relation to Dorothy’s growth in perspective, her strength. The rage of teenagehood swelled biliously inside her, but she could not let it out. She was afraid of this power she felt, that she might kill her mother.
One day Eve came home. She slept for a long time getting over the discomfort of the car journey, and when she woke, Lou and Dot sat on the bed and dealt her into a game of gin. Lou was being shy with her mother.
‘Wow,’ Eve said. ‘I’ve got a great hand.’ After a minute she shut her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured through a face that looked close to sleep again. ‘Hurts to look at the cards.’
‘Lee’s managed to get hold of Michael,’ Dot said. ‘He sends his love. Can you believe it, of all of us she’s the one he keeps in touch with?’
‘Why is that strange?’ asked Lou, and Dot said, ‘Your grandmother is a strange woman.’
‘I think she’s nice.’
‘Well, that’s because you’re nice.’ She split the deck and arched the halves into a bridge and shuffled them together, like Daniel had taught her to do. ‘Come on, we’ll just sit here and play quietly while your mum has a rest.’
The Forrest seniors announced that now Eve was home they were going to leave. ‘End of the week,’ Frank said. It was Thursday. What were they racing back to, their golf handicaps, their lunches? But that was how it was with them. The thread count of Frank’s shirts and the sheen of Lee’s gold fob chain revised the past, as though the years they lived here and had children and were broke were their wilderness, an interlude. They’d reverted to type, and Ruth was the only child who’d had it in her to adapt. Dorothy stepped into the cold garden to take it out on the weeds.
‘Dorothy.’ Frank stood by the back door.
She rocked back on her haunches, balanced with her dirt-smeared hands on the trowel. ‘Hi, Dad.’ Breath briefly visible in the air.
‘You might recall that trouble from the traffic fines. From . . .’
‘God, from like twenty years ago. Yeah.’ A snail crawled up the trunk of a broccoli plant and she picked it off, tossed it into the hedge.
‘Something I meant to deal with at the time, but . . . It slipped my mind. Just to let you know, in case they call, looking for you.’
‘The who, the Ministry of Justice?’
‘Yes. I’m sure they’ve forgotten all about it.’
‘But why me?’
‘You were the driver. Weren’t you? Anyway I’m sure they won’t track you down.’
‘But, Frank . . .’ He’d told her he would deal with it. Hadn’t he? Had the fines been forgotten? Or was she some kind of unknowing fugitive? ‘I can’t worry about that shit now.’ A small satisfaction, watching him flinch at the language. She dug the fork into a root system and raked it out.
The water, running warm in the kitchen sink, felt delicious over her hands. Dot squirted a perfect green jet of detergent onto her palms and rubbed them vigorously. Movement caught her eye; a neighbour’s cat trotting through the vege garden, and she clapped her hands and hissed through the window. Its back twitched and it slunk quickly through a hole in the bushes. Ruth spoke from the fridge, her head inside it, reorganising. ‘Did Dad tell you we’re going home? I feel bad but I really miss my girls.’
‘It’s OK. Eve’s going to be fine.’
‘Even though they don’t really need me.’ Her delicate pink nails caught the light as she lifted a bowl to her nose, removed the cling film, sniffed it and put it back.
‘Who, your girls? I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘You know. Twins.’
‘Oh but they still need their mom.’
Ruth smiled, unconvinced.
‘Ruth. They do.’
‘They’re very close.’
‘Well. That’s lovely. Anyway, I envy you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Living somewhere else. I hate being this age. I’d like to turn back on the past with a flame-thrower. One of those hoses that sprays fire. But I bet you don’t even feel it, the weight, dragging around behind you. I mean you’re American now, and your life – is it like our childhood was another planet?’
Ruth said, ‘Isn’t everyone’s?’
A call came from upstairs. ‘I’ll go,’ said Dot.
‘Anyway,’ said Ruth. ‘Getting older is a lot better than the alternative.’
Later she borrowed Nathan’s car to explore their old neighbourhood, look at the family house, a thing that Dorothy never did. ‘Visiting Mars,’ Dot said, and Ruth nodded, tucking a house key into the back pocket of her