Lara and Zin meet me at the beach and we eat gelato out of paper cups and then rush into the water.
‘So, where’s Clem?’ I ask, after an appropriate amount of chatting about people from school and Monica and the cute guy at Zin’s work that Lara’s gruffly interested in.
‘Oh. Off with his folks somewhere. I don’t know.’ Lara shrugs.
‘Right.’
‘He says you’ve been a bit off the radar.’
‘I’ve got a lot on my plate.’
‘You sure do. Do we get to check out the new place today?’ Zin asks, floating on her back with her eyes closed.
‘It’s not a new place,’ I say.
Lara’s playing catch with herself, but pauses at this. ‘Sure it is.’
‘It’s not – it’s Kelly’s place. I’m just staying for a bit, that’s all. It’s temporary.’
Lara snorts. ‘Like you’re ever going to go back to the caravan park.’
I give her a look and she holds her hands up and dunks herself under the water.
‘I think it’s great,’ says Zin, paddling over, her cheeks red from the sun.
‘So, are we going there after?’ Lara asks. ‘Your baby-mama’s house?’
‘Don’t ever call her that again.’
‘But we are, right?’
‘She doesn’t like people over that much. She has a big job.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s . . .’ I bite my lip. ‘I want you to see the place and meet her, but not just yet. I’m still finding my feet. And I’m not going to push it with her. I’m a guest.’
Lara frowns. ‘You’re not a guest. You’re her daughter.’
‘I don’t know what I am, but I’m not her kid.’
‘But you are.’
‘It’s complicated. It’s really complicated. And I’m just trying to work it all out, okay?’
Lara thinks about this for a moment and then nods. ‘Fair enough.’
I don’t tell them that I haven’t been given a key, yet. I feel weird about it, to be honest. Particularly when I’d noticed a locksmith only a block away from Kelly’s house on my walk to meet Lara and Zin today.
‘This is an intervention, by the way,’ Zin says.
‘What?’
‘You and Clem. You need to sort out whatever’s going on.’
‘Nothing’s going on! He’s just avoiding me!’
‘Have you been talking to him? Have you asked him what’s wrong?’
‘I’m respecting his space.’
Lara rolls her eyes. ‘That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. What a cop-out. Particularly from Miss Paving-the-way-to-my-best-inner-goddess-life.’
Zin snorts. ‘Miss Use-a-lot-of-I-statements-and-eat-a-lot-of-greens!’
I duck under the water and hold my breath for as long as I can. I focus on the pull of the tide, the blurred play of sunlight through water and sand. Truth is, I’m starting to wonder how useful all those books are. How there’s really no cheat sheet to navigating through this sort of stuff.
I pop back up out of the water and Zin loops her arm around my neck. ‘I’m dying for another gelato,’ she says, but we still stay out in the water for ages, floating together under the big, blue sky.
***
At five, I wander back to Kelly’s, where she’s watering some seedlings in the glasshouse. She grows rare things in there for her clients’ gardens.
‘Good day?’ she asks.
‘Yeah.’ I watch her. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘Not really. Thanks, though.’
‘Kelly? Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘I just . . . I’ve been thinking a lot. About how you ended up pregnant. And . . .’
‘I don’t really like to talk about it.’
‘Kelly?’
‘Yes?’
I can’t look at her, but I need to say it. I have to say it. ‘Sometimes I get this feeling that you think it was your fault. Whatever it was that happened to you. And it wasn’t.’
‘I don’t think that.’ She sounds tired. ‘I don’t think it was my fault. Anyway, you don’t even know what happened, Stella.’
‘I don’t need to know.’ My voice is fierce. ‘There’s no situation that would make it your fault. The details of it don’t change anything, you know? Even if you were out late or somewhere dodgy or drunk or wearing something short – none of it matters. Even if you did everything that parents tell their kids not to do, none of that stuff makes it your fault.’
She looks at me and I can’t read her expression.
‘It was his fault. Not yours.’
Kelly stares at me for a long time and then exhales. She turns off the tap. ‘I think I’ll go lie down for a bit before I have to head out. Keep things quiet, won’t you?’
‘Alright.’
Kelly goes inside and I sit by the fishpond. I set my jaw, close my eyes and reach for my phone. I want to call Clem. I want him to tug my shirt and call me Price. Instead, I lie down next to the fishpond and watch the sky until my eyes start to water.
