because Dad was still awake and keen to hear about the job.
They talked shop, with Dad asking questions slowly, and with difficulty forming words, until Jake was unable to stifle his yawns. He had an early start and he was still catching up on sleep from what’d turned into a two night drinking binge after seeing Rielle.
He tuned in to Dad saying something about a visit. Ah, a visitor, he’d had a visitor.
“We both did,” said Mum.
“Ah-huh,” he mouthed through a yawn, not even pretending interest.
“Reee,” said Dad, drawing out the syllable. Jake assumed he meant some boring Reed cousin or other.
“Arielle,” said Mum.
“I said Reee,” said Dad.
“What?”
“Arielle came to see us today.”
“What?” Jake said again, not taking it in. Rie, here at the house, talking to his parents? “What did she want?” he barked, awake now, suspicious and on guard.
“She came to offer us help, money actually, for anything we might need for your father.”
“For me,” said Dad. He rolled his eyes and put his weak right hand slowly up to his heart.
“Money! She came to lord it over us with her rock star money. Unbelievable!”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all. She was very sweet.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her we were fine but we appreciated the offer.”
“She had no right to come here.”
“She said you’d be angry.”
“Yeah, well she’s right.” Jake was on his feet. Mum gave him her ticked off look. What did she have to be ticked off about? That fucking wolf woman had screwed with his life.
“What happened between you two? She said she hurt you.”
“Fuck, Mum. What were you doing, having a cosy fireside chat?”
“Jake!” Dad called him on the swearing, sounding like his old self.
He slid back into his chair. “Well, I’m sorry, but this is just—”
Mum put her hand over Dad’s as it lay on the table. “So that’s what’s wrong with him.”
“There is nothing wrong with me.”
“Bullshit,” said Dad.
“Mick!” Mum pulled her hand back, and Dad grinned, lopsided. He’d gone the power swear word and was happy about it.
“All right, so I got hurt. It happens. It’s no big deal. I’m certainly not going to talk about it. I don’t want anything to do with her.”
“She says the man that went with her, the other singer, he meant nothing to her. It was just so that you’d give her up.”
Jake scowled. “Yeah, well it worked, Mum. I gave her up months ago.” His parents exchanged a look he couldn’t read. “What now?”
“We’re not going to interfere but—”
“If you weren’t going to interfere, Mum, there wouldn’t be a ‘but’ in that sentence.”
“Let her finch,” said Dad, stumbling on the word ‘finish’, shaking his head in frustration.
“We just think if you’re still this angry—and don’t you say you’re not,” said Mum in a rush, holding her hand up to stop him cutting in. “Arielle must still mean something to you.”
“It doesn’t matter what she means to me, Mum. She’s not someone I can trust.”
“Sad,” said Dad.
“Are you sure it’s not worth trying again?”
“Mum!”
“Okay, I get it. I’ll stop now, but—”
“No ‘but’!” Jesus Christ!
“All right, if you’re sure?”
“Mum!”
“Okay.”
“Don’t fuck up, Jay.”
“Dad!”
“Mick!”
Dad looked at Mum and laughed. Jake threw his hands up. He’d eaten too much, he felt sick; and indigestion, disgust, or fury burned in his chest.
“She wants you to know she’s sorry.”
“Yeah, she told me. It’s friggin’ easy to say isn’t it?” He stood. He had to get out of here. “Thanks for dinner, Mum. I reckon you should take your matchmaking shingle down now. I don’t need your help.”
“See you out,” said Dad, glancing briefly at Mum. He leaned on the table to pull himself upright and shuffled up the hall with Jake. At the front door, he tapped Jake’s heart with his strong left hand. “She here?”
Before the stroke Jake would have toughed that question out, fired back some slick retort. But now, looking at his father, knowing how close they’d come to losing him, and how hard he was working to recover, he couldn’t fudge it. He nodded. There was a hardness in his heart that pained from not having Rielle in his life.
Dad moved his hand to Jake’s face. “She here?”
Jake nodded again, closed his eyes. He saw one of a hundred images of Rielle that had free reign in his thoughts, heard the music of her laughter, felt the sensation of her touch. “It’s no good, Dad.”
Dad folded his last three fingers back and popped his thumb out, forming a pistol shape with his good hand. He