Chapter Two

Sophie answers the door with Luke sitting on her hip, tugging on her blonde ponytail. Sophie’s arm is wrapped tightly around his waist.

‘Hello,’ I say as brightly as I can. The whites of her eyes are streaked with red, and dark circles curve under her eyes, yet her skin still glows. ‘And hello, Luke!’

‘You want to say hi to Aunty Jen?’ asks Sophie, and she hands her son to me. ‘Hi,’ says Luke, waving in my face – although his impossibly cute baby voice makes it sound like ‘Hah-yee’.

I take him from Sophie and carry him into the kitchen, where Sophie makes coffees.

‘You’re getting so big,’ I say, swooning and tickling his stomach. ‘Ah-yes you are!’ He giggles and I melt.

‘Thomas!’ he says.

‘You want to watch Thomas?’ repeats Sophie.

‘Yes! Yes!’ he calls.

‘Ask Aunty Jen nicely and maybe she’ll put it on for you.’

‘Thomas, please!’

I open my mouth and gasp with exaggerated excitement. ‘Thomas? Of course! Let’s go!’ I carry him towards the lounge, making flying noises as though he were a plane. I pause only to stick my head into the study where Sophie’s mum stands in front of a bookcase, which is stocked with books on the rearing and psychology of children, though the odd novel is dispersed throughout. Her steaming cup of tea waits on the table next to her armchair.

‘Hi Mrs Anderson. How’re you?’

She plucks a book from the shelf and smiles over her shoulder. ‘Hi Jennifer. I’m good, thanks. It’s nice to see you.’

‘Hah-yee, Nanna.’

‘Hello, sweetie,’ she says kindly. She’s nailed the grandmother voice. ‘Are you watching Thomas again?’

Luke nods enthusiastically and his flight to the lounge continues. I put his baby-sized body in his adorable baby-sized foam couch, which is in the middle of the room, and slot the Thomas & Friends DVD into the player. He stares at the screen, fascinated as the events of Thomas the Tank Engine on the Island of Sodor unfold before him.

Sophie brings out two mugs of coffee and hands one to me.

‘So, you all done with exams?’ says Sophie, taking a seat next to me.

‘Yeah, they were awful,’ I say, ‘but I think I nailed the English one.’

Sophie sips from her mug. ‘Of course you did. You’ll get full marks.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I say.

‘Come on, you’re a machine at English.’

Colour rises to my cheeks. I feel weird accepting compliments.

‘Does your mum know you’re here?’ Sophie says. ‘Or has nothing changed?’

‘I told her I was coming,’ I say, ‘but you know how she is …’

Sophie and I have been friends since year seven. We were in class together a lot and we spent our lunchtimes at school together almost every day. Mum banned me from seeing Sophie nearly two years ago, when Sophie became pregnant: Mum labelled her impure, a terrible influence and inherently unchristian.

Sophie feels unwelcome at our house, so we have to hang out either at her house or in public. It sucks.

Sophie smiles sadly into her mug. Luke’s earnest giggles fill the room.

‘He’s grown so much,’ I say, quickly changing the subject. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I last saw Luke but I guess rapid growth is pretty normal for children.

‘Tell me about it,’ Sophie says, her fingers interlocked in the loop of the mug handle. ‘He’s learning new words so quickly. He said “Daddy” the other day. Normally kids learn that word a lot earlier – at least, they do according to the books – but since I never use it I didn’t really expect to hear it.’

I murmur my agreement.

Just before we started year ten Sophie got this boyfriend, who was a year or two older than us. He seemed to be a reasonably okay guy. I mean, I had no immediate reason to hate him and, from what I could gather, he treated her pretty well for the majority of their relationship.

Sophie went on the pill when they first started sleeping together but sometimes she forgot to take it. She only missed the odd day here and there, so she figured it would all be fine.

The day she found out she was pregnant, Sophie hadn’t been in school. As I always did, I sent her the semi-annoyed ‘How dare you leave me stranded?’ text we always sent each other when one of us was absent, but she hadn’t replied.

After school, I headed around to her place to make sure she was okay and found her sobbing in the bathroom. She told me that one of those pee pregnancy tests had come back positive so she’d gone straight to the doctor for a more reliable test. She didn’t know what to do. What if she had a little person inside her?

