We jolt to a stop outside my house, straining against our seatbelts. I’m still adjusting to driving Trent’s work car.
‘There’s just someone I’ve got to see real quick before we leave,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t talk to anyone, okay? Or do anything. Just wait here.’
Milo raises his arms above his head like he’s about to be arrested. ‘But I was planning on having tea and scones with your dodgy drug-dealing neighbours. Joking.’
‘You’re such a snob.’
This is why I can’t tell people I live here. Not that he’s wrong.
I snake my way up the driveway, passing the tangle of garden that’s so overgrown it’s creeping onto the concrete. The lawn is dry as straw and almost as yellow. None of us have been keeping up with Mel’s chore roster.
‘Hello?’ I call out as I open the front door. Only the whirr of the fridge replies. ‘Kurt, you home, babe? Anyone?’
When no-one answers, I head for the bedroom. Kurt’s clothes are strewn on the floor next to our unmade bed, and my make-up is scattered all over the chest of drawers.
There’s a dog wearing a bow tie waiting for me on the whiteboard. I add a speech bubble: Woof! My nose scrunches up as I stand on my tippy-toes and scrawl love hearts in the top right-hand corner for Kurt, then write: See you tomorrow night. PS: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check your phone!
I squiggle in an extra heart, then look at my phone, willing it to ring or buzz. Still no missed calls or messages. Dammit, Kurt. Get back to me.
He left the house early this morning — apparently he’s helping Ryan with something — so we didn’t have a chance to talk in person about the last-minute road trip, but I’ve left him four missed calls and a text message: Something’s come up so I won’t be home until tomoz night. Call so I can explain. Lx
All Kurt wants is honesty, and all I want is to give it to him. Every last drop of detail. Milo. Sal. Woody. The grand gesture. All of it. But he doesn’t seem to want to hear about it.
I call him again. No answer. Again.
I scan the room for anything I might have forgotten for the trip. Jelly snakes hidden in a stack of Kurt’s stuff on his bedside table. Perfect. Furry tartan cat ears hanging off the hook behind the door. Hilarious. Red lipstick on my chest of drawers.
In the middle of the chaos, I notice a bag of pot and papers spilling onto a framed photo that’s fallen down.
Swallowing hard, I sweep the loose pot into the bag and wipe down the photo with the back of my hand. My heart pangs. It’s the shot of me and Mum at Dubbo Zoo. I’m about six, missing my two front teeth and have a butterfly painted on my cheek. Mum’s tiny butterfly. She beams up at me from the frame.
I stand the photo back up and clear everything else out of the way. When I look closer, I notice a small scratch on the glass. My jaw tightens and I glare at the bag of pot, as though that will somehow make it disappear. Despite what I’d told Kurt at the cemetery, no amount of ‘easy money’ is worth feeling like this.
Mum would know what to do. She’d know what to say too. She always did. I stare at the photo again, willing the answers to come to me. Wondering whether I should call Dad, even though he’s as useful as a cactus; whether I should admit what’s going on to Milo; whether I should tell Kurt it has to stop or else. Because it has to stop or else. I can’t try to convince myself any longer.
There’s no response from Mum to any of this. No magical, enlightened moment of knowing what to do. Of course there’s not. She just keeps smiling at me.
My bottom lip quivers.