scuttled after them all the whole way home, crying. Mum didn’t even flinch when I threw myself at her feet, grazing my knee badly in the process.
When we got back to the house—I can’t remember whose we were staying at or why they weren’t there that night—Mum made dinner for two. When I asked if I could have some, she acted as if I wasn’t even there. Afterward, she bathed Fern and read her a story. It was rare that Mum bathed us, and she never read us stories. I clambered onto the couch to listen to the story, but Mum pushed me off so roughly I fell onto the floorboards, banging my bad knee. I cried so hard my stomach hurt, but she just kept reading. When the story was finished, she tucked Fern in and left the room.
I understood somehow that I shouldn’t get into the bed, so eventually I fell asleep on the floor. When I woke, Fern was beside me, her skinny arms wrapped around me, her face buried in my hair. She’d brought the blanket and pillow down from the couch and assembled a little bed around us. She held me like that all night.
Most people think of me as Fern’s protector. But the truth is, in her own funny way, she’s always been mine.
FERN
At 6:15 P.M. sharp, I open Rose and Owen’s white picket gate and walk down the red brick pathway. I have dinner with Rose on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, unless Rose is traveling or working late, in which case we forfeit. Attempts to reschedule to another night have not gone well, historically. These cornerstones to my routine are what keep me calm and grounded. Rose and Owen have a lovely house, the kind that looks like it should feature in the pages of House & Garden magazine, even though the lawns aren’t as neat as they were before Owen went away. Owen used to mow and edge the grass every other week during the winter months and weekly during the summer, but he has taken a job in London now. Still, the lawn is the only blight on the place. The verandah is swept and oiled, and there’s a wicker basket next to the door for umbrellas. There’s also a shoe rack bearing an upturned never-been-worn pair of shiny red gum boots. Rose takes great pride in keeping house, something she says is a direct response to our childhood home, which was chaotic to say the least. I too have adopted a high standard of order and cleanliness in my home, but I stop short of keeping my house to the standard of a magazine spread.
I take Rose’s three front steps in one leap. As I open the front door, I’m greeted by Alfie, whom I kneel to pat. Even the dog is picture perfect, with his glossy coat and a ridiculous red kerchief collar around his neck.
“Hello, Alfie,” I say as he leaps into my lap. When I stand again, he runs along at my ankles delightedly. When Rose and Owen got Alfie, Rose had insisted that he was going to be an outside dog. (“How many cavoodles do you know who are outside dogs?” Owen had whispered to me. “None,” I’d replied, “but I don’t know any cavoodles other than Alfie, so your survey is flawed.”)
In the kitchen, Rose squats in front of the oven with two oversize oven mitts on her hands, watching a chicken under the grill.
“I’m here!” I announce.
Rose startles, almost falling forward, into the oven. “Fern! You scared the life out of me!”
She stands, frowning at me. Rose is an excellent frowner. Even when she laughs, two little vertical lines remain between her eyebrows, as if her face is afraid to have too much fun. Owen used to say it was because she’s always worrying about everyone. I know she is worried about him. I can tell because whenever she talks about his job in London, she smiles extra brightly and then quickly changes the subject. Rose also worries about me a lot. I once heard her say to someone on the phone that I’d turned her hair gray (even though her hair isn’t gray and, besides, stress doesn’t actually turn hair gray, though stress can trigger a condition called telogen effluvium, which causes hair to shed up to three times faster, so while I could cause her to go bald, I couldn’t turn her hair gray).