I went with her to the doctor a few days later for the results. Sophie didn’t react when the doctor told her she was pregnant. My own gut did some circus tricks but I fought to keep my face neutral.

‘How am I going to tell Mum and Dad?’ Sophie said once we left the clinic.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ I asked. I thought it might stop her parents yelling or doing anything too drastic if there were a witness.

Sophie shook her head. ‘I need to just go home and do it.’

To her eternal credit, she did exactly that. She called me later that night and told me what had happened. Her dad had sat in silence, his face blank and unmoving. Like a statue, Sophie said. Her mum was shocked and asked her heaps of questions: ‘How did this happen?’ and ‘Didn’t you use protection?’ and ‘How long have you been sexually active?’

By the evening, Sophie’s mum had begun researching doctors and hospitals and planning finances and everything else that needed sorting. Her dad had stayed quiet for a few days but after the initial shock passed, he was also super-supportive.

After she’d told her parents, it was time to tell Mr Boyfriend. It was then that he lost all my respect. He went into immediate denial and he threw all sorts of accusations at her, insisting it couldn’t possibly be his baby. He broke up with her on the spot, claiming she must have cheated on him, because they hadn’t even slept together! I told Sophie she should get a paternity test – that way she might at least get some child support – but she said she didn’t want anything to do with Mr Boyfriend ever again.

‘I don’t know how I’ll explain it to him,’ she says, looking at Luke, who’s still engaged by the DVD. ‘How can I tell him his dad doesn’t want anything to do with him?’

‘I don’t know …’ I trail off. ‘But I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re the strongest person I know.’

Sophie smiles.

News always spread quickly through our school, so by the time year eleven started, everybody knew that Sophie wasn’t back at school because she was pregnant. I heard many, many different rumours, but the general consensus was along the lines of the boyfriend’s claims – that she cheated on him and that’s why she’d be raising the baby alone.

For the past two years, those of us who know the truth have been under strict orders not to talk about the rumours and not to correct any false information. Sophie has never wanted anybody to know that their opinions get to her. I have mixed feelings about this. It’s great that she’s never retaliated or got mad or anything, but it really sucks that she keeps it all bottled up instead of telling people that they’re upsetting her.

Mum was horrified when she heard the rumours that Sophie was pregnant. She asked me if it was true and, on Sophie’s orders, I said yes but didn’t elaborate. Mum decided that Sophie was an awful person because she had sex before she was married, cheated on her boyfriend and did a lot of unchristian things. I can understand people at my school believing the rumours, but my mum? She’d known Sophie for years and didn’t question it or try to find out the whole story.

She doesn’t like me being friends with Sophie but she’s not going to stop me from seeing her.

After his Thomas episode, Luke climbs up from his baby couch onto the adult couch, and sits himself on my lap. I wrap my arms around his waist and blow a raspberry on his cheek.

‘Walk, Mummy!’ he shouts to Sophie.

‘Please?’

‘Please!’

‘When Aunty Jen leaves, okay?’

‘I can come for a walk, if you want,’ I say. I’m perfectly okay with spending more time with them and I don’t want Luke to be happy about me going home.

So we strap Luke into his pram and walk down the driveway. A few clouds float around in the clear sky. The sun warms my face the way a kiss on the cheek might. After about ten minutes, we end up at the local park. We let Luke out of his pram and he runs around on the grass. And by ‘runs’ I mean that he starts walking, then tries to speed up until he falls over. I laugh every time.

I almost explode from his cuteness when I start running after him and he laughs maniacally as he tries to escape. I tackle him around the waist and lie on my back, my outstretched arms holding him above me.

‘Super Luke!’ I say, waving him around as though he were flying. ‘He’s coming to save the day!’

He shrieks with laughter.

‘God, I could use some of your energy,’ says Sophie from the bench she’s sitting on.

‘Come on,’ I say, sitting up in the grass. ‘His energy is infectious.’

I reach over and pluck an action figure from the bottom of Luke’s pram. Luke takes it and tries to dig a hole with its feet.

‘Yeah, but do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a day to relax?’ Sophie says. ‘Kids aren’t all cuteness and smiles, you know.’

I lift myself up onto the bench next to her. Luke is now repeatedly hitting the action figure headfirst into the ground like a hammer.

‘I know that,’ I say softly. ‘You’re a trooper. I honestly don’t know how you do it.’

