Suzanne shook her head. ‘No, she’s not.’ She was quiet for a while, concentrating hard on my index finger, sweeping the polish across my nail. I was about to change the subject when she spoke. ‘She wants us to go back to my parents’ for Christmas.’
I was so surprised my head actually jerked, causing my hand to spasm.
‘Hand still, please.’ Suzanne said, not looking at me. ‘And I know. It sounds bad, right? That was pretty much my reaction when she first said it, last week.’
‘I don’t get it. Why would she suggest something like that? You’re obviously not going to go, right?’
‘Well, for her it’s not this terrible thing. She’s been saying for a while that I should see my mother. Trying to arrange dinner, things like that. I’ve said no for a while. I’ve actually been worried that she’s going to give up trying to convince me and one day I’ll come home and Mum will be there.’ She sighed and dipped the brush back into the bottle. ‘Anyway, that hasn’t happened yet thankfully. But Sarah’s moved on from that now to say we should spend Christmas with them. Her reasoning is that all of us will be there together, her and me and my parents and my brother. Nothing will happen, she says, and it will be good for all of us.’
‘But that’s not the point, right?’ I said carefully.
‘What’s not the point?’
‘That nothing will happen.’
Suzanne stopped, the brush tip just above my finger. She looked at me, letting out a tchts of frustration. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. See, you get it. Why doesn’t she get it? She’s been making me feel like I’m being completely unreasonable.’
‘I don’t get why she’d think you’d be OK with that.’
‘She knows I’m not. But she says I probably never will be, that it’s the kind of thing I just have to do. Otherwise I’ll always feel like I can’t. She says until we’ve all sat down together we’ll never be in a position to move forward.’
‘But what about when you saw your dad that time?’
At this, Suzanne smiled a humourless smile and resumed painting my nails. ‘Sarah says that he says he ignored me out of respect for me. Apparently he thought that I’d “freak out” if he came over. Can you believe that?’ She’d clearly meant this to be a flippant question, but it came out earnest, like she was really asking me.
I thought carefully about how to answer this. ‘Um, I guess that would make sense, but I don’t think it makes it any better.’ I hesitated. ‘What do your parents say? About Christmas?’
‘They want me to come, Sarah says. I don’t know if I believe her. I spoke to my brother and he said basically the same thing.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said cautiously.
Suzanne shrugged. ‘I don’t know what difference it really makes now. The damage is done.’ She started the second coat on my left hand. ‘That’s not what I’m really worried about anyway. Sarah said something about needing to think to the future, that we couldn’t stay like this forever. But I actually thought this was a forever thing. That it would be me and her for the next few years, until I’m old enough to move out or whatever.’
I felt a stab of sadness, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t even imagine living with such a temporary foundation. I’d assumed it was forever too. Wasn’t Sarah supposed to be the great rescuer in this scenario?
‘So, what – are you going to move back at some point?’
Suzanne looked troubled. ‘Maybe. God, I hope not. But now I’m thinking that this is all some kind of groundwork that Sarah is laying, so she can say, “Oh, see, you’re all fine now, you can go back to live with them and I can have my life back.”’
‘I’m sure that won’t happen,’ I said automatically, even though I wasn’t even the slightest bit sure. ‘Besides—’
She put her hand up to shush me, so suddenly that I did so without question. Her brow had furrowed and she was angling her head slightly towards my bedroom door.
‘What?’ I mouthed.
‘Sarah,’ she mouthed back. She pointed towards the door and mimed listening with her hand to her ear.
I strained to hear, and sure enough I could just about hear the sounds of my mother talking to another woman. I wouldn’t have been able to place the voice as Sarah’s by myself.
‘Shit,’ Suzanne said out loud through a sigh.
‘Why is she here?’ I asked, bewildered.
She made a face as if she really didn’t want to answer this, then said, ‘She made me give her yours and Rosie’s addresses, when we first started being friends. She must have come here first because it’s closer.’
‘Why is she so overprotective?’ I asked. ‘She doesn’t seem like the type.’
‘It’s not that she’s overprotective. She’s just trying to . . . get a grip on me, I guess. Maybe she thinks if I know she’ll come looking for me, I won’t leave.’
‘Do you leave a lot?’
‘Sometimes I just want to be by myself. I just walk for a bit, but I always come back. Usually she doesn’t even notice I’ve gone.’
I thought of the bare window in her room. Always leave an exit clear. So she had meant it.