Leaning over Mum’s kitchen bench, I watch her assemble a lasagne. I’ve already been to her bathroom cabinet and stolen as many sleeping pills as I think I can get away with. My handbag feels as if it’s glowing with all the things I’ve hidden there. I should’ve told Mum about the letter as soon as I got in the door.But when I looked at the post on her hall table and saw nothing from Corrective Services, my first reaction was relief.
I jump as Mum uncorks a bottle.
‘All okay, darling?’ she asks, pouring me a glass.
I nod, reading the label. French red, never Australian. ‘All fine.’
We tiptoe around each other now. It was easier when we met at Rosario’s on the corner. At least there I could pretend we were work colleagues, or distant cousins catching up—I’d make up a different scenario each time.
‘The company’s got a lot of sales right now,’ I say, if only to break the silence. Then I add, without really thinking about it, ‘Maybe I should take one.’
Her mouth is on the wooden spoon, tasting the meat sauce, as she spins around to look at me. I haven’t left the country since you. I tell Mum it’s because I’m scared of planes, which is sort of true now, but it’s more than that. What if it happens again? What if it happens again, but without you?
‘Anywhere nice?’ She is trying to keep her voice neutral, light. As if this is a normal mother–daughter conversation.
I study the cheese grater, thinking about that student, Hannah Davies, kissing her boyfriend under the stars. The click of the mouse, the ease of it. Why haven’t I told Mum about the letter? Thereissomething wrong with me. This feeling I have… thislonging…I don’t want anyone else to know, even her. Especially her. Even now, I want you all to myself.
‘You could take this Nick, wherever you go?’ Mum smiles, almost smugly. ‘When am I going to meet him, anyway?’
I shrug, I have no intention of letting that happen any time soon. Maybe I want him all to myself too.
‘Soon,’ I say, attempting a smile of my own to placate her.
Mum would like Nick; she’d think he was sensible. She’d appreciate his shiny leather shoes and salmon-pink shirts and wide, confident smile. She’d like his beautiful, straight teeth. Would she like his blond hair and blue eyes, though, the resemblance?
‘I think I want to go somewhere alone,’ I say. I’m trying this out, exploring the hesitant desire I have inside me.
Mum tilts her head as she watches me. Is it possible that she received her own notification letter, which she’s since hidden? Maybe this dinner is to talk about the next step, or to commiserate.
‘Like a gap-year thing?’
‘No,’ I say.
She can’t have a letter. I changed the details on file years ago, stipulating that I would be the only one notified about developments in your sentence. But why didn’t I change my name too while I was at it? Why keep my dead name just for them?
‘Bit old for a gap year, aren’t I?’ I say.
‘You’re only twenty-seven, sweetheart, still time.’
‘Mum, I’m on the minimum wage.’
She flinches. ‘Not quite minimum, you told me—’
‘Close enough.’
She frowns as she puts grated cheese on top of her creation—first cheddar, then mozzarella, then parmesan—and shakes the dish once, twice, as if to shake some sense into it. She must be off her diet.
‘If you go away, you might feel like a change when you return. University?’
‘You never know.’
She licks the wooden spoon again and studies me. ‘So, where do you want to go?’
There it is: the million-dollar question. Unless she is doing a really good job of disguising it, Mum doesn’t know anything about your early parole. She’d be acting very differently if she did—freaking out, making me stay in her spare room, not letting me out of her sight. She’d be on the phone to Dad, saying we all need a family meeting. She’d be contacting her anxiety coach. I can’t do that to her again. Not to any of us.
I should tell her.
I should.