Sophie meets my eyes. ‘Sometimes I don’t know either.’

I put my arm around her and squeeze but I don’t say anything. I’m not sure I have anything I could say. Usually Sophie is really positive but every now and then she gets a bit down about the whole thing. She loves Luke, there’s no question about it, but being a single teen mother isn’t exactly easy. I hate seeing her upset.

Luke starts crying and throws his toy as far as he can. It lands about a metre away. Sophie takes a deep breath and stands up. While she reaches for the toy, I pick up Luke and bounce him on my hip to calm him down a bit.

‘I think he’s tired,’ Sophie says to me. ‘Give him here and I’ll strap him in.’

She takes Luke from my arms and bends over the pram.

‘Hey Soph,’ I say. She looks up. ‘You’re a really good mum, you know. Luke’s a lucky kid.’

She gives me a little smile. ‘Thanks.’ She fiddles with Luke’s straps a little more and stands up straight. ‘I should probably get him home.’

I walk with her. Luke is fast asleep before we even leave the park.

When I get home, Aaron is painting on a canvas set up on the easel in his bedroom with these expensive-looking paints. He has his door and window open so he doesn’t die from the fumes, but an unfortunate side effect of his survival plan is the odour of paint spreading through the entire house.

I stick my head into his bedroom. ‘Your paint stinks.’

‘Dad and Mum wouldn’t let me paint the walls and I already bought the paint. I didn’t want to waste it so I’m painting something else here,’ he says without looking up.

I laugh and head into my bedroom, closing the door behind me. Sometimes Aaron really gets ahead of himself.

I open the window and turn on the fan to air the room a bit. I should probably call Dylan … I don’t really have anything to say to him, though. A few weeks into our relationship, I realised that our phone calls were often him ranting and me listening. At first I didn’t really mind but now it really bugs me.

There’s another thing that really bugs me about Dylan: when we’re around adults (my mother, for example), he’s particularly careful about his choice of words. When we aren’t, he uses a certain amount of bad language – and I don’t mean dangling participles. I have no problem with swearing but four times a sentence is a little excessive. For the sake of decency, I’ll replace the more severe curse words he uses with the names of Oscar-winning films.

‘Hello?’ says Dylan when he answers the phone.

‘Hey, what’s up?’

‘I’m so glad you called. I’ve had the worst Forrest Gump-ing day of my whole The Godfather-ing life and it’s not even three o’Casablanca-ing clock.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘My Rocky of a boss cut my hours at work, my mother upped my board by twenty bucks a week and I didn’t Titanic-ing get to see you. Seriously, Terms of Endearment my life.’

Ugh.

‘Anyway, what’s up?’ he says.

‘Nothing much, just checking in. Why’d your boss cut your hours?’

For the next ten minutes, I get to hear all about how unfair it is that he’s losing shifts so the Christmas casuals can get more hours when they know Braveheart-all about selling music. I sit nodding, momentarily forgetting he can’t see me, and murmuring my sympathies in the appropriate pauses.

‘Anyway, sorry for being a girl and unloading on you.’ Sexism truly is the way to my heart. ‘I’ll talk to you soon. I love you.’

‘Love you too.’

Then I hang up the phone.

That’s been my send-off recently. ‘Love you too.’ I always omit the ‘I’, which is some small comfort. Perhaps I mean ‘Love you to,’ as in ‘Love you to talk to me soon’. I mean, it’s not like he can hear whether the second ‘o’ in ‘too’ is present. It’s kind of stupid that I say it at all when I don’t feel it. I don’t know, I guess I’d feel bad if I didn’t say it. But my way is basically lying, so I feel bad anyway.

To distract myself, I go to watch Aaron paint in his room, which is – get this – about as fun as watching paint dry. So I go to find some food to eat but the pantry is emptier than a nightclub at eleven in the morning. Mum tells me to go and tidy my room, so I move a skirt and a couple of shirts from the floor to the wardrobe. My room doesn’t even get that messy – in fact, it’s quite tidy by most standards – so it only takes me a few minutes to clear the ‘mess’.

Dad honks his horn twice from the driveway, so I trudge back down the stairs and head out the front to help him bring in the groceries.

‘Could you be any louder if you tried?’ I ask. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I could’ve honked three times.’ He opens the rear door of his Captiva. It’s so tightly packed with shopping bags that it looks as though somebody has played Tetris to fit it all in.

