Page 2 of Malaise
TWO
“Where the hellhave you been?”
Hello to you too, Mum.“Can I get inside?”
I’m answered with an inconvenienced huff as she steps back to let me through our front door. “Did you not get the message?”
“I got it, and I came straight home.”
“It doesn’t take almost an hour to walk home, Megan. Don’t you dare start with that atti—”
“Sandra!” Dad booms from the lounge. “Knock it off.”
“What’s so urgent, Mum?” I drop my bag beside the hall table and turn to look at her properly. Her pupils are wide, but her features are enraged, not sad, as the puffiness under her eyes would have suggested.
She swallows. Says nothing. Stares.
I swear I feel every litre of my blood drain to my feet. So wrong. The woman is unflappable. I witnessed her drop a three-tier cake she’d made for a friend’s wedding on the floor and laugh it off. She doesn’t get agitated, and yet, she looks as though she’s about to go black widow on me and rip my head off.
I take two steps back to align myself with the lounge door, and incline my head toward Dad without taking my eyes off Mum. “Dad? What’s the urgency?”
“Sit down, Megan.”
He paces the room. The man who eats, sleeps, and drinks in his armchair every night is pacing. I’ve walked in the right house, haven’t I?
“Sit,” he barks again.
My legs buckle on command and I perch on the closest thing to me, the piano stool.
“Lemonade?” Mum asks, all chipper.
“She doesn’t need fucking lemonade, Sandra.” Dad stills. “Nobody’s thirsty.”
“What the fuck is appropriate then, Peter?” My parents don’t swear. “Since you’re the goddamn authority on this, you tell me.”
Dad’s eyes narrow; his jaw stiffens. He doesn’t speak a word, but even I can read he’s telling Mum to calm the hell down. Her nostrils flare as she stares him down. He points to her reading chair. She stomps her foot.
My mother just stomped her foot like a freaking toddler.
Who the hell are these people?
“Sit down and offer your daughter support.”
Support? What do I need that for?
“Did it occur to you that I can’t stand to be in the room, that I don’t want to hear it twice?” Mum’s voice cracks, tears flowing free. “I shouldn’t have to hear it once,” she whispers. Her skirt billows as she spins and bolts across the hall to their room, slamming the door behind her.
I look to Dad and find him with one hand on his hip, the other over his bowed face. “What’s going on?”
“Meg….” He shakes his head and takes a seat, perched on the edge of the cushion. “I’ve got bad news, honey.”
I’d love to say I drift here, that my body shuts down and blocks out what he says, but it doesn’t. Terror has a funny way of taking control of your body. I would have loved to blank out his next words, to not have them tear a hole through my heart and rip my soul to shreds, but it isn’t to be. My ears tune in to every muted sniffle from Mum, to every tick of the clock over the mantle, and to every draw of breath my father makes before he manages to compose himself enough to say, “Den’s been killed in an accident.”
God, I’m going to be sick…. Shock—the first stage of grief. “Tonight?”
“On his way home from work. His bike was struck by a bus.”
“Why didn’t you come and get me? Why did you wait to tell me?” I thought it couldn’t have been that bad if they let me finish work first, but this….