But as she carefully placed the box back in her bag, she felt a tug on her heart.Or maybe I shouldn’t have told her about it at all.
3
Blake set the table for five, before walking back into the kitchen. She opened the oven and looked in, the smell of chicken and roasting vegetables filling the room. Growing up, she’d dreamed of arriving home to a house that smelt of home cooking or baking, although she could probably have counted on one hand the number of times that had actually happened. Every now and then, her mum would manically clean the house until the smell of bleach hung heavy in the air and cook something delicious for dinner, but by the next day she’d be slumped in her chair again or unable to rise from bed, and Blake would be left rationing out slices of bread and glasses of milk to try to make what they had last.
As the eldest, she remembered what it had been like before, when they’d had a fully functioning family, but those memories had become harder and harder to hold on to as she’d slowly taken over the role of caregiver. And now, even though she was all grown up and her siblings were adults with lives of their own, she still had a compulsion to feed them and care for them, to make sure they knew how loved they were. It was also why she’d stayed in their childhood home—a worn, three-bedroom apartment—long after her brother and sister had both movedout, to make sure they had somewhere to return to if they ever needed it.
There was a knock at the door then, followed by the sound of her sister calling out.
‘Blake! I’m home!’
Blake forgot all about the chicken roasting and hurried out to greet her sister. She hadn’t seen Abby for three months, and hearing her voice set her at ease, as if something missing from her life had finally been returned.
‘It’s so good to see you.’ Blake almost tripped over her sister’s bags in her hurry to wrap her arms around her, giving her a big, long hug.
‘It’s good to see you, too,’ Abby said. ‘God, I’ve missed your cooking. Something smells great, as usual.’
Blake beamed, holding her at arm’s length so she could study her. ‘I’ve never seen you so tanned, and your hair is all beachy-looking. I love it.’ It was usually impossible for people not to notice they were sisters, with the same long, dark-blonde hair and chocolate-brown eyes, but Abby had turned into a blonder, more golden version of her everyday self.
‘Australia suited me,’ Abby said. ‘I only wish I could have stayed longer.’
They walked around her bags and into the kitchen as Abby talked excitedly about her travels and Blake opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses. She’d always lived vicariously through her sister, and this trip was no different. Blake had never travelled, and yet Abby seemed to be ticking off countries as if she needed to see every corner of the world before she turned twenty-five.
‘So, what’s new with you?’ Abby asked when she finally paused for breath.
‘Nothing, really,’ Blake said. ‘Just work and more work, you know me.’
‘You really need to see the world, you know that, right?’
Blake laughed. ‘One day I will. But for now, I want to feed you and hear all about the past three months.’
Just as she finished speaking, there was another knock at the door, followed by her brother Tom calling out to announce himself. Within seconds he was in the kitchen with them, although it wasn’t until Blake had hugged him and then watched as he bearhugged Abby off the ground, that she realised he was alone.
‘Where’s Jen?’ Blake asked, looking around him as if his girlfriend might still be in the other room, or perhaps hiding behind him. ‘I thought she would be joining us.’
‘Ahh, we broke up.’ Tom shrugged, as if it was no big deal. ‘Sorry, I should have told you she wasn’t coming.’
‘She waslovely, though,’ Blake groaned.
He just shrugged again, and Blake was at least grateful to have Abby there so that they could exchange looks that signalled just how mad their brother was. He didn’t have a problem meeting nice girls, but he most definitely had a problem staying in a relationship with them longer than three months’ duration. The problem was, Blake always seemed to fall in love with them more than he did.
‘Do you have beer?’ Tom asked.
Blake nodded. He asked the question as if it wasn’t always there waiting for him. ‘In the fridge. Help yourself.’
She didn’t bother asking him what had happened with Jen; she knew he’d talk when he was ready, so instead she let her siblings catch up while she took the chicken from the oven, admiring all the little roasted vegetables and potatoes she’d layered around it. They were all golden, the potatoes slightly crispy around the edges, just how everyone liked them.
‘Is this the box from the lawyer?’ Abby asked, as Tom disappeared, presumably into the living room to watch television.
‘It sure is.’
‘You’ve been looking at the clues again?’
Blake glanced over at Abby, watching the way she was turning the box over in her fingers, studying it.
‘I have. I just can’t stop wondering what it’s all about, and how the clues link back to us as a family.’
‘You know, this box kind of reminds me of you,’ Abby said. ‘The sketched design and the piece of fabric, it’s as if this was left for you. Have you ever thought that, or is it just me?’ Blake finished plating the chicken and left it on the counter, going to stand beside her sister as she studied the clues. Abby wasn’t wrong; it could have been something left specifically for her. She reached for the design and looked at it, even though she’d long ago committed it to memory. For years she’d dreamed of being a designer, although her sketches were never as polished as this one, despite its age. But there was still something almost familiar about the lines of the design—it could have been because she’d stared at it for so many hours, she knew that, but she’d almost convinced herself that the connection ran deeper. She traced her fingers around the silhouette of the sketch, imagining that she’d created it herself.