‘Hungry, are you?’ I hook my hands through a few bags and hoist them out.

Dad shushes me. ‘You’re the one who’s always complaining about the lack of food in the house.’

‘Fair call.’

Aaron is conveniently in the bathroom – funny how he always needs to go to the bathroom, with his iPad, when there’s work to be done – so I bring in all the bags and dump them on the kitchen floor, while Dad puts everything where it belongs. Mum is hard at work preparing a roast.

‘Excuse me, hon,’ says Dad, reaching across in front of Mum to put a box of tissues on the bench.

She shifts across so she’s not in his way – but she was never in the way to begin with.

Dad slowly becomes more ridiculous with his asking her to move.

‘Whoops, can I just …’ He reaches around Mum and passes a can of tuna from his left hand to his right, directly in front of her face.

Mum turns and points her knife at him. ‘Just remember that I cut people open for a living. Without anaesthetic, I could really make it hurt.’

I laugh and Dad kisses her on the cheek. It’s really cute when they do stuff like this. They started dating when they were both twenty and I imagine that at the time they were the cutest couple in existence. All they would’ve done is tease each other. Mum often pretends that Dad gets under her skin – probably so Aaron and I don’t decide that annoying her is fun – but the lines in her face soften and she gets this little glow when he does stuff like this.

‘Seriously,’ she says. ‘If this were your thorax …’ She buries her knife deep into the pumpkin.

Dad chuckles to himself and carries a few bottles of shampoo and conditioner up to the bathrooms. Aaron and I share a bathroom but we need separate hair-care products. He uses shampoo in a black bottle with ‘For Men’ printed on the side, like it makes a difference.

‘You need me to help, Mum?’

She looks around the kitchen. ‘You could oil up a tray for me, if you wanted to.’

‘Sure. Where are the trays?’

‘Cupboard under the stove. Same place they’ve been for the last eight years.’

‘Right …’ Five trays are stacked one on top of the other. ‘Is this one okay?’ I ask, pulling out the top one.

‘Yeah, it’s fine.’

‘Which oil do I use?’

‘Seriously, Jen.’ The spark in her voice is gone. ‘The one in the pantry.’

I sigh. Why did I even bother offering to help? I asked because I don’t know whether to use the canola spray, which I use when I’m baking, or the bottle with actual oil, but I don’t want to ask again. I grab the bottle and hope it’s right.

‘What now?’

‘See that pot on the stove? It’s got chopped potatoes in it. Put those on the tray and roll them around so they’re covered in oil.’

I do as she says.

Dad and Aaron come into the kitchen at the same time. Dad puts his hands on Mum’s hips and stands behind her while Aaron sits at the table, tapping away on his iPad.

‘Glasses, Aaron,’ Mum says.

‘I don’t need them.’

‘Oh really? I guess you don’t need your iPad, either. No glasses, no screen.’

Aaron huffs and storms out of the room. He’s supposed to wear reading glasses but he hates how they look. Apparently they make his eyes look too big for his face.

I finish oiling the potatoes and Dad oils the pumpkin as Mum cuts it.

‘Now what?’ I say.

Mum shakes salt over the tray. ‘Now we wait.’ She slips it into the oven while I wash my hands. ‘Thanks Jen,’ she says.

The Strays is calling me, so I read in my room until Aaron comes up to tell me the food is ready.

‘Jen, would you like to say grace this evening?’ says my mother before my backside even hits my chair.

‘Grace,’ I say immediately.

‘Jennifer …’ my mother warns, tightening her scowl. I don’t particularly like saying grace because a) I don’t know if God exists, b) if he does, my decency as a human being seems to be a more pressing issue than thanking him for some food we are about to eat and c) a relationship with God should be private. If people believe in him, that’s fine, and if people don’t, that’s equally fine. You don’t have to shove it down my throat. The concept of saying grace seems like people are flaunting having a ‘connection’ to this omnipotent being. Why draw attention to it? Shouldn’t your relationship be between the two of you?

Regardless, it’s easier just to please my mother. ‘Dear God, um … thanks for the food. Amen.’

Everyone keeps their heads bowed and Mother Dearest makes the sign of the cross. ‘Was that so hard, Jennifer?’

I press my lips together but otherwise ignore her.