Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘How come Mum and Dad never took us camping, you think?’

‘You’re too annoying without a TV.’

‘Shut up. I’m fine with no TV.’

We chewed marshmallows, staring into the fire.

‘It’s good that the police can help us find Dad,’ said Max.

‘Um, yeah.’

‘They’ll come back as soon as they find him, won’t they?’

‘I guess.’

‘Do you think it’ll take much longer?’

‘Max, I don’t know.’

‘Don’t you think they’ll be able to?’ His tone changed, like he was pissed at me.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But that’s what you think.’

‘I don’t know what I think.’

‘He’s coming back.’ There was a tremor in his voice.

‘I hope so.’

In the dark I could see tears beginning to slide down his cheeks.

‘He wouldn’t just leave us here, Fin. He wouldn’t. Even if he couldn’t drive through the snow, he’d still come back to us.’

‘I know he would. If he could. I’m not saying he wouldn’t.’

‘But you think he’s dead or something.’

‘I don’t think anything, Max. It’s gonna be alright, yeah?’

‘Why did he have to follow her? He should have stayed here with us.’

‘Yeah, he should have.’

‘It’s my fault he went.’ He sniffed loudly, wiped snot with his sleeve.

‘It’s not, Max.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘He’s the adult, Max. He’s the parent. Not you, not either of us. He was supposed to stay here with us. Just like he was supposed to be here that afternoon when Mum left. He was supposed to be the one to find her gone, but he was off… dicking around. If he wasn’t such an arsehole Mum would have stayed.’

Max frowned at me. I could see his mind ticking over. ‘What do you mean?’

I wanted to tell him what I meant. I wanted to tell him what I knew about Dad, but that would mean destroying the picture he had of Dad. I couldn’t do it. I knew too much what it felt like to realise your father wasn’t the hero you thought he was. I knew it meant your childhood was over.

‘Nothing. I just… don’t blame yourself.’ I shifted closer to him, put my arm around his shoulder. I pulled him in and tried to remember the last time I’d hugged him. ‘He was the one that decided to follow Kara.’

‘I freakin’ hate Kara.’

‘Yeah, Maximum.’ I tried to laugh. ‘We all know you hate Kara.’

‘Maybe she kidnapped Dad.’

‘That’s probably it. Dunno how she expects us to pay for his ransom, though. She’s spent all his money.’

‘Bitch.’

‘That’s my boy.’

That night we moved our mattresses into the living room, partly to be near the warmth of the fire. Partly to be closer to each other.

The snow kept falling. Every morning we woke up, the scene outside was greyer than the day before, softer around the edges like it would eventually go completely out of focus and fade away. We made a significant dint on the can supply. Started cooking rice, boiling the water over the fire. Time sagged over the frame of the days and we played endless cards and Trivial Pursuit.

I rationed myself to one song on my iPod a day to save the batteries. I would lie on my stomach by the fire and draw. I drew the stack of wood in the kitchen. I drew our clothes drying on a makeshift line strung between the dining chairs like bunting. I drew Lokey snowboarding down a mountain of glowing snow.

There was no news of Dad.

We finished all the bread, and baked bean sandwiches became a memory of indulgence. Steaks and pizza and hot chips took on mythical qualities.

Mrs White visited again. She sat on the edge of our couch with her ankles crossed, feet squashed into the space left between the couch and my mattress. I made her a cup of tea, heating the water on the fire. I didn’t like to use the drinking water, but she had brought us a Cherry Ripe each and it would seem pretty stingy not to offer her a cup of tea. (She seemed surprised a teenager knew how to make tea.) She talked a lot, mainly about running low on dog food and her poor garden suffocating beneath the snow. Max told her about explorers that got lost in Antarctica and ate their sled dogs. She smiled politely.

‘Are you able to keep warm enough, Mrs White?’ I asked, remembering that my grandma used to struggle in the cold.

‘It isn’t so bad. And Mr White is very organised. He’s gathered all the firewood and worked out exactly how long it will last and how much we can use each day. The same with the food, he’s drawn up a big diagram so we both know how much to eat and when. Caught me stealing a bag of crisps, and well, didn’t he do his block then!’ She looked away and patted her carefully arranged hair.

‘It’s very difficult, not being able to contact our girls. Mr White finds that hard, I know he worries.’ She gazed out the window as she spoke and it was like she was talking to herself. ‘He gets himself very worked up over things and I should work harder not to upset him. He’s only trying to look after us.’ She paused and was quiet for a few minutes, sipping her tea. ‘Well. I should get back or he will worry! You boys behave yourselves, won’t you?’

As if we might be thinking of throwing a wild party and passing out on the lawn.

In the evening I drew Mr White in his business shirt with the Financial Review tucked under his arm. His grey hair was slicked back in the style it always was whenever I saw him over the fence. I drew him with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the food chart he had made etched into the skin of his forearms.

Later we heated water and poured it into the bath so it was an inch deep. I washed using a pink washer printed with daisies. My grandma used to call a face-washer a flannel. I remembered her washing me in the bath as a kid – me trying to convince her I was old enough to do it myself. She has been dead two years, the last of my grandparents to go. In the light of one of Kara’s sandalwood candles with the cold stinging me, I was glad for the small mercy that she had been spared this.

The gun nudges into my skull and I am pulled back to the present. With my cheek pressed against the bricks I wonder if I will get to grow old, with kids and grandkids and a garden. I wonder if I will even see the next day.

Yelling. A woman’s voice. It echoed through the silence, finding us when we were still in our beds. Half asleep, I pulled on some clothes.

‘Stay here,’ I said to Max.

‘Yeah right,’ he said with sarcasm.

We walked up the hill toward the noise. Starvos was standing in the doorway of his shop. The woman was throwing her arms up.

‘You can’t close! You have all that food in there! You can’t!’

‘I can do what I want,’ Starvos said.

The woman saw me. ‘He’s closing!’ she said, as if she expected me to do something about it. ‘He’s keeping it all for himself.’ She turned back to Starvos. ‘First you rip us off and now this. You selfish bastard!’

‘It’s my stock! I can do what I want with it.’ He stepped behind the glass door and tried to push it shut as the woman blocked it with her foot. He flung open the door and shoved her away, stumbling back she slipped on the ice, falling on her side. ‘You stupid bitch! Get off my property!’

‘Oi!’ I jogged over.

Starvos glared at me, jutted his chin out. ‘Fin, you stay out of this. This is my business.’

‘You can’t do that,’ I said.

‘Watch me.’ He closed the door in my face.

I went to the woman on the ground, took her arm and tried to help her up. ‘Are you okay?’

She turned her face to me, eyes red with tears. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, hitting me away. ‘You could have helped me get in there. Thanks for nothing.’