Page 72 of Their Starlight

“You,” all six of her children return.

“What would you like to drink Elle?” Monica asks. “We’ve got hot drinks, cold drinks, soft drinks, hard drinks. Mum is already on the sherry, and we’ve cracked open a bottle of wine. But we can do pretty much anything.”

“I’ll have some wine if there’s some going,” Elle says.

“Red,” I confirm to my sister.

“So, Elle, I see you’ve met my children. Believe it or not, I am related by blood. I’m probably not what you expected.” We all chuckle. If Elle hadn’t known that Lance and I were cousins, meeting my Mum would have tipped her off. She’s the spitting image of her brother and nephew with golden curls now streaked with white, a long and slim nose, and warm brown eyes. All of us kids inherited Dad’s colouring with paler skin and red hair, although there are a mixture of blue and brown eyes. Mum has lightly tanned skin and is shorter than all her children.

“Actually,” Elle says quietly. “I’ve seen you before.”

That has my head turning to her with a frown. I was working at uni so I didn’t invite Mum to visit. and I certainly never brought Elle home. “When?”

“I, um…at Brent’s graduation,” she says to Mum in answer to my question. I stop breathing for a second.

“You graduated the day before me, why were you there?” I ask, trying to calm my racing heart and not daring to hope for the answer I want.

“Well, I wanted to see you graduate, you’d worked so hard, and I was really proud of you. Iamproud of you.” She won’t meet my eyes and when Mon puts a fairly full glass of wine in front of her, Elle takes a large gulp.

My heart has burst. I’d wanted Elle’s pride when I found out I was graduating, I had wanted to make her smile, but it was all overshadowed by the birth and death of her relationship with Lance. She was heartbroken when she left us. What it must havetaken for her to travel back to see the graduation, to see not only me, but Lance and Hayden too. But she did it, because she was proud.

I have to mentally remind myself not to grab her and kiss her. That would be a bad idea on so many levels. Instead, I stare at her. I’m aware of the unnatural quiet surrounding us as my family tries and make sense of the interaction.

“What do you do, Elle? Mum breaks the silence.

“I’m a singer at a club,” she smiles.

“Oh hey, hear that, Billy?” Guy shouts to our brother-in-law. “We’ve got another performer in the house.” Everyone laughs, even Jules looks up from her homework.

“Oh, shut up,” Billy moans.

“You perform?” Elle asks, politely.

“My dearest husband was in an ‘NSync tribute band when we were in college,” Mon says, wrapping her arm around Billy’s shoulders and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Oh, wow,” Elