“I just don’t think we should leave her, Pete, especially with everything that’s gone on.”
“You want us to stay here and babysit a grown woman?” my dad had responded. “It’s only a broken marriage; she’ll get through it as long as she lays off the bloody booze.”
“But it’s not just that, is it?” Mum sighed. “It’s all this other stuff.”
All this other stuff.
I pick up the phone once more and press Call before I can change my mind, thrilled and horrified to see the little icon light up on the screen. Cathy and I haven’t spoken for five years, not since the day of my wedding. In that time, she has had another baby, a boy. I have two nephews now, one of whom I’ve never met. I think about what I’ll say when she picks up the phone, how my name will sound on her tongue. Will she speak it like an obituary, or with bright, wild joy? Will it sound the same as it did all those years ago when she’d spat, “I wish they’d cut you away and just left the fucking tumor, Hazel.”
Almost without thinking, my hand moves to my lower back, fingertips pressing against the scar there, a ridge of puckered tissue no more than five inches long.
2
In the dark sitting room, the television is playing. Danny is asleep, facedown on the sofa, his lanky frame already too big for the little two-seater. There is a silvery spindle of dried saliva on the cushion beneath him. Cathy shakes him briskly awake, rattling the blinds open as she does so.
“Time for school! Come on. Up!”
Danny grunts and wipes at his lips, looking at his mother blearily. Scout, wearing just his nappy and a smear of jam on his cheek, goggles at his older brother before reaching out and grabbing a fistful of Cathy’s hair. There is a strong smell of burning toast, the sound of the microwave pinging in the kitchen. If she’s late for work, she’ll get another warning, Cathy knows. There are creases in her shirt, her hair is still damp. She’ll be lucky if she makes the bus.
“You’ll need to fix your own breakfast, Danny. I’ve got to get Scout to day care. Go on and get changed—and no messing about on your phone!”
“Uh-huh.” Danny yawns. He scratches at his neck. “Did you see the message I sent you about the video?”
“Yes, and I’ll watch it later. Right now, I need you moving.”
Her phone rings as she’s strapping Scout into his dungarees. She almost ignores it, peering down to look at the screen only at the very last second.
Hazel.
Seeing the name floating there is agony and sweetness, like biting through tinfoil. There is a sliding feeling like rockfall in Cathy’s chest. She quickly directs Scout to his toys and picks up the call before the voicemail kicks in. Her heart is beating faster than she can remember but her voice is calm and level, almost cautious.
“Hazel? Is it really you?”
“It’s really me.”
“Mum said you were home. Bet you don’t recognize the place.”
She can hear the smile in Hazel’s voice as she replies, “I saw what she did to your bedroom.”
“Ugh. I know, right? The Pussy Palace.”
Hazel laughs and Cathy grins. She can’t help herself and right at that moment the years are washed away.
“Joe and I are separating, but you probably know that. We’re getting a divorce. The papers arrived this morning, but I bet Mum already told you everything, huh? They left for the cruise an hour ago.”
“How long are they gone for?”
“Fifty days.”
“Lucky bastards. Can’t believe she’s trusting you with the cats.”
“Me neither. I think she’s set up a nanny cam.”
Cathy snorts with laughter. It’s funny, she thinks. This feeling of release. Like she’s been storing all these heavy, bad feelings inside her for a long time only to find they’re as insubstantial as smoke.
“I want to see you,” she tells Hazel as Scout rams a plastic truck into her legs. Cathy no longer cares about the creases in her shirt orgetting to work on time. She is suddenly full of big ideas, the way she always is. “Can we get lunch this weekend? There’s a new shopping center in town, we can go there. I can get a babysitter, even.”
“No, bring the boys. I’d like that. I’d like to see you too. It’s been so long.”