Page 95 of Malaise
TWENTY-EIGHT
“I’ve got away for you to earn some extra cash,” Tanya absently says as I swing the door of the Falcon open and drop into the seat. Her expression grows concerned after she looks my way. “What happened?”
“He’s giving up. He said that Jasper’s dad will probably pin the crime on him to save paperwork, and that he’s okay with it—in not so many words.”
She scowls out the windscreen. “Fucker.”
“He told me where he was when the break-in happened.” Tanya’s head swings back my way, and I take a second to look her over for any clues. “Did you know?”
“I only knew he didn’t come home like he told you. Where was he?”
“Apparently talking to my parents.”
She starts the car, a fierce determination making her usually bright blue eyes as dark as a brewing storm. “Did he ask you to talk to them? Get them to go down to the station and put in a statement?”
I shake my head as she pulls onto the road out of this grey soul-crushing hole. “He told me not to.”
“Didn’t want you to get involved?”
“Told me that he’s dragging me down and that I’d do better without him.”
A small smile plays on her lips as she gives a polite wave to the guard on the way out. “If you’d met our mum, you’d know where he gets it from.”
“Was she the same?”
“She stayed with Dad and let it ruin her, all so we had a better shot at life, so, yeah.”
“How did she die?”
“Cancer.”
“That sucks.”
Tanya sighs as she indicates out onto the main road. “Yeah, it did. Brett hasn’t told you much, huh?”
“Just said she was in a better place.”
A bitter snort escapes Tanya. “Those last months were the worst. But what made it so bittersweet was it took Mum being too frail to even feed herself for Dad to finally look at her how he should have all along.”
“He cared for her?”
“Sometimes. At the end he’d spend hours beside her, talking about the old days, sharing memories of when they were young. I think he was guilty.” She swipes a tear from her cheek.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“No.” She shakes her head, grabbing a deep breath before she continues. “It’s good to talk, and Lord knows those boys don’t do it enough.” Her eyes light up, and she smiles. “I can tell you a bit about her if you like? About Brett when he was young?”
“That’d be cool.” I settle back into the seat, twisting slightly to face her as she talks.
The trip back to Whitecaps takes no time at all with how invested Tanya has me in her tales of innocence and naivety. Two kids, who grew up as each other’s rock because their parents were preoccupied with simply trying to get by and make ends meet. She paints a vivid picture of Jon as a tow truck driver when he met their mum, a waitress at the truck stop.
The same truck stop Carver took me to.
My heart clenches at the hidden meaning behind our lunches, at the sentiment to why he took me there—conscious or subconscious decision on his behalf.
She portrays a sad tale—albeit a harrowingly true one—of people forced to make decisions based on the need to survive, for independence. Of illegal jobs, arguments, and family divisions afterward. Of how the money Jon would earn from his underworld connections drove him to set family and honesty aside. To walk away when his wife needed him most after the cot death of their youngest child—the baby in the photo. But even worse, of how they realised too late that the nature of the beast was destined to be so.
A man raised post-war to parents who had too little—a mother who’d beg for food stamps in the bread line—and parents who also made the hard choices that defined their son, Jon’s, future.