You can’t settle on any feeling, not yet. Not while a fragile connection has tendrilled unexpectedly between you. And you won’t speak of it, not of the gate and who went in or out, or didn’t. Not yet, not today.
Now that Finn is about to see what you’ve done to the pool, you’re afraid. As chlorine evaporated and algae colonised the water, thank God it eventually turned clear. Now you can see down through leaves and fronds to where the fish dart and flash, and fallen leaves swirl their way to the bottom and sunlight makes patterns of it all.
You feel his unease at returning to the house and you know not to take him there, not straight away. Lead him instead to what has become your outdoor seating area, the gathering of old chairs on the verandah outside the lounge room. From that spot you can see the pool fence, but only obliquely, and you’ve become used to facing away from it.
‘Beer?’ you ask, as Finn lowers himself to the couch.
He takes a deep breath. ‘Yes.’ Looks up at you with the trace of a smile. ‘And bring one for Jarrah too, eh?’
You look at Jarrah with an eyebrow raised and he gives a sheepish half-grin and your protest about the effects of alcohol on a young brain die away, and you want it too, the three of you sharing this moment almost like equals, together, and drinking the same thing symbolises it.
You take three Coronas from the fridge, pop the lids, slice a fresh lime and crush the slices into the long necks. Before heading back outside you look around the kitchen. It’s not that Chen would have left evidence, and anyway, what if he had? But you sense something changing. Something’s shifted between you and Finn; something new is about to start. You don’t know what it is. You don’t know if you’re terrified or relieved at the idea. You feel shaken and too light, blown about, unsettled. You have made some kind of choice and you don’t know any more how to make such choices, or how to know if any choice is right or wrong.
The kitchen is still and bright, the afternoon sun slanting into the rear window and pooling on the floor. That’s the last time you saw him alive, sitting in that very spot, his whole being focused on the book lying spread open on the floor in front of him. The story of a boy who wouldn’t be contained and his journey to a wild and distant land.
The feeling threatens to rise and take you by the throat and you swallow hard and clasp the cold necks of the beers and turn away. You won’t give in to it. After dark you’ll take Finn to the pool and you’ll bring him into Toby’s world and find, for those moments, comfort.