Page 98 of Obsession Under the Southern Stars

“In her room, relaxing.”

“And Rory?”

“WatchingTop Gun: Maverickfor the billionth time.”

I smile. He’s wanted to fly since he was a toddler.

She picks up the empty basket. “You staying for dinner? I’m making pizzas.”

“Mum? Come and sit with me for a bit.”

She hesitates, then perches on the edge of a chair. She’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that seem to hang on her thin frame. She’s lost weight over the past few months, and she looks tired and unhappy. I feel a stab of guilt; I should have been more supportive of her as her marriage broke down, but I’ve been caught up in my own life, and I haven’t been around as much as I should have.

I take a deep breath. “Mum, I want to talk to you about Dad. I want to beg you not to get divorced.”

Her expression softens. “Sweetheart, I know it’s hard for you, but our marriage is over, and you have to come to terms with it.”

“He still loves you, though. I know he does.”

She reaches out and holds my hand. “Maybe. But I don’t love him anymore. I’m tired of all the arguments. I could have twenty or thirty years left of my life, and I don’t want to spend it with someone I don’t love. I deserve to be happy, don’t I?”

I swallow hard. “Yes. But isn’t marriage about duty and loyalty as well? You promised to stay with him for the rest of your life.”

She moves back, her expression hardening. “I know. You don’t have to remind me. I know I’m breaking my vows. It’s not easy for me, Zo. It’s hard enough without you laying on the guilt with a trowel.”

She’s obviously not going to change her mind, so I move onto my next grievance. “In that case, I want to talk to you about your move to Darwin.”

She stiffens. “We’ve been through this. Grandma’s seventy-five now, and you know she hasn’t been well. I want to be there to support her more.”

“I understand that. I get why you want to go. And Olivia seems happy to go with you. But Mum… Rory really doesn’t want to go.”

“I know,” she says. “But kids adapt to change well. He’ll be fine.”

I meet her eyes, which are brown like my other siblings’. Rory is the only one who has green eyes like me.

“Mum,” I say, “you can’t take him away from me.”

We study each other for a long moment. A bee buzzes around the begonias, and two butterflies flutter past us, locked in their own private dance. In the distance, a lawnmower roars into action. Even though it’s early, I can smell barbecued food on the air—someone’s cooking their breakfast outside. It’s like the essence of summer, which usually makes me feel happy, but right now all I feel is a quiet despair.

“I’m not taking him away from you,” she says eventually. “You mustn’t see it like that.”

I swallow hard. “It’s hard to see it any other way.”

“I have to do what I think is best for me, Olivia, and Rory.”

“Staying here might not be best for you, or even Olivia, but you can’t tell me it’s not best for Rory to be near his real mother.”

Her lips part, but no words come out. It’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that I gave birth to Rory. I can see how shocked she is.

“I’mhis real mother,” she says eventually, her voice a furious whisper. “We agreed that nine years ago. You were his birth mother. It’s not the same thing.”

Fury blasts through me. “I didn’t agree to anything. I was fourteen, Mum.”

Fourteen is incredibly young to discover you’re pregnant. Especially when it happened at a party, where you had a one-night stand with a Year Thirteen guy because you were flattered he found you attractive, and he thought you were sixteen, and you didn’t even know his name, and you didn’t even really understand what was going on until it was too late and the deed was done—without a condom. And then afterward you tried to ignore what was happening for so long that when your parents eventually found out, it was too late to do anything about it. Andespeciallywhen your mother was religious and a pillar of the community.

“I’d been through a horrendous operation,” I add, “and I was mentally unstable.”

“That’s why we made the decision to bring him up as our own.”

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