The door opens and there’s Cody, glaring at her.
“What are you doing in my room?”
His tone is angry but, beneath the anger, Celeste hears the worry.
“I have every right to come in here. It’s my name on the deeds of this house, last time I checked.” She pulls the vape from her pocket. “What’sthisdoing here, more importantly?”
“I’m minding it for a friend.”
“Of course you are. Well, you can tell your friend I’m minding it now.”
“For god’s sake, I’m fifteen, not five. You are unbelievable.”
“Oh, you’re notfive. So what happened to your knuckles? Am I going to get a call from someone’s mother?”
A strange expression crosses his face. “I hit my hand off a wall.”
“Sure. If I get a call about this, you’re out on your own. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life bailing you out of trouble.” She reaches to pick up the knife from under his pillow. “Why do you have this?”
His face changes again. The belligerence is entirely gone and there’s something hooded, dark and secret in his eyes. He doesn’t speak.
“I’m waiting.” As she says it, she wonders why she’s doing this. What does she want him to say? What if he’s planning to hurt someone? Good god, she’s not equipped for this. They’ll have to bring him to a therapist, they’ll have to—
“I needed to cut an apple.”
Relief floods her body. OK. An apple. That makes sense.
There are no apples here. There are no plates. No apple pips or cores. But it doesn’t matter. Because Cody has explained, and they don’t need a therapist.
“No food upstairs,” she says crisply.
“Whatever.”
Good god, he’s so annoying. “And stop sulking. You brought all this on yourself, you know. If you hadn’t locked that child out, you wouldn’t have lost the internship. The flap of the butterfly’s wings.”
“The message would have gone out anyway. I just wouldn’t have been mentioned,” he mutters under his breath.
Is he trying to blameher?
“Take some responsibility,” she snaps. “You locked that child out and these are the consequences.”
“I was fourteen, Mum. I had no idea what I was doing.” There’s something so plaintive in his eyes right now it stops her for a moment. Somewhere deep in there is the small boy she once held in her arms. She steps forward.
He steps back. “You shouldn’t have let me do the babysitting.” He’s sulky again, and she sees red.
“Oh, so that’s my fault too? You need togrow up, Cody. Why can’t you be more like your sister?”
“More like Nika? Ha. You’ll see. And when it’s over, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
64
Susan
Wednesday
“Jon said not to bring this up, but sisters before misters, obviously.” Leesa’s at the sink, filling the kettle, and turns now to look at me. “About your physio last Wednesday—I mentioned I’d been minding Bella when you went and he seemed…taken aback?”
Shit.Of course he was. Now he thinks I was up to something. Why didn’t I think of that and tell Leesa I was going to, like, I don’t know, the dentist? The appointment was a just-in-case one, to nip any downward spiral in the bud. And the only reason I didn’t tell Jon was so he wouldn’t worry. Except now that I know we’re potentially destined for divorce, the last thing I need is for him to know I had to go back to my counselor. And that I let our daughter get sunburnt.Fuck.
