Impulse (2 page)

The breeze was just starting to cool me down, giving me goosebumps, when the music stopped abruptly. Lots of shouting replaced it. One of the voices I immediately recognised. I ran to the front door of the house just as Lauren burst out, slamming the screen door behind her.

‘Arsehole!' she screamed over her shoulder.

‘Slut!' shouted a gruff male voice—Jackson's—from inside the house. He didn't follow her out.

‘Are you alright? What happened?' I gently touched her arm and steered her towards the car but in a burst of fury she yanked out of my grip and began kicking at the nearest tyre.

‘I can't believe I thought he was—' She shook her head and pressed the balls of her palms into her eyes, hard.

‘What the hell did he do to you?' My heart was banging against my ribcage.

She sucked in a deep breath, leaned against the car and threw her head back. Her tears shone silver beneath the half-moon.

‘He thinks…because I'm not staying at the party…that I'm going out to meet another guy. And then he broke up with me. He thinks I've changed since you and I have been hanging out.' She shuddered back another sob then swore beneath her breath. ‘Control freak…' she started pacing back and forth along the strip of grass between my car and the next. ‘Jealous dick of a boyfriend…stupid jerk…' It went on and on.

I remained silent and didn't press her for more information. Everything about tonight, our last precious night together, was circling its way down a huge toilet bowl.

We drove around for an hour, past our old primary school, which had quadrupled in size since we'd attended, and our high school, which looked the same except for the huge chain-link fence around it. We did a few laps in town and one slow drive past the cemetery. We didn't have the nerve to enter the wrought-iron gates in the dark, so we settled for a few minutes of quiet talk in the gloomy carpark; but even then we couldn't shake the cold, shivery feeling that comes with being only metres away from the decaying dead. So we left and decided to return home, where the house was stifling hot and still smelled like the lamb roast we'd eaten for dinner.

The TV was off and I assumed Nana and Pop had gone to bed, but we were surprised to find Pop sitting up at the kitchen table, staring blankly at an open, unmarked Sudoku puzzle book.

‘You didn't have to wait up,' Lauren said, her voice hoarse.

He glanced up in surprise, as if he hadn't heard us enter, and quickly wiped his damp, red face. My heart twisted. Pop had been crying.

I approached the kitchen table with hesitant steps, my flats squeaking against the linoleum.

‘Are you okay?' Surely he hadn't found out I was leaving second-hand. I'd wanted to be the one to break it to them. Lauren was the only one who knew of my plans, but when I searched her eyes she shook her head and shrugged. She seemed just as puzzled as me.

Pop's wrinkled face quivered momentarily before he spoke.

‘I suppose it's time you girls knew.'

‘P
UT THE KETTLE
on, love,' said Pop, forcing his trembling mouth into a barely-there smile. ‘Everything's bearable with a cuppa.'

I nodded and filled the kettle before setting it to boil. Within seconds, the soft white-noise of water heating filled the crater of silence in the room and calmed my skittish heartbeat.

Lauren dragged a chair out, scraping its legs against the tiles before collapsing into it. Her face still wore the dried tear streaks from her fight with Jackson.

‘Go sit down.' Pop rested his hands on my shoulders and gently steered me back to the table before setting to work. He gathered mugs, milk from the fridge and teabags from the pantry. By the time I'd reluctantly slipped into my seat across from Lauren—who had her head in her hands—Pop had finished making the tea and was setting steaming mugs down before us.

Finally, he got his own mug and sat at the head of the table with a sigh, before clearing his throat.

‘You know how your nan has been forgetting things lately?'

Lauren looked up from her mug. ‘Like forgetting to turn the oven on today?' She took a sip of her tea and set the mug down gently. ‘She did that last week, when we were making pizzas.'

I shifted in my seat, wanting to leave the room. Deep inside, I kind of knew what he was about to say.

Pop nodded. ‘Yes. Like that.' He sighed and took a long gulp of hot tea, wincing afterwards. ‘I didn't tell you this because I didn't want to scare you both, but last week, while you two were at the movies, your nan disappeared from the house. One minute she was making spaghetti, the next minute she was gone. The pot had boiled over.' He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I turned it off, thinking maybe she was in the laundry or the loo. I searched all over the house, but she was gone. Then I tried outside. The gate was flapping open in the wind, so I ran out onto the street, calling her name.'

I met Lauren's gaze and I could tell she was experiencing the same sickening, fluttery fear I was.

‘She was at the bus stop.' Pop closed his weary eyes and opened them again, perhaps recalling the picture to mind. ‘I went mad at first, ranting about how she'd left the stove on and nearly burnt the bloomin' house down.' He paused, brought his mug to his trembling lips and took another noisy gulp. After swallowing he cleared his throat. ‘But then I noticed the lipstick she'd put on, bright red and all over her mouth like a clown. She had some gloves on—ones she hadn't worn in over fifty years.' He wiped at his eyes and took a deep breath.

Blinking back tears, I hung my head. I'd noticed Nana doing odd things. But I'd pretended, along with everybody else in the house, that it was nothing. That she'd been too tired or had had too much on her plate
looking after Lauren and me. But this was different. This was serious.

He sighed and shook his head.

‘She said she was going to work—at the perfume counter at Myer. She hasn't worked there since before we were married.'

Pop slowly turned his mug around in his hands, as if it were a precious artefact.

Lauren sniffed, brushed a hand across her face and after a while whispered, ‘Poor Nan.'

‘Is there something the doctors can give her?' I asked, clutching my mug tightly. ‘Is there anything we can do?'

