‘Whose is that?’ she asked, nodding towards a jacket draped over the back of a chair.
‘It’s Ned’s. He stays here sometimes.’
‘With you?’ she asked, looking me up and down as if she thought it unlikely.
‘No. He’s a friend of your gran’s.’ I found him in the photo and pressed my index finger under him. ‘That’s him there.’
She studied the photo closely. ‘Cute,’ she finally pronounced. She lifted the photo off the wall to study it more closely. ‘His dad was called Arthur, eh? The old man who lived with my gran?’
‘That’s right.’ She didn’t turn but instead held the photo closer to her face to examine it better. ‘Do you remember him? He would have been around when you were a kid.’
‘I don’t remember the cute guy, but I remember his dad. He had this totally Irish accent that made everything he said sound funny.’
‘Yeah, well Ned’s a bit like that, too.’
With the bed stripped I went in search of clean sheets. Sunny was studying a photo of her mother and grandmother when I returned. The sheet cracked like lightening as I flung it over the bed.
‘That smell reminds me of Gran. Her things always smelt like that.’ It was lavender. I’d noticed the sachet in the linen cupboard.
‘Did you like your gran?’
Her skeletal shoulders went up and down. ‘Falcon was her favourite. She liked boys more than girls, I think. Or maybe she just didn’t like me.’ She lapsed into silence but remained staring at the photos. ‘Mum said Gran wasn’t a very good mother.’ A harsh laugh. ‘Not that Mum was that hot either.’ She tried to make a joke of it but it fell flat. ‘I guess there’s not much hope for me.’
‘Great sisters make great mums,’ I said confidently. I’d made that up on the spot but thought it was probably true. Sunny wiped away a tear. I hadn’t realised she was crying. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘You’re a fabulous sister to Neo, Sunny.’
She didn’t respond, but her fingers reached out to touch the image of Falcon.
‘Gran came to see me. After I got out of the hospital. I think it might have been the day Mum was arrested. It was before the funeral anyway.’ She lapsed into silence again.
This must have been the time Ned told me about, the day Sunny had screamed and wouldn’t stop. When Sunny spoke again she addressed one of the photos of her gran. ‘That’s when she told me Falcon was her favourite. She said he had always been her favourite. She told me she never wanted to see me again and she said she wished it had been me who drowned, not Falcon. I was only seven years old when she said that to me.’ There wasn’t a lot I could say. She turned to face me. Her eyes were dry now. ‘Pretty harsh, eh?’
Now there’s an understatement.
I left her studying the photos and went to bring in her bag from the car. When I returned she was sitting in the middle of the bed, the photos arranged around her like a magical circle. She had a framed high school photo of her mother clasped in both hands.
‘I look like her, don’t I?’
‘A bit,’ I agreed, keeping my tone neutral.
‘I wish I had met her now. Just to check out stuff like that. I’d changed my mind about meeting her, you know, at the last minute. I said no way, I’m not going, but Dad made me.’
‘Really? That surprises me. He was so dead against it.’
‘I know. He was in such a weird mood that morning. Not that I blame him. I mean, he totally hated her for what she did to Falcon. He probably just lost the plot, knowing he was going to see her again.’
So she still didn’t know Justin had seen Karen the night before they were supposed to meet; she didn’t know he’d flown to Wellington on Friday night to plead with her to leave Sunny alone. The only reason I could think of for why he would then insist that Sunny go to meet Karen was to maintain his cover. It would look suspicious if they didn’t turn up to an arranged meeting. Some might even make the leap that he didn’t go because he knew Karen was dead.
‘He was never, ever going to forgive her for killing Falcon,’ Sunny continued. ‘You know, after the funeral he never mentioned Mum again. He never went to visit her in prison