***
A couple of days later Kelly comes home from work, loaded with takeaway food containers and champagne. Sometimes I notice her staring at me, as though trying to puzzle out what she’s supposed to do with me; what I’m doing here, in her house. Whenever I try to talk with her, she brushes me off. I think of the letters she’s written – over so many years. I get the feeling I’m a disappointment. That she’d long imagined me into somebody else, the same way I’d imagined her.
‘We’re going over to Mary’s,’ she says, as though she hadn’t told me twice last night and three times over breakfast.
The drive to her sister’s is quiet. Kelly listens to an obscure radio station with people discussing things in very moderate, calm voices. She nods a lot. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel as we get closer.
‘You okay?’ I ask.
‘Fine, fine. Just – Mary ended up buying a street away from where we grew up. I don’t come back here very much. Normally she comes to Lockwood, but she wants me to see her kitchen renovation.’
Mary’s house is nestled next to the oval of a high school. It has a white paling fence and a little wooden seat next to the front door. Kelly takes a deep breath. ‘I went to that school,’ she says, her voice very flat.
‘Really?’ I crane my neck.
‘Let’s go in. The food’s going to get soggy.’
Mary’s waiting for us on the verandah. She kisses both my cheeks and my forehead and then holds me for a very long time. ‘Oh, you beautiful, beautiful girl,’ she says, until Kelly prises her off me, steers her into the kitchen and gives her a cold glass of champagne. ‘You’re so tall!’ Mary says.
I study Mary over dinner. She’s a real estate agent. She has long brown hair, very long eyelashes and startlingly red lipstick. She’s taller than Kelly but still much shorter than me. She has a wiriness about her that makes me think she must always be moving.
I can see myself in her much more than I see myself in Kelly. I pick over the sushi, thinking about how much Clem hates it. Mary talks about vinyl countertops and undermounted sinks, and I’m relieved when she finishes. It seems strange to me, that you’d spend so much time and money on something that doesn’t need fixing.
‘Oh, I just can’t believe it!’ Mary says for the tenth time.
‘Mary, you’re being ridiculous,’ Kelly mutters.
‘I’m not! This is a big deal. Do you know how much I’ve thought about you over the years?’ Mary leans across the table. ‘I knew you were a girl. Didn’t I tell you she was a girl, Kell?’
‘Yeah, you always said she was a girl,’ Kelly says, rolling her eyes. ‘Before you were born, Stell, she wouldn’t shut up about you being a girl.’
‘How’d you know?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I dreamed about you,’ Mary says. ‘I still remember the dreams. There were fairies everywhere.’
‘Stop talking, Mary.’
‘Sorry.’ Mary drums the table with her fingers. ‘I’ve always wondered about you, hoped you were well, that sort of thing. I used to imagine meeting you. I always figured we’d be best friends.’
I smile. It’s strange to think that there’s been this stranger wondering about me and imagining me for my whole life while I had no idea she even existed. It makes me feel weirdly guilty.
‘Did your mum tell you? About being adopted?’ Mary asks. I see Kelly tense up. We don’t mention the A-word. It’s just been easier to pretend we’re distant relatives or something. Thinking of Kelly as my mother just feels weird.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘From when I was really young. I always knew I was adopted, but I didn’t know about the letters.’
Mary glances at Kelly. ‘Letters?’
Kelly studies the wall. ‘Just some letters I wrote to her.’
‘You wrote Stella letters? Oh, that makes me so happy! Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I never got a reply!’
Mary glances at me, looking almost embarrassed.
‘I was little, that’s all. My mum thought I couldn’t handle it. She didn’t tell me about them. I only worked it out late last year.’
‘It was a long time to wait,’ Kelly says so quietly that I’m not sure I’ve heard her right.
‘How?’ Mary asks. ‘How’d you work it out?’
‘Well, I was getting all my emergency documents out of my mum’s desk . . . I wanted to make copies and keep them a safe distance from the originals.’
Mary snorts. ‘My God – she really is yours, Kell.’
‘And then I saw my birth certificate, so I had Kelly’s name sort of on my brain. And then I got the letters out of the letterbox and I never get letters, so I wouldn’t have bothered checking them, but I saw Kelly’s name on the back of one of the envelopes. And it was fresh in my mind, so it caught my attention. Otherwise, I would’ve just dumped them all on the table for my parents without checking and I guess Mum would’ve put the letter with all the others.’
‘Fate,’ Mary says very contentedly. ‘That’s fate.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ Kelly says.
