I straighten up, too. “We’ve done worse in this family.”
“Yes, we have.”
I’m sure he’s talking about our father. But why does it feel like he’s aiming that at me? And why does it feel like he’s not talking about what I did to Joy? Wounded, I meet his eyes and let the silence stretch. I wait for him to bring up Amy Anderson.
Thankfully, he doesn’t.
I reach for my Coke, take a small sip. “Is Tara coming back? Or has she…”
Left for good.
“Of course she’s coming back,” he says, frowning. “Why wouldn’t she?”
I give him a pointed look. “You tell me.”
My brother is the best person I know, but sometimes you have to squint to see that. He has some questionable connections and can talk his way out of anything. I’ve seen him bluff through situations he had no business surviving, and I’d bet he’s got some stories he would never tell me. Strategic, I’d call him. But others might say he’s “a bit of a wheeler-dealer.”
“They’ll be back after the school holidays,” Heath says simply. “Don’t you worry about that, Min.”
I get the message:Don’t ask too many questions.
I don’t. If he’s into something, or up to something, it doesn’t matter. Not to me. I’ll stand beside him, quietly, a silent endorsement. Not because I believe in whatever he’s up to, but because I believe in him.
I’m sipping my drink when a man enters the pub. He scans the room, and when he sees me, he does a double take. His face tightens, the corners of his mouth pulling down as our eyes lock. I wonder if he’s seeing my dad. I know I look like him. We have the same brown eyes, hooded and suspicious. Even when I force a smile in photographs, my eyes flatten into dark pebbles.You look so angry in pictures,Oliver used to snap, peering down at the selfies he so loved taking.Let’s do it again,he’d sigh.And try not to look like you hate the whole world, please.
Terry Hargrave is the owner of the Roo Bay pub. He owns theTitan,a forty-foot snapper charter he operated for thirty years. He has no kids and never married, and he’ll tell you it’s because he never found the right woman.
But I think he did. And I think it was my mother.
He’s older now, his face deeply lined, with eyes that look like they’ve seen it all. He’s a no-nonsense type of man, but he lacks the cruelty of the townsmen. I saw the way he was with my mum, how he softened around her. I used to wonder what our lives would’ve looked like had Mum chosen him, not our father.
A moment later, he’s hovering above me, peering down.
“Hey, Minnie.”
God, I hate that nickname. Minnie. Minnow. All my life people have been trying to make me smaller.
And…I realize now, I havelet them.
The last time Terry came around to our house was the week before Dad disappeared. I think of the newspaper clipping in my bedside drawer.
A man acquainted with Peter Greenwood allegedly attacked him at his Kangaroo Bay home. The man is considered a suspect in his disappearance.
The man was Terry Hargrave.
Terry places a paternal hand out, resting it gently on Heath’s shoulder, and I’m surprised when Heath sits up a little straighter as if the older man’s hand has anchored him, steadied him.
It’s no secret that the whole town thinks Terry killed my father. Including Heath. Maybe he thinks Terry did us all a favor. My dad was not a popular man. Territory is everything in fishing towns, and my father had a habit of overstepping. Skippers havetheir fishing spotpassed down through the generations, and they’ll defend it with their lives. On the land, they’re nobodies. But on their boat, they are skipper, boss, and God.
Dad didn’t give a shit about boundaries. He’d fish the best spots, even if they were yours.Especiallyif they were yours. Not to mention the lies he’d tell. I’ve been on theDeep Seawith Dad when we caught absolutely nothing, and he’d pull into the general store, windburned and snarling. But the moment he stepped inside, hewas slapping backs, braggingloudlyabout all the fish he’d caught. He started poaching fishing customers, even Terry’s, moored theDeep Seawherever he wanted.
But it was the way he treated my mum that caused the damage between Terry and my dad. To my father, Mum was his to be emptied, drained. Same with us. Who was going to stop him? Terry, by all accounts. But in my opinion, it was too late. I’ll always harbor a grudge against Terry for not stepping in sooner. He was the adult; Heath and I were the kids. We shouldn’t have had to shoulder what we did alone.
“Heard you been up in the big city,” Terry says with a trace of disapproval.
I nod, wondering if he knows about the attack tonight, but Heath hasn’t said a word.
“You hear about that farken journo?” Terry asks Heath, eyes full to the brim with anger. “He rocked up here the other day, askin’ questions.”
