The Good Sister(6)

Next, Mrs Delahunty asked where we’d been sleeping.

‘On the couch,’ Fern said. There was no hint of concern on her face. I remember thinking how nice it must have been, to be so clueless. And how dangerous.

Mrs Delahunty’s expression remained the same, but the pitch of her voice rose slightly. ‘Oh? Whose couch?’

Fern shrugged. ‘Depends whose house we are at.’

Mrs Delahunty looked at me. I looked at my shoes.

After a while, Mrs Delahunty got up and walked over to Mum. I buried my head in my book, too afraid to look. After a few minutes, Mum came over and told us it was time to leave.

‘Who told the librarian that we were homeless?’ Mum asked, after we had exited. We were on either side of her, holding onto her hands. I remember that detail because it was unusual. Usually Mum liked Fern and me to hold hands with each other – it made passers-by smile at us, and that seemed to make Mum happy.

‘Who told the librarian that we were homeless?’ she repeated. There was an edge to her voice, and I remember Fern starting to fidget, repeating the word ‘homeless’ in that strange way she repeated things. We turned the corner into a quiet street and Mum asked again. Her fingernails were digging into my palm.

‘Mrs Delahunty . . . she asked us–’ I started.

‘So it was you?’ Mum turned on me immediately.

I peeked at Fern. She was frightened and confused. She hadn’t told anyone we were homeless; she hadn’t used that word. She didn’t know she was the one to blame.

I nodded.

Mum let go of our hands and bent down low. ‘You stupid, stupid girl. That lady might seem nice, but she wants to take you away from me. Is that what you want?’

I shook my head.

‘Do you want to go a foster home, with a horrible woman who doesn’t love you? Never see me again?’

Her face was a contorted, terrifying mask of rage. Bits of spittle flew into my face.

‘No!’ I cried. All I wanted was to be with her. To be separated from Mum was my greatest fear. She was right. I was stupid. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mummy.’

‘Let’s go home, Fern,’ she said, snatching up Fern’s hand. I ran after them, grasping for Mum’s other hand, but she put it into her pocket. I scuttled after them all the whole way home, crying. Mum didn’t even flinch when I threw myself at her feet, grazing my knee badly in the process.

When we got back to the house – I can’t remember whose we were staying at or why they weren’t there that night – Mum made dinner for two. When I asked if I could have some, she acted as if I wasn’t even there. Afterward, she bathed Fern and read her a story. It was rare that Mum bathed us, and she never read us stories. I clambered onto the couch to listen to the story, but Mum pushed me off so roughly I fell onto the floorboards, banging my bad knee. I cried so hard my stomach hurt, but she just kept reading. When the story was finished, she tucked Fern in and left the room.

I understood somehow that I shouldn’t get into the bed, so eventually I fell asleep on the floor. When I woke, Fern was beside me, her skinny arms wrapped around me, her face buried in my hair. She’d brought the blanket and pillow down from the couch and assembled a little bed around us. She held me like that all night.

Most people think of me as Fern’s protector. But the truth is, in her own funny way, she’s always been mine.





FERN


At 6.15 pm sharp, I open Rose and Owen’s white picket gate and walk down the red brick pathway. I have dinner with Rose on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, unless Rose is travelling or working late, in which case we forfeit. Attempts to reschedule to another night have not gone well, historically. These cornerstones to my routine are what keep me calm and grounded.

Rose and Owen have a lovely house, the kind that looks like it should feature in the pages of a House & Garden magazine, even though the lawns aren’t as neat as they were before Owen went away. Owen used to mow and edge the grass every other week during the winter months and weekly during the summer, but he has taken a job in London now. Still, the lawn is the only blight on the place. The verandah is swept and oiled, and there’s a wicker basket next to the door for umbrellas. There’s also a shoe rack bearing an upturned never-been-worn pair of shiny red gumboots. Rose takes great pride in keeping house, something she says is a direct response to our childhood home, which was chaotic to say the least. I too have adopted a high standard of order and cleanliness in my home, but I stop short of keeping my house to the standard of a magazine spread.

I take Rose’s three front steps in one leap. As I open the front door, I’m greeted by Alfie, whom I kneel to pat. Even the dog is picture perfect, with his glossy coat and a ridiculous red kerchief collar around his neck.

‘Hello, Alfie,’ I say, as he leaps into my lap. When I stand again, he runs along at my ankles delightedly. When Rose and Owen got Alfie, Rose had insisted that he was going to be an outside dog. (‘How many cavoodles do you know who are outside dogs?’ Owen had whispered to me. ‘None,’ I’d replied. ‘But I don’t know any cavoodles other than Alfie, so your survey is flawed.’)

In the kitchen, Rose squats in front of the oven with two oversize oven mitts on her hands, watching a chicken under the grill.

‘I’m here!’ I announce.