted her brow, baffled. “So, what are you saying? I don’t—”
“It just seems like too much of a coincidence,” said Amy.
“But I still don’t understand. Are you saying this girl on the television knows Savannah?”
“What?
No! I’m saying maybe Savannah saw that show herself and thought, That would make a good story, and if she really does have this ‘superior memory’ thing, I guess that’s why she could remember it so well.”
“There was no ‘story,’ Amy,” said Joy, coldly, furiously, totally unlike the helpless sleeping old lady of moments ago, more like the mother of Amy’s youth who had “had it up to here with you lot” and “was at the end of her tether.” “I bandaged up that injury myself.”
“I’m not saying her injury wasn’t real, but maybe the cause of the injury—”
“You’re accusing a woman of lying about domestic violence.” Amy’s mother’s eyes were bright. “That’s outrageous. You’re a feminist! Have you heard of the I believe her movement?”
Oh God, she was simultaneously so with it, and so naïve.
Amy said, “Mum, it just seems like a really big coincidence—”
“That poor girl is in my kitchen right now making my favorite soup,” said Joy. “Do you know how much effort goes into minestrone? How much chopping? It’s extremely laborious! Let me tell you, Amy, I believe her.”
She was ready to march the streets, a placard held high. Somehow their positions had reversed. Amy was the middle-aged cynic, her mother the zealous, idealistic teenager.
The bedroom door swung open and her father was there, holding a mug of something steaming.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said to Amy. “Does the young bloke sitting in the kitchen belong to you?”
Chapter 29
NOW
“Did you ever meet the mother?” Liz Barrington asked her younger brother as he sat at her kitchen table doing her tax return for her.
Simon didn’t look up from the pile of receipts.
“The missing mother,” clarified Liz.
He frowned at a faded receipt. “I can’t read this.”
“Your flatmate’s missing mother,” said Liz. “Amy’s missing mother.”
It was all thanks to Liz that Amy had moved into Simon’s share house in the first place. Liz had been Amy’s Uber driver. (Now she had given up Uber driving because she had her own, much more fulfilling mobile spray-tan business: Tan at Home with Liz.)
Apples Never Fall Page 24