Page 96 of Jackson
“He said his mum was in prison, he drew her and then bars, I guess, over her face. What’s she in prisonfor?”
“Murder.”
“Murder?Fuck!”
“She killed her abusive husband, took a lot of shit then finallycracked.”
“Jesus, what’s going to happen tohim?”
“They’re looking for a permanent place for him, but it’s not so easy at his age. He has a younger brother and that’s where most of the problems are. He wants to care for him, which he can’t of course, and they’reseparated.”
“That’s got to be so fucking hard onhim.”
“Yep.”
Dexter left to grab a couple of coffees and I sat and looked at the drawing Dylan had done. I hoped that we’d see himagain.
* * *
“Hey, baby. Good day?”I heard when I walked through the frontdoor.
“Sort of, a young boy, well early teens, came into the centre. He’s an amazingartist.”
“That’s good, did you draw withhim?”
I told Summer of Dylan, she sat across the breakfast bar as Ispoke.
“Poor kid, I’m not sure what to say, really,” shesaid.
“Hopefully, he’ll come back. I gave him a sketchpad and told him to design something for one of the walls, I thought it might give him adistraction.”
“That’s a good idea. Do you want a drink?” sheasked.
“Yeah, I’ll have a beer. Perri phoned earlier, she’s coming out in a week. She’ll be in touch when she’s booked herflight.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing heragain.”
“Again?”
“We met up, when I was at home. She paid for my flight back out here,Jack.”
“I didn’t know that. What did you talkabout?”
I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with Perri telling Summer things that should have come from me. It was enough to know I’d been kept out of the loop with conversations between Dex and Summer. I took the beer she had held out and made my way to the deck. It was my favourite place to sit. Summer nudged me with her elbow as she shuffled on the daybed besideme.
“You, we talked about you mostly. I needed to talk to someone, someone who’dunderstand.”
“Did you tell her everything?” Iasked.
There was a pause. “I did. I’m not going to apologise for that, Jack. I needed to talk. You have Dexter, I have noone.”
I placed my arm around her shoulder and pulled her close into myside.
“I’m trying hard, Summer. I want to tell you everything, every dirty little secret, but it’s going to take metime.”
“I’m not asking you to rush, I’m just explaining that I also need to talk this through with someone other than you. You need to acceptthat.”
“I do. I’m just not sure I wanted it to be mysister.”
We fell silent. Was I being unreasonable? As she pointed out, I had Dexter to talk to. But my sister? She knew about the cutting, she’d help me clean up when I was young, but the other stuff was something I’d rather she hadn’t knownabout.
