Mum and Mike did eventually get their act together. He moved first into the spare room at the café and then, in a diffident, furtive sort of way, into Mum’s house. He drives trucks for Glen Jackson, shears sheep for lifestyle-blockers, moves rocks for Rob and is an excellent barista if Anna and I can get our hands on him. He and Mum are very, very happy.
Dad isn’t speaking to any family members except Gina. We’re bearing up quite well.
Hugh recently met a nice lady online; she lives north of Whangarei and makes goat’s cheese.
Anna and I have a full-time staff member, a pale, slender youth called Dwayne who eats like a whole pack of ravening wolves and makes absolutely stellar toasted sandwiches. We get two days off a week each, now. It’s lovely.
Isaac is currently in prison, although he comes up for parole in another few months. I try not to worry about that, and mostly I succeed.
Tracey is doing a media arts degree in Auckland, in a haphazard, two-steps-forwards-one-step-back sort of way. She’s taking her lithium and she has Craig every second weekend, although she’s quite prone to cancelling at four thirty on Friday afternoons. She dislikes me intensely. I wish she didn’t, and I really wish she wouldn’t tell Craig that, if it wasn’t for me, Mummy and Daddy would be living happily together in the same house, but life is seldom completely perfect.
It’s pretty close, though.