I flick a glance at Josh. He is gobsmacked.
‘She wouldn’t let me see you!’ Parker protests, but her tone has lost some of its sting.
‘Because she loves you. I bet it’s killing her that she’s let you down.’
She twists a lock of her hair. It’s cropped short with an undercut.
‘I love it like this!’ I say, admiring it.
‘You look different, too, Audrey. Do you have a secret boyfriend?’
The question gives me whiplash. I am not opening up about Beau in present company. The idea of even mentioning his name makes my nerve endings vibrate with alarm. And with something else.And with everything.
Beau was right. I am madly in love with Fraser. I always will be. But as for the rest of what he said—that I was strong and creative and talented and …flammable, even the way I appeared on Night One, like a dangerous swamp monster, wielding my vehicle against his—my whole body tingles at the thought …
‘Shedoes,’ Josh says, breaking into my thoughts, reading me right the way he always did.
‘Who is it?’ Parker asks, leaning towards me.
‘It’s nobody,’ I answer, frowning at them both. ‘I’ve started composing again. That’s why I’m here. To spend a few days writing music.’
Her eyes are alight. ‘You cando it, Audrey! You can! You two are the whole reason I love music.’
She holds out both her hands, palms up, inviting us each to take one. But the poignancy of the gesture is short-lived. As Josh and I reach for her, we seem to notice in unison the mirrored crisscrosses of raw red skin inside each of her wrists.
She sees her mistake instantly, lets us go, and tugs at her sleeves. And my heart cracks all over again.
‘Parker, does your mum know about that?’ I ask, gently, fragments coming to mind of her wearing long sleeves in summer, tugging at the cuffs, and that sense I’d had for so long that something was up.
‘Please don’t tell her.’ She’s frantic now, her secret exposed.
All this time, I’ve been worried sick about the example I set. I’ve been so hard on myself for letting her down, and letting Fraser down, posthumously. He once explained, after we’d all had a particularly difficult day at home, that parenting was a constant exercise in trying to adjust our own warped perspective. We magnify our mistakes. We focus on the times we get it wrong, and never on the string of little triumphs that add up to a good job over a lifetime. But what if one mistake is so huge, we’re cut from a child’s life? How can I ever forgive that?
When I look at Josh, his eyes are glistening. Whatever else he’s done wrong, there’s purity in his love for Parker.
‘What’s this about?’ I ask, and she shrugs. For a moment, I think she’s not going to tell us, then the floodgates open.
‘Everything is so shit,’ she says, hands shaking, starting to cry. ‘My friends whine about how hard life is and I just want to scream,YOUR DAD DIDN’T DIE!When it’s Father’s Day at school, the teachers bang on about the big breakfast as if I’m not even there, like I just have to suck up the whole thing and pretend it didn’t happen to me. I never see you. Mum broke up with Rose’s dad, so I never see her either. You and Mum told me it wasn’t my fault …’ Now the sobs are free flowing, and she grabs both my hands and squeezes so tight it hurts. ‘Itwas, Audrey! Of course it was! And Ihatemy life without him. He loved me so hard!’
She’s almost out of breath. ‘As for this?’ She pulls her cuffs up again, showing us. ‘I felt too much. Then I feltnothing. And now I just want to feelsomething… This hurts just like everything else, but I’m in control of it.’
There’s a fresh round of tears while plastic plates of sushi trundle past and the three of us drown in unfamiliar waters.
‘Audrey,pleasedon’t tell Mum. She’ll hit the roof.’
I glance at Josh for backup. Josh. The playboy uncle, who swans through New York, full of his own importance, and then blows in once a year with fancy gifts from Juilliard.
‘Parker,’ he says. ‘Do youwantto stop?’
She sniffs, and I pass her a tissue. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Don’t worry about how. But do you want to?’
She takes a big breath, her tears calming, and nods.
‘There’s a way through this. It’s not easy, but it exists.’
Where is he getting this information?I try to steal a glance at his own wrist, but it’s hidden behind the Rolex Oyster and a silver cuff link.Why is he so dressed up?
