Page 38 of The Family Across the Street
She turns to look at Sophie, who is subdued, watching her game rather than playing it. They are alone with access to the outside world.
‘Give me the iPad, sweetheart,’ she whispers, her eyes darting to the doorway, but her daughter is slow to respond.
Even though movement is agony she begins to reach for the iPad, hoping that she can access her email before he comes back into the room. But seconds later he returns with George, and she hurriedly shoves the iPad back at Sophie, who instantly finds her game again. Katherine feels the throbbing in her hand increase with the beating of her heart.
He is holding her son by one arm, almost dragging him. George is trying to carry a plate filled with chocolate muffins, and the care behind the gift makes Katherine want to cry. Gladys is probably worried that Katherine is angry with her because she was so abrupt this morning. She silently blesses the older woman who is dealing with so much herself, but who is still working to maintain neighbourly bonds.
‘Look, chocolate chip muffins,’ he says, grabbing the plate from George and shoving him back on the sofa. ‘Eat one,’ he commands and both children look at her.
‘Go on,’ she says, ‘you must be hungry.’
Usually when Gladys gives them a plate of muffins, she warms them up for the children, melting the chocolate and filling the house with the sweet cakey smell so she can almost pretend she baked them herself. The twins adore Gladys’s muffins, but now they reluctantly take one each. Sophie pinches off a small bite and puts it in her mouth.
‘What about you?’ he asks Katherine. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No,’ she says weakly, and she lifts her hand a little, still wrapped in the ice pack that is now warm, hoping to reach some part of him that can feel something for her. He hasn’t looked at her wrist, at her really, and she convinces herself that this is because he doesn’t want to see how much pain he has caused her. Perhaps if she can get him to acknowledge it, he will come to his senses and realise what he’s doing.
But instead, he stands up and grabs a muffin from the plate, charging towards her. ‘Open up,’ he says, almost jovial.
She shakes her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Ah well,’ he sneers, ‘too bad,’ and he grabs her head while still holding the gun. With the other hand he shoves the muffin into her mouth, crumbling it and filling her mouth until she can’t breathe, even as she tries to chew.
She struggles, kicking her legs out at him.
‘Stop it!’ shouts George.
‘Mumma,’ cries Sophie, and they both begin hitting him with their small fists.
He starts laughing at their futile attempts and then he does let go, throwing the remains of the muffin at her as she chokes and coughs and spits out as much as she can. And then as she leans back against the sofa, her chest heaving, eyes watering as she struggles to breathe, George says, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ Her son’s voice is filled with an eerie menace, the sweet tones of childhood gone. He is a man in this moment, an angry man.
‘Not if I kill you first,’ he replies and then he grabs a muffin and shoves it into his own mouth. ‘Not if I kill you first,’ he repeats as he chews with his mouth open and swallows quickly.
And Katherine realises that she’s been asking herself the wrong question. She has been asking how someone who once loved her can hurt her this much, how he can watch all of them suffer and feel nothing, but what she should be thinking about is all this deep, vicious anger he is filled with. All this violence that he has been hiding from her. There is something that she doesn’t know, something that could provide a clue as to why he is doing this, and if she can just find out what it is, what has triggered him, then perhaps she can find a way out. There are things she does not know, things she hasn’t understood about him. She just needs to keep him talking.
‘You need to finish your story,’ she says quietly.
‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘yes, I do.’ He looks at her, his green eyes meeting hers. ‘I wonder…’ he says.
‘You wonder,’ she prompts.
‘How it ends.’
21
Logan
Thirty minutes ago
Logan rubs his face, feeling the stubbly growth that appears through the day. In the mirror he can see bags under his blue eyes, and his lips look cracked and dry. He doesn’t want to call Debbie again because he knows that she would tell him if there were any updates on Maddy. He is worn down by the day, by the early-morning delivery that went wrong, by his attempts to help when he should have just left things alone, but mostly by his fear and worry over his sister.
He cannot lose her. She is essentially the only family he has.
And now he has to worry about the police looking for him and what that might mean if they decide to take him in and question him. He’s exhausted by the heat, by everything. He needs to get to Melbourne and be with his sister; that’s all he wants right now.
He only has three more deliveries and then he’s finished, and that can’t happen soon enough.
‘Just bring them back here and I’ll do it,’ Mack said when he called again, worry in his voice over the fact that Logan is still working.
