‘And you’ve got it, darling, one hundred per cent you’ve got it.’ They sat quietly for a second or two, letting the new world settle around them. ‘I often wondered how it would feel losing you to someone you loved more than me, and of course I wanted it to happen. I want you to fly, Cass, I want you to live your best life! And here we are, and it’s strange, because I am so happy for you, happy for Jake, but it means I lose a little bit of you, don’t I?’
‘Only a little bit.’ She could tell he was smiling.
‘Oh shit!’ she cursed, realising in that moment as her mind caught up that Jake was Daisy’s brother, and Daisy was the daughter of the woman her husband had slept with.
‘What’s wrong?’ He pulled away from her and she noticed how he had, in such a short space of time, leapfrogged from boy to man.
‘Nothing, darling. Nothing.’
‘So, what do you think Dad’ll say, and Nan and Grandad?’ He bit his lip.
‘I think it doesn’t matter what anyone says or thinks. It only matters what you and Jake think.’
‘We think the world’s a better place when we’re together.’ He laughed softly and she knew it was at a memory and that he had lied to her: she had lost more than a little bit of him, but that was just the way it had to be. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready to tell them all yet, especially with the new baby and everything; I think they have enough going on.’
‘It’s no one’s business but yours and Jake’s, tell or don’t tell. Just live your own true life and don’t let anyone push you off course.’Like they did me...I have been running for too long...
‘Where are you going to go, Mum?’ He ran his finger over the rim of her suitcase.
‘Well, if I went anywhere, it’d be back to Nanny and Pop’s on the Merrigo. And you and Dom would have a bed there too, of course. Nanny and Pops would love it. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll put the case away.’
She watched as Cassian wiped the beginning of tears from his eyes; she knew that right now she needed to be by the side of her kids.
‘Thank you, Mum.’
‘You don’t have to thank me. I love you. I love you all. It will be okay; we’ll make it okay.’ Sighing, she looked out of the window, over the manicured garden that a man came weekly to keepin order; a man who would soon enough be losing his job as the whole deck of cards fell.
‘How can you make things better with Dad? Make your life easier?’
She looked away, hearing the words come from his sweet toddler mouth, and it tore at her breast as she considered how best to answer.
‘I need him to come clean, open up, tell his parents exactly what’s going on and the mess we’re in. I think that would ease the pressure, start the conversation, but that needs to be the minimum. He said it’s how he wants to live too, to be more honest, nothing left unsaid.’ Again she blinked away the image of Lisa. ‘Yes, that’s it in a nutshell: nothing left unsaid, nothing but the truth.’
‘What shall we do now, Mum?’ His breath came fast.
‘Right now, we shall go downstairs, put the kettle on. I want to hear all about Jake. I mean not the Jake I know, but the Jake you know. The Jake youlove.’
‘I do love him, Mum.’ He wiped his tears with his delicate long fingers.
‘Well, now I also know that he’s the luckiest boy in the world because you’re fabulous. So fabulous.’
‘I’m worried about Dom,’ he said as he stood.
‘Me too. I want to say the way she behaves is because of the crowd she hangs around with, bad influences, but I don’t really buy that. Ruby seems like a nice girl.’ She pictured how she’d tried to cover up for her drunk daughter in the early hours. ‘But I do worry about the path my little girl is walking. She used to talk to me, used to confide in me, but in recent months it feels like I’m the enemy. I’m scared for her, that’s the truth, and I get it, I do. Her whole life uprooted from Melbourne, a place she loved.’
‘My whole life too.’
‘Of course.’ She reached out and squeezed his arm, swamped with self-recrimination, wondering how different things might now be for them all if she’d had the courage to rail against them leaving, to find a way to stay put.
‘But I met Jake and so for me it’s working out, kinda.’
‘I don’t know what to do, Cass. Sometimes it feels like I don’t know what to do about anything!’ She cursed the pull of more tears.
‘Do you want me to speak to Domino?’
‘Yes, she might listen to you.’ She felt a wave of gratitude for this sweet, caring human who was such a wonderful son and brother.
The front doorbell rang. Julie made her way down the wide, sweeping staircase and opened the front door, Cassian close behind her.
