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A FAMILY FRACTURE
As they reached the door of the chalet, gratefully lowering their heavy bags to the slightly damp ground while they removed their muddy shoes, a burst of off-key song reached their ears.
“Dad!” yelled Tammy, without reducing her volume to allow for nearby ears. “When will you learn to sing in tune?”
Freya rubbed the ear nearest to Tammy.
“When will you learn not to yell with us beside you?” she muttered.
“Dion, have you been to work today?” Danae’s tone was sharp, as it always was when their Dad had obviously been drinking on the job.
“No work to go to today.”
“Well why not? You had a job yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Been let go. Not enough vintners in this part of the world, apparently.”
“Surely no fewer than there were last week? I thought vineyards were a growth area, what with the warmer climate? You didn’t say anything about this, this morning.”
Their mother’s voice was strained, her rising anxiety apparent.
“Nothing to say, was there. I guess all those vintners think they can sell their product themselves. Let ’em learn. They’ll come crawling back when they find no-one wants their vino. I give them a week. Or a month. Not long, anyway.” Dion’s voice was slurred, one word blending into the next.
Freya looked at her Dad in horror. She’d never heard him sound as bad as this.
“Girls, take our food into the kitchen. Get yourself something to eat. Dion, come outside. We’re going for a walk. Take an anorak, it’s chilly out here.” Danae was sharp, commanding as she rarely was.
To Freya’s surprise, her father did as he was told, pulling on his shoes and a coat from beside the door. There was a lost look in his eyes that was unfamiliar, and deeply worrying. She stepped back to let him pass her.
“Go on in, Freya. See what you and Tammy can make that tastes good. Think of it as a challenge,” said Danae.
“But I want to talk to Dad-”
“Make the dinner, please, Freya. Your father and I are going to have a bit of a talk.”
Her mother was determinedly positive now. Freya took one more look at her Dad, and scurried inside. Whatever they were going to talk about, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear it. As she closed the door, she could hear her mother’s voice rising, anger or anxiety or both lending a sharp edge to her tongue. She blocked her ears as she ran to the kitchen. It didn’t help.
***
FOR WEEKS AFTER THE shopping day, Freya’s Mum and Dad hardly talked. Family meals were tense, Tammy’s comments about her day falling on apparently deaf ears, Freya’s hesitant queries unanswered.
Freya came home from school one day to find things missing from around the chalet.
“Mum! We’ve been burgled!”
There was no answer from Danae.
“Mum’s not back yet, obviously. What’s the problem?” Tammy appeared, still wearing her high school uniform.
“There’s things gone.”
“Who would bother to burgle us?” Tammy said rhetorically. “It’s not like the thrift shop wants their things back.”
“But there’s stuff missing.”
Tammy accompanied Freya on a tour of the small house.
“You’re right. There is stuff missing. But it’s a weird selection. I don’t think a burglar would take some cans of baked beans and the tin-opener.” Freya bit her lip. Tammy was right - but that meant something big was wrong.
A hunch struck her, and she went to their parents’ room. There, she opened the drawers on Dad’s side of the bed. Empty. Freya gazed at the bare wood of the bottom of the drawer, hoping that it would be a trick of the light, and in a moment, she would see it magically refilled with her father’s worn clothes.
Freya had no such luck. Staring at the dusty wooden drawer, Freya wished fiercely that they lived in a world where that sort of magic existed. Instead, it was all hiding talent, pretending to be normal, while struggling to get enough to eat. She blinked back tears as she heard her sister enter the room. Together, they stared at the empty drawer. Its emptiness seemed a betrayal.
“Did he hate living with us so much?” she whispered.
Tammy replied in a tight voice.
“I think he just hated being poor. And jobless. Maybe he found some way to support himself in the lifestyle he wished to be accustomed to. Without us. Oh, Freya.” Tammy’s voice wobbled. The girls exchanged a rare hug. “What will Mum say?”
Freya snorted.
“Probably something like ‘pass the salt, Tammy, you’re the closest one’. It’s not like she’s said much more than that, recently. I’m sure you’ve noticed the deadly silence at dinner.”
“Hard not to notice. I wonder what Dad did, to annoy Mum so much?”
“Somehow, I don’t think Mum’s going to tell us.”
In the event, their Mum didn’t say anything, at least not to Freya. Freya wondered if she talked to anyone about her husband’s disappearance. Her mother was tight-lipped and grimly silent for a long time afterwards. As predicted, Danae refused to answer questions about Dion.
“But will he come back?”
“I doubt it.” Dirty dishes plunged into the sink with a violent splash.
“Will we get to visit him? Where is he, anyway?” Freya took the clean dish thrust at her and wiped it dry.
“I doubt it, and I don’t know.” Another dish plunged to its watery fate a little too hard, and cracked in two.
“Gaia wept, now look what I’ve done.” Conversation closed.
***