52

The morning leaked through her window, poisonous and gray.

Fruit and yogurt. Toast and Vegemite. Despite the bleak new world to which she had awakened, it lifted her spirits to see her mother looking better—lighter. A little smile hovered where usually her customary look was—what was it, exactly? Something more like resignation.

“So, Ma…”

“Vân Ước.”

“You were already asleep when I came in?”

“Yes, I slept well.”

“Has something happened?”

Her mother was really smiling now. “Last night I spoke to my sister, Hoa Nhung. I called her on the telephone.”

“You—really? That’s—I’m so happy.”

“We spoke for a long time.”

“Did you speak about…?”

Her mother nodded. “She saw things differently. She was very pleased that I had not been taken on the boat. She felt proud to protect me. She knew she’d saved me. And she used that feeling—of strength—to help heal.”

Vân Ước had always felt the shadow of sadness and guilt for the things, unspoken until now, that her mother suffered. Her mother had felt sad and guilty about her sister’s suffering. And about leaving her own mother. No doubt her grandmother felt sad and guilty for sending her daughters away, not really knowing they’d be safe, just hoping. Guilty, too, perhaps, about leaving her own family when she married, to look for better fortune and a new life in the city. How far did it go back? Was it Vân Ước’s job to break this chain?

Might things change now that the story had been told?

A secret like that might shut you off.

A secret like that might turn you inward.

A secret like that might stop you from being able to hug your own daughter.

She picked up her lunch, and gave her mother a quick hug. “Bye, Ma. I’m so glad you called my auntie. This is a great step. Do you think she might come and visit us?”

She was ready to talk about it for as long as her mother wanted to. But her mother just smiled and turned her gently away, in the direction of the door.

“Study hard, con. We can talk some more after school.”

As the elevator shuddered to the ground floor, she tried not to think of Billy, tried to remind herself that things were okay in the universe at large. Or, at least, in certain small parts of the universe at large. Sure, she had a pulverized heart. True, she had nothing to look forward to, other than the better part of two years of being, once again, ignored by Billy.

But on the upside, she’d started becoming proper friends with Lou and Michael.

And things were definitely, finally, looking better for her mother. After all that time, some comfort, some truth, some connection.

But, still, it didn’t take away the lump in her throat that felt like a stone.

She stepped outside into the cool fingers of autumn, into day one.

Today, this very day, would be the worst day; day two—that’d be bad, too, really, really bad, but just a smidge less bad than day one.

She took a firm breath, instructing tears to stay inside.

The number of days it would take before her affection for Billy diminished would surely exceed those left between now and when school finished next year.

She looked up from the path, and headed for the gate.

She blinked. Twice. And again.

A tall, handsome boy with messy blond hair, wearing a Crowthorne Grammar tracksuit, was hurrying toward her.

“You’re here.”

Billy put a casual arm around her shoulder, but it wasn’t enough; he looked at her, eyes still shiny with all they’d shared last night, and enfolded her and her backpack into a proper hug, as though he couldn’t get close enough.

It was as though he still liked her despite the unwish.

Or, to put it another way: he still liked her?!

Her heart rate doubled and redoubled. He released her, lifted her hand, and kissed the inside of her palm.

“Of course I’m here. We said we’d walk together. How would it be fair for me to deprive you of my company for longer than necessary?”

She did her best to look stern. “Well, for cool native impudence, and pure innate pride, you haven’t your equal,” she said, calmly enough, though her heart was crazy-pounding… I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command.

Billy recognized that the quote was from Jane Eyre. “Remind me—in this exchange, am I Jane or Mr. Rochester?”

“You’re Jane.”

“Okay. Just so we’re straight on that.”

Once upon a long time ago she believed in magic.

But this was looking like a simple case of a girl who liked a boy who liked her back. And a wish that came true, because—sometimes they do.

They stopped on the bridge and as she turned him around to face her, resting her hands on his shoulders and leaning up to open her lips to the lips of Billy Gardiner, she thought, with a satisfied sigh, Reader, I kissed him.

 

The Beginning.