They sat together in Cress’s lounge room, balancing cups. Laura leaned towards him and said, You know, Kieran, you’re very good at being a friend. He looked around the room, unsure what was required. Laura went on: To Abby, to Angela. He looked back at her. She said, A real friend. He wasn’t sure if she was saying something or asking something.
Then Cress came in with more tea saying, All I’ve got left is vanilla, and Fergus arriving behind her. Fergus was wearing a shirt that was a bit like Abby’s flower dresses. He slumped into the armchair and said, There’ll be no formal charges.
Kieran watched everyone’s faces. Cress stood like a statue with the tea tray in her hands. There won’t, she said. Making sure. Fergus lifted his eyebrows. Not against Kieran.
He watched the faces turn towards him. The weapon was plastic, Fergus said, with a small grin. Besides, the victim is being questioned himself. Abby says he hits her. Often.
Cress sat down heavily then and lifted her cup. She said quietly, The baby’s father?
Some young creep she met at church. He’s hightailed it. What with all the media.
But Kieran was only half-hearing. Abby’s very sad, he said. About the baby. There was the noise of Cress’s spoon against the side of her cup, stirring, stirring. Laura sipped her tea and said, She’s such a tiny baby. Such tiny lungs.
And Abby’s a baby herself. It was Cress, leaning forward over her cup, holding it with her fingertips. Her eyes on the brown-flecked carpet. So young.
She’s seventeen, Fergus said, and Kieran stared at him. Seventeen. Was that a good thing? He had no idea. If and when the baby’s well enough, Fergus went on, she wants to take her home. When they find her a home.
Do you think that’s a good plan? Cress’s eyes still on the carpet so that Kieran was forced to look down, to see what she was seeing. It was just the same brown flecks.
It’s Abby’s plan, Fergus said firmly. It’s what she wants.
In the afternoon, in the quiet of her own almost-empty house, Laura pulled out Sylvie’s envelope again. She opened the newsletter headed Origins. Supporting People Separated by Adoption. There was a Sydney telephone number. She pressed it into her phone. When it answered, she said, My brother was adopted out at birth, in 1952. I’d like some help to find him.