Pop sighed. ‘We've been to the doctors. They say she's got Alzheimer's. There's nothing they or we can do. She'll only get worse. I'll have to put her in a home eventually.' He looked at me and then at Lauren, his blue eyes watery with unshed tears. ‘I didn't want to say anything. It's only been two years since…your mum and dad…' His voice trailed off.

The crater of silence returned and engulfed us all, broken a minute or so later by a noisy cricket that lived somewhere behind the couch across the room.

‘We'll all pitch in and help—' I started to say, but then remembered that I'd be gone tomorrow. The thought made me wince with physical pain, as though a miniature person had crawled inside my chest and taken a chainsaw to my heart.

I couldn't leave. Not now.

Not when Nana and Pop needed me.

Lauren eyed me from across the table. Something like relief flickered across her face, as though she knew I had changed my mind. But then her eyes widened as though a sudden thought had occurred, something troubling, and she swore beneath her breath, three whispery little f's.

I felt like swearing too.

Pop needed Nan. She was his other half. We needed her too. And, more importantly, she didn't deserve to lose her mind, to lose all the precious memories she'd earned throughout her life. She'd been through so much, losing Mum and Dad and taking us kids on. If God existed, I'd drag him down to earth, shake him around a little and make him see the mistake he was making. But there was no God—I knew that from firsthand experience—so I was wasting my time even thinking it.

Pop downed the rest of his tea and got up. His mug clanged against the sink as if he'd thrown it. ‘I'm off to bed. You two should get some sleep too—especially tomorrow's birthday girl.' He threw me a half-hearted wink and then eyed Lauren's blotchy face. ‘How was the party, Loz?'

Lauren recovered enough to paste on a smile. ‘Great. But I think I've got a lamb-roast food-baby.' She gripped her stomach and groaned. ‘I need to sleep it off.'

I forced a smile at Pop and fake yawned. ‘Yeah, I'm tired, too. Thanks for telling us about Nan. It's better that we know.'

It scared me to think that I may have gone to Marin without knowing Nana was in such a bad way. Just the idea of it filled me with guilt.

But, once in my room, I collapsed onto my bed and drew out Marko's letter from beneath my pillow, and a sudden wave of sadness dumped all over the guilt I was feeling about Nana, drowning it out temporarily. If I didn't meet Marko at Bob's Bay tomorrow night, he would return to Marin believing that I didn't care. And the opportunity to address my feelings for him would be forever lost, like some ghostly old ship at the bottom of the ocean. And then there was Sylvia. How would I be able to stand not
knowing if she would eventually betray Marko or not? What if she decided to free her twin brother, Damir, from the dungeons? He would kill Marko for the throne. He had killed his own father, so why not his brother?

I choked back the iron lump in my throat and smothered my face into my pillow, desperately willing a solution. But no matter how many sweaty, sheet-twisting hours I spent agonising over it, no solution came. I would hate myself forever if I left my grandparents right now, when they needed me; but at the same time, I would never forgive myself for not returning to Marin and outing Sylvia's deception to Marko before she did something to hurt him.

Save cloning, there was no solution.

The next morning I woke with a headache so massive that each time I raised my head I wanted to throw up. I'd never experienced a migraine before, but couldn't forget the many times I'd watched my dad suffer with them while he was alive.

Nana brought me in some tea and toast, which I barely touched. The way she sat and mothered me gave me a small flicker of hope that she wasn't in as bad shape as Pop or the doctors thought, but then she called me by my mum's name and told me I'd be late for school if I didn't get a move on. She'd never done this before. Sure, she was always calling me Lauren, and vice-versa. But this was different. This was scary.

‘Nana, I'm Miranda. And I graduated high school a month ago.' The funny thing was that I took after my dad's side of the family, with my dark-brown eyes and brown hair. Lauren was the one who'd inherited Mum's beautiful blue eyes.

Nana looked at me blankly for a long moment, her eyes flickering ever so slightly from side to side, as if her brain was sifting through its files, searching for an image that matched.

‘Of course, Miranda, love.' She stared out the window and nodded her head. ‘It's your birthday, isn't it? You're eighteen today.'

‘Yes,' I whispered, because talking was making my head thump like it was ready to split open.

She leaned over and pressed her thin, papery lips to my forehead before she stood up and said, ‘I've got some… things to do.'

Not long after, Lauren came in and sat on the edge of my bed with my present—a pillow in the shape of a dolphin. It made me think of Henrietta, the girl I'd met in Marin last year who was obsessed with dolphins. She had been one of the few friends I'd made down there. I hugged the soft pillow to my chest, my heart nearly hurting as badly as my head just to think I'd never return to Marin. I kept picturing Marko emerging from the sea to find an empty beach.

‘Can you please shut the curtains?' I whispered. Lauren stared at me for a long moment before she dragged them closed. The darkness was a relief, a heavy black coat to hide inside. I drew the sheet up to my chin, even though the morning was already heating up.

‘Last night I was thinking,
Poor Nana
; now I'm thinking,
Poor Pop
,' Lauren said. ‘Whether she's present or living in the past, at least she's happy.'

I tossed the sheet back because I couldn't get comfortable.

‘I know what you mean. It's going to be so hard for him…' I closed my sore eyes for a few seconds before opening them again. ‘We'll have to help out heaps.' My
hand curled so tightly around Marko's ring that the edges of the sun-shaped light crystal bit into my skin.

Lauren stared at me for a long moment.

‘You know, you can still go…if you really want. I can stay and help Pop with Nan.' She let out a long, depressed-sounding sigh. ‘It's about time I did something useful around here, anyway.'

Despite the throbbing, I shook my head and set the untouched toast on my bedside table. ‘No way. I have to stay.'

Lauren scoffed and shook her head. ‘Seriously? You think I can't handle looking after them? That you're the only one who can do it?' She laughed bitterly before storming out of the room.