For goodness’ sake.
Flushed, I emptied the sink and abandoned the kitchen. A cold shower called my name, but I wasn’t quite brave enough. Instead, I drifted to the converted attic and the boxes of my mum’s things Gus had left for me to sort through. My punishment, perhaps, for spending the last few days fixated on a man I’d sworn to forget when I should’ve been clearing Gus’s house of the memories he’d kept for my sake.
As if on cue, a vehicle pulled up outside. Heart jumping, I peeped through the dormer window, expecting the Daley’s roofing van. It wasn’t, of course, and my soul knew it even as the neurotic squirrel in my head made me look. Made me scrutinise the black car as if it meant something.
It didn’t. A man I vaguely recognised—school, perhaps?—got out and crouched at the end of the drive. I didn’tcare enough to wonder why one of Gus’s mates was messing with his flowerpots, and I turned back to the boxes. They were filled with my mother’s artwork and scrapbooks—line drawings of flowers and animals, and sugar-paper pages crammed with clues to her crazy busy life only she would’ve truly understood. My mother had worked her fingers to the bone—a constant buzz of energy. Even when we’d sunbathedon the beach, she’d talk so fast I’d felt lazy just listening.
I picked up a photograph of the two of us by the sea in Brittany. We were the same—pale and fair, her blue eyes somehow overpowering the stronger dark genes of my father, genes that dominated Gus’s moody good looks. Ironic, eh? Considering he was the sunshine of our family, and I was the volatile bitch.
The photo found itsway back into the pile, along with a dozen others I couldn’t bear to see. My mother’s death had been swift, just a month between diagnosis and the end, but it had felt just as cruel as Luke’s father’s drawn-out illness. I’d pushed the pain aside for the last five years, and I wasn’t ready to welcome it back.
I sealed the box of stuff I couldn’t part with and lugged it down to my room, shovingit under my bed. I’d throw the rest away, one day, maybe, perhaps.
The deep rumble of a diesel engine sounded outside as I was scrambling to my feet. This time, I knew without question it was Luke’s van. Because it wasn’t enough that he picked Gus up every morning, now they apparently hung out all evening too. The fact that I’d miss Luke’s morning visits now the shop was open seemed irrelevantas I regressed to peeping around the curtain again, watching my brother slide somewhat awkwardly from the passenger seat, laughing, as if being with Luke made him fucking happy.
Irritated, I crumpled the curtain in my fists, realising too late that it gave away my position at the window. Gus glanced up as he waved to Luke, his expression unreadable.
Luke drove away, but he saw me.
I knew he did.
