‘I can’t say I’ve noticed anything,’ I begin, even though it feels like I’m betraying Audrey. ‘But, Maggie, Audrey is exceptionally gifted. She hears things we don’t.’
I’m met with a silent ‘thank you’ in Audrey’s eyes.
‘All I’m saying is that I think we should watch her,’ she says. ‘Something is missing in her music.’
‘Please fill out this questionnaire,’ Dr Kumar says, three days later, handing me a sheet of paper with a range of scenarios asking how I’ve felt over the last month. If something is wrong with Parker, this is no time for paternal heroics.
Maybe it’s a midlife crisis. I read that midlife is late thirties, statistically speaking. Maybe it’s existential dread. Overexposure to climate crises at work? Burnout?
How often did you feel tired for no reason?the question reads.
There’s always a reason. I can’t think of the last time I got an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Even at nine, if Parker is with us, sheinevitably crawls into our bed, and if she’s with Maggie, I wake up anyway, listening for footsteps.
How often did you feel nervous? So nervous nothing could calm you down?
I ticknone of the time. I’m not anxious.
How often did you feel hopeless?
This test isn’t nuanced enough. Of course I’ve felt hopeless. I have a child with some sort of problem and a job that exposes the threat of human extinction …
How often were you so sad nothing could cheer you up?
I undo a button at my neck. Until this moment I’d thought this appointment was a waste of time. An overreaction, in response to all the men’s health advertisements in bus shelters and on the back of restroom doors. I have a fascinating job. A beautiful daughter. An amazing new partner. Even things with Maggie have settled down. I should be on top of the world!
Should be on top of the world …Dad said that to me once. University entrance scores were out. I’d been thrilled with 98.85 until they pointed out that, two years earlier, Josh had scored 99.00.And majoring in music, Fraser, where it’s harder to scale up.
My whole childhood had been an effort in scaling up against my brother, striving to impress Mum, in particular, never quite making it no matter how well I did. Every prize. Each scholarship. None of them ever quite as good as whatever Josh pulled off, and I wonder if that’s where this all began.
How often have I been so sad nothing would cheer me up? My hand shakes as I mark the applicable box, knowing this one answer will unlock a ‘mental health plan’ and psychology appointments and medication. And having to burden Audrey with this, right in the dizzying thrill of our ‘honeymoon period’.
You never have to struggle alone, I reassured Parker the other night. Is the advice the same for an adult male? Because even as I hand the paper back and the doctor tallies up the score, and despite how enlightened I pretend to be on this stuff, even before the official diagnosis is handed down, I’m already making a mental list of all the people I am not going to tell.
15
AUDREY
‘Fraser was right.’ Rach and I are on one of our regular walks around Lake Burley Griffin, sipping coffee bought from a little truck near the National Library and kicking our feet through the crunch of leaves. I justhaveto confide in her. ‘Ridges didn’t only steal my music. It happened to several of us—all women, of course. He’sstillteaching—’
My best friend has been training for this fight for twelve years. Blonde hair scraped into a ponytail. Camouflage-themed running gear. She has elite take-on-the-world vibes. Assassin-like, whenever we talk about this.
‘My classmates are determined to take him down. And you know me. I am so non-confrontational I forced down an extra-spicy vindaloo last night when I’d actually ordered mild massaman, and I can barely taste this coffee anymore. They added me to a group chat and I’m already losing sleep.’
She frowns. ‘Wouldn’t taking down Ridges inevitably expose Joshua?’ She can tell by the look on my face that this is exactly my problem. ‘Not that he doesn’t deserve everything he gets,’ she adds. ‘I despise that man on your behalf.’
Even now, after everything he did, her words hit me in conflicting ways. He was once my closest friend. That’s why the betrayal stung so exquisitely. As recently as a yearago, it would have been why I would have walked away from this.
But those stakes have been raised. ‘I worry about the blast radius,’ I admit. ‘I’ve barely got a foothold in that family, and this would burn the house down. I can’t lose him.’
‘I sincerely hope you mean Fraser,’ she says.
‘Of course I mean Fraser! You know their mum always called me Fickle Sully? They think it wasmewho wrecked things with Josh. Imagine the story they’d concoct about me infiltrating the family a second time, through the other brother, and blowing it all up again. I know this sounds dramatic, but Iwould not survivewithout that man.’
Rach, who is the last person to throw herself into a public display of affection, hugs me, her body charged. ‘Fraser would be on your side, you know,’ she whispers. ‘He always is. He adores you.’
‘So why would I sabotage that? How can I threaten Parker’s uncle?’
‘Josh did this to himself.’
