Cath was feeling pale.
She sat with her chair a little distant from the table, and her chin a little distant from her neck. The Zing family’s words meandered along, while her forearms stung faintly and her vision blurred.
“Here,” said Fancy, quietly sliding the milk jug toward her. “Coffee stays warmer if you add the milk straightaway.”
“Does it?” said Cath, strangely calmed for a moment by this practical hint.
Fancy nodded. “The milk is like a small, white blanket.”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Zing, from her end of the table. “I’ve forgotten the chocolate strawberries! Hang on there while I get them.”
Everyone watched as she crossed the lawn, and listened to the gentle thud of the back door closing.
The family set down their coffee cups and watched Cath.
“I still don’t believe any of this,” said Cath. “I wouldn’t believe it at all if I hadn’t seen that garden shed. But just pretending it’s true, I have a question. Okay, I can see that you might decide to keep an eye on a baby when you give it up for adoption, but why keep going? Why didn’t one of you stop this? I’m grown-up now. I’ve got a job. Why did this go on for so long?”
“Well,” said Radcliffe heartily, “for one thing, there wasn’t really anything illegal about it. And to be perfectly honest, it was a lot of fun! All the exciting subterfuge and espionage and so on!”
“Nothing illegal about it?” Cath turned an icy gaze on Radcliffe. “You think there’s nothing illegal about planting cameras in my apartment and stealing my medical records, do you?”
“We prefer not to think in terms of the legal/illegal paradigm,” murmured Fancy.
“You didn’t know it was happening, so how could it hurt you?” Marbie cut in. “Also, it was all for you. It was to protect you because, you know, if it had come out that you were Valerio’s daughter, you’d never have had a normal life. The media would have watched you more than we ever did, and they’d have put it in the papers. We only put it in the garden shed.”
“Maybe that was my decision to make,” Cath said. But she said it halfheartedly: Something Marbie had said seemed oddly familiar, and was making her uncomfortable.
“We gave you a lot of presents,” Radcliffe pointed out.
“The thing is,” said Marbie, “you became part of our life. You were the person we took care of on Friday nights.”
“Right,” agreed Radcliffe. “Once you get your filing system up, it’s hard to stop working on the files.”
“And we couldn’t give you up,” said Fancy. “We just couldn’t. We loved you.”
Mr. Zing cleared his throat. Everyone turned to him, a little surprised. He had hardly said a word for the entire meal. “It’s like this,” he said, holding out the palms of his hands. “Some people like to change things by casting them in a different light—by telling the right stories about them. Let’s say, for example, a man has a midlife crisis. He thinks he’s destined for greater things than a family, and he runs away to a one-room apartment in West Ryde. Let’s say his wife makes that event into something else. Let’s say she calls it an artistic mission, a trip to Ireland to write novels. Now, take a look at that! He’s not a selfish, depressed fool anymore; he’s a man with a dream. See what I mean? Call a thing by a different name, and you change it.”
Even the kookaburra was surprised into silence.
“You mean lie about it?” Cassie whispered.
“Okay,” continued Mr. Zing, pretending not to hear Cassie, and clearing his throat again. “Now let’s say this woman gives up her baby. Oh, she does it for all the right reasons—she thinks she’s giving the baby a better life; she’s struggling to feed the two kids she already has, what with her no-hoper husband; and she knows she can’t afford another child. She thinks she’s saving her family, but the fact remains, she gives away her baby. So, let’s say she calls this event something else—a Zing Family Secret. A complicated secret with corporate structures, subterfuge and spies, a secret that is all about watching over the baby, taking care of the child. Let’s say we ever put a stop to that? We might have had to see what it was.”
Quietly, he pressed out his final words. “It was a bribe, Cath. She gave up her baby, and they paid her off. That’s what it was.”
Somewhere, in the bush behind the fence, a whipbird commenced a long, suspenseful toooooo that ended in a sharp whip crack. Then the back door slammed and Mrs. Zing emerged with the strawberries.