Would she ever regain that naivety? Or would she always be hunting for Jo in middle-aged women’s faces?
No, she told herself.Not when everyone around you is Colombian.
“Bitch,” Sam snapped, smashing the oven door closed.
Tabby flinched, almost dropping a jar of pearled onions.
“Sorry. I don’t mean you,” Sam muttered. “How are you, anyway? Excited about your… thing?”
She’d told the twins she was meeting a potential sponsor today, someone interested in paying her to shill their jewellery on Instagram. She needed a reason to get out of the house and an explanation for the money Toby was going to give her, lest they find it and assume she was sucking mad dick for cash.
“Should be good,” she said with all the casualness she could muster. “I’m meeting two people. Marcie and Darnell. They seem pretty keen to make a deal.”
“Good,” Sam said absently. “Nice work.”
Tabby watched her sister faff around with the now-empty shopping bags. “I’m thinking of challenging one of them to a duel. Trying to take over their company by medieval force.”
“Cool. Lemme know how it goes.”
Yeah, Sam wasn’t listening. Tabby took the bags away and dropped them in Nicole’s designated bag leaving area. She wished she could tell her sisters she was seeing Toby in a few hours. Going to his fuckhead house to start his thirteen-thousand-dollar tattoo.
But the twins were in no state to hear it, even if she wasn’t planning on bailing out of Melbourne with the money. She was starting to think she could paint herself green and run around screaming about aliens, and Sam and Nix would just keep cleaning and slamming doors and utilising whatever other maladaptive coping strategies they could come up with to try to process their mum’s unexpected return.
She didn’t mind. Much. It was just kind of lonely. And confusing. Why did she feel so normal? She wanted to ask someone, but there was no way she was confiding in Weepy Nix or Shotgun Sam. Instead, she returned to the couch to watch the vampire show with Nix until the nuggets were ready.
Sam poured the piping hot chicken parcels straight onto plates and handed them out along with their condiments of choice. Tabby liked mayo, Sam liked sauce, and Nix had a little pack of microwaved gravy. As they ate, Tabby wondered if Jo liked chicken nuggets. Their dad didn’t; he’d been a vegetarian forever, but maybe she did. Maybe they had a tonne of small yet significant things in common.
“Would you want to see her again?” Nix asked for the millionth time.
“No,” Sam snarled. “Not unless Noah can get me a gun.”
“He’s not a criminal anymore! Aren’t you worried we won’t ever see her again?”
“‘Hoping’ is the word you’re looking for, Nicole.Hoping.”
Tabby pushed a lopsided nugget around her plate. She did want to see Jo again. If only to ask for an explanation. Why now? Because she knew their dad wasn’t around or some other reason? And why get a tattoo? She felt like she’d been conned into giving Jo a piece of herself. Her art transfused into her mother’s skin for all eternity…
“Well, I’d like to see her,” Nix said quietly. “Even just to ask why she left.”
“She left because she’s a twat,” Sam said, chewing like she was trying to crack her own teeth.
“But with Dad gone, it’s like we’ve lost both of them.” Nix’s eyes brimmed with fresh tears. “If I carry to term, he might not be here when the baby comes and Mum… Mum…”
Nix dissolved into more loud sobs, and Tabby and Sam each touched her shoulder.
“Sorry, Nix,” Tabby said, swallowing what felt like a landslide of guilt and chicken. How easy would it be for Nix to put on lingerie and seduce where their dad was out of Noah? Super fucking easy, she bet. And yet, she felt a twisted obligation to respect her dad’s wishes. Or at least stop Nicole from throwing a wok at Noah’s head in pregnant rage.
“This whole thing sucks,” Sam muttered. “It fucking sucks, but we don’t know where dad is and catching up with the deadbeat mum of the century isn’t going to help. Especially when she doesn’t want to see us.”
Nicole sighed, shoving her plate of uneaten nuggets onto the coffee table. Déjà vu washed over Tabby as she recalled watching Nix do this back when she was still school captain and the curator of the world’s cringiest ‘white guy with guitar’ playlists. When had this anxious, fluttering person replaced her sister? And on the other side of the couch, Sam was glaring fit to burn the house down. She’d always been grumpy, but she’d been happy too. She used to laugh so loudly people turned from down the street when they heard it. And now she’d been body-snatched by this angry golem.
And then there was her, drifting aimlessly, unable to consider anything as simple as re-dyeing her hair or telling her sisters about Toby. Spreading lies, keeping secrets, and acting like she thought it would all work out when she suspected the opposite. Unable to keep her thoughts to herself, she turned to Nix.
“When did we all…?” But she couldn’t finish her sentence.
Sam dragged a nugget through tomato sauce. “When did we all, what?”
“Get so old…”