Mary ignores her and pours more champagne.
‘There’s not, Mary. It’s all coincidence. All of it.’
‘Right.’ Mary turns away from Kelly and settles back in her chair with her champagne. ‘So, tell me about your life. You’re in Sutherbend, right?’
‘Yeah. Sutherbend. There’s my mum and my dad and my sister, Taylor. We’ve just . . . downsized.’
Mary smiles at me. ‘What sort of place did you downsize to?’
‘Um . . .’
‘They moved to Fairyland,’ Kelly says flatly.
‘Fairyland? The place that had the meth lab blow-up?’
‘It’s really not like that,’ I say. ‘That guy was trying to get money for his sick brother.’
Mary and Kelly both look at me.
‘The people there are really great! This dog got bitten by a snake and there was a huge vet bill that everyone put in for. Even the guy who hates the dog because the dog digs up his potatoes.’
‘There are snakes there?’ Mary puts her glass down on the table.
‘Only in the long grass,’ I say impatiently. ‘Anyway. One lady lent me all these books – she was a lecturer at university, but got involved with the wrong guy. And there’s this other lady who has a motorcycle – her husband left her a few years ago.’
Kelly shakes her head.
‘Oh, here we go,’ Mary says, settling back in her chair.
‘People are so careless with relationships,’ Kelly says. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
‘No,’ I say quickly.
‘Good. Sensible. People put too much stock in romance. Most relationships aren’t worth it. People latch onto anyone who shows the slightest bit of interest and it always ends in disaster.’ She pauses and Mary throws her arms in the air in defeat. ‘People are just scared to be alone.’
‘And some people are scared not to be alone,’ Mary snaps.
Kelly shrugs. ‘I’m not scared. I just happen to really like my life the way it is.’
‘But you could be so happy!’
‘I am happy,’ Kelly says grumpily. She gets up to go to the bathroom and Mary sighs and leans in towards me. ‘I’m one of the idiot romantics she was referring to,’ she says in a low voice. ‘She reckons that I’ve got eyes bigger than my brain when it comes to pretty girls.’
‘Think I might be an idiot romantic, too,’ I say. I’d given up checking my phone for messages. Clem’s name never popped up on the screen.
‘But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when relationships turn out not to be what I thought they were, there’s always something there that makes them worthwhile, you know? It’s a privilege to be in a relationship with someone – to be invited into their life.’
I nod, wondering what Taylor would think of all this. Not that I’d dare bring it up so soon after Adam – she’d probably burst into tears or punch me or both.
Mary sips her champagne. ‘She is afraid, you know. She has been since she was a teenager. It breaks my heart.’ She smiles at me. ‘I was so scared she was going to botch it up with you – with meeting you. She’s not good with people, you know? She’s so terrified of being vulnerable. I mean, I get it. After what she’s been through. She’s very protective, very careful with everything. Drives me nuts, to be honest. But, I’m just grateful. I nearly passed out when she told me she’d asked you to stay – I don’t think anyone’s stayed in that spare room since I crashed in there the night she moved in.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘I mean – it’s unprecedented. I’m the only person she lets into the place. Well, apart from tradesmen. And only when she really, really needs help. She’s very handy. She has a drill.’
‘I had no idea it was such a big deal.’
‘Oh, I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable!’ Mary puts her champagne down roughly and grabs my hands. ‘Oh, sweet girl. I just want you to know how badly Kelly wants to know you, that’s all.’
‘I really want to know her, too.’
‘She’s worth it. I know she can be a bit prickly and weird, but she’s so worth it. I’m lucky to have her as a sister. So, so lucky.’
‘And I’m lucky to have her as a . . .’ I stop. As a what? A friend? A relative? A mother?
‘Still don’t know what to call her, hey? Don’t worry – it’ll come. Or it won’t. I’ve always thought labels are overrated, anyway. She can just be your Kelly and you can just be her Stella.’
‘I like that.’
‘Anyway – sorry. I know none of this has anything to do with me. I really, really do know that. I swear – one champagne and I don’t shut up!’
‘You don’t shut up, anyway,’ Kelly says, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Would you like an iced water, Stella?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I say. ‘I was just wondering though . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Has my key been cut yet?’
‘No, not yet. I’m sorry – things have just been so frantic at work.’
Later, as Kelly opens the car, Mary holds onto me on the verandah and gives me a tight, sweet hug. She stands back and smiles at me. ‘Stella, just so you know, I wouldn’t count on that key.’
‘What?’
‘Here’s my number.’ She hands me a business card. ‘Call me any time, okay?’
‘Thanks. What do you mean, though? About not counting on that key?’
‘I don’t think she even keeps a spare of it. I mean, I’m sure she wants to do it for you, but I’m not sure that she can. And I don’t want you to keep waiting for it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Prickly and weird but worth it.’ She kisses my cheek. ‘Sweet dreams.’
On the way home, Kelly and I don’t talk. I notice her breathing relax as we get further away from the suburb where she grew up. Her fingers stay gripped too tightly around the wheel. I text Taylor.
I miss you.
She texts back straight away. Miss you too, KJ xoxoxoxoxox
***
The next morning, I pull on some clothes without looking at myself in the mirror and get ready to head to the library.
‘You look good,’ Kelly says, pausing in the doorway of the bathroom. She’s dark under the eyes. I’d heard her moving about in the night, as though she couldn’t sleep. At one point I thought I’d heard her cry. I chant, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. It’s all okay. I’m here. ‘Where’re you headed?’
‘The library.’
‘The library?’
‘Lockwood library – the range of books they have is incredible. I didn’t know they made libraries like that!’
‘If . . .’ She shakes her head. ‘You know what? We can talk about it tonight.’
‘Talk about what?’
‘Lockwood High.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s a good school and it’s a kilometre away.’
‘But . . .’ I blink. ‘I don’t live here . . . I don’t . . . It’s so far from home.’
‘Things change,’ Kelly says, picking up her handbag. ‘I was thinking, if things pan out okay, that you might be able to stay here longer. You could transfer schools.’
‘Stay here longer?’
Kelly flushes ‘Yes, well. We can talk about it, anyway. I’ll be home by six. Remember to double-check the gate lock.’
‘I will.’
Putting a banana in my bag, I see the school brochures. Shiny and bright. I trace my fingers over the logos, the smiling students with their armfuls of books. I try to imagine any of them trying to check the pokies to see if their dad’s there; I try to imagine any of them in Fairyland. But I can’t.
Her house seems suddenly too quiet. I’m glad to shoulder my bag and go out onto the street, where the noise of other people’s lives washes over me like water.
***
The next day, I invite Lara and Zin over to Kelly’s and they arrive red-cheeked and eager. Zin almost cries when she sees the garden. ‘Stell! She has zinnias!’ She strokes the petals and bursts into tears and Lara walks around her. ‘Let’s go in,’ she says.
We take off our shoes at the door and read Kelly’s magazines at the kitchen table. I put on some music quietly, as though Kelly is still here. We eat over the kitchen bench so there are no crumbs.
I see Kelly before I hear her, very pale in the doorway with her laptop case in her hand.
‘Stella, can I have a word?’
I follow her out onto the deck.
‘I don’t like people over. I’ve told you that.’
‘They’re just my friends . . .’
‘You need to leave,’ Kelly says, raising her voice. ‘Both of you. Out. Out.’
Zin and Lara stare at her. ‘Out!’ Kelly yells and her voice is so loud that I wince. Lara and Zin glance at me worriedly. They put on their shoes and grab their bags.
‘Stella told us we couldn’t eat on the carpet,’ Zin says.
‘Out,’ Kelly says and I can see that she’s shaking, sweating. After they leave she sits down at the kitchen table and breathes into a paper bag. I watch, sort of fascinated. I’d read about people hyperventilating, but never seen it before. I know I should offer to help, except I can’t. Angry. Shocked. Exhausted.
When her breathing has returned to normal, I hover in my bedroom doorway, half expecting her to call me over and apologise. When she doesn’t, I peer out. She has her head resting on the tabletop, the bag still scrunched in her fingers.
***
I’ve started having nightmares where Kelly’s being attacked over and over and there’s nothing I can do to help her. I wake up all through the night and sometimes I can hear Kelly walking out towards the garden and wonder what’s woken her. I want to talk to her, but I don’t know how.
I’ve started spending long periods of time gazing at myself in the bathroom mirror above the expensive-looking vanity in Kelly’s bathroom. I’ve spent enough time staring at Kelly now to be able to find her in my features. My eyes, which I’ve always loved, are not the same colour as Kelly’s. Must be his eyes. I hate them. My fingers are stubbier, my jaw less defined. Hate, hate, hate. I wish I could cut the parts of him out of myself, but then there’d be too little left of me to survive.
I want to help Kelly. Sometimes I think about all the strategies and ideas I could talk to her about, but I don’t know enough and I’m so scared of saying the wrong thing. I’m scared of making things worse. Mostly, I keep thinking about what people at Fairyland kept telling me about how I don’t need to fix everyone.
But Kelly isn’t everyone. She may not be my mum, but she’s my mother. I should be able to fix my own mother.
It makes me feel sick, every day. And I watch Kelly, working on her laptop or talking on her phone or working obsessively out in her little garden. Her Eden, she calls it. Her sanctuary.
She’s out most nights. I’m sick of potato chips. And I still don’t have a key.
***
‘Mum, I’ve told you already,’ I say, trying to keep my voice down. ‘It’s nothing personal – she just doesn’t like people visiting her place.’
‘Why?’ I can hear the panic rising in Mum’s voice. ‘Is it awful? Is it dangerous? Hang on a sec.’ Her voice becomes muffled and I suppose she’s covered the phone with her hand. ‘Oh, Taylor! Stop that! You can call Stell yourself later!’
‘No – it’s not dangerous. Her place is amazing. I’ve got my own queen-sized bed and everything.’ My words are hollow. They taste sour and coppery on my tongue.
‘Oh,’ Mum says in a small voice.
‘I can hear the beach, Mum. When the wind’s blowing the right way, anyway.’
‘I’d really be more comfortable if I could see the place. I might give her a call and talk to her about it.’
‘Mum! I’ve told you! She has a big job! Her home is her sanctuary!’ I don’t realise how loud my voice is until I hear a knock on my half-open door.
‘Is that your mum?’ Kelly asks.
‘Yeah. Sorry,’ I say, covering the mouthpiece. ‘Sorry to be loud.’
Kelly holds out her hand. ‘I can talk to her.’
‘Alright.’ I slowly hand over my phone. I hold my breath as Kelly goes out onto the deck. If it was Mum out there, I’d sit with my ear pressed to the door until she’d finished.
Kelly comes back in and hands me my phone. ‘It’s all organised,’ she says, leaving the bedroom door half open on her way out, exactly how she’d found it.
‘Stell?’ Mum’s saying on the phone, over and over, like she doesn’t quite believe I’m coming back onto the line.
‘I’m here,’ I say, watching as Kelly collects her bag and waves at me from the front door.
‘Kelly says we can come to dinner on Wednesday,’ Mum tells me. ‘She said she’d love to have us.’
‘Oh. She did?’
‘Are you trying to keep us away? Do you not want us there, Stell? Is that it?’
‘Of course not! She normally doesn’t like people here – only her sister. She’s making a really big effort, having you over.’
‘Right.’
‘Mum . . . Can you . . .’
‘Can I what?’
‘Can you just make an effort, too?’
‘Make an effort?’ Mum sighs. ‘Can I be sure not to embarrass you? Is that what you mean?’
‘That’s not what I said! And it’s not what I mean!’ I flop back onto my bed and close my eyes. ‘I just mean – it’s a big deal for her to invite you here. I want you to make sure you acknowledge it, that’s all.’
Mum sighs like I’m being unreasonable. ‘Alright.’
‘And make sure Taylor wears something that’s not ripped to pieces.’
‘Who can make Taylor wear anything?’ Mum asks wearily. ‘Don’t think I’ve been able to get her into clothes she doesn’t want to wear since Year Three.’
‘Well, just . . . is she sleepwalking?’
‘What?’
‘Taylor. Has she been sleepwalking?’
‘Nothing too bad. Nothing we can’t handle.’
‘Good. Anyway, about Wednesday. I need this to go well, okay?’
‘It will,’ Mum says.
***
We have a Year Twelve orientation morning at school. It’s meant to prepare us for everything before school starts. Lara prods me. ‘What’s with you?’ she whispers, shoving her book towards me so I can copy down her answers.
I manage to do so without the teacher noticing.
‘I’m worried about you,’ says Lara. ‘Particularly after Kelly flipped out like that.’
I don’t reply. I’m planning Wednesday – what we’ll eat, what we’ll talk about. I’ve started scribbling down ideas for conversation topics. I want them to like each other. I need it to go well. I’m not using Wednesday’s plans as a way to avoid thinking about Clem. It’s just important.
Lara sighs. ‘You know, for all your stuff about open communication, you never really tell us what’s going on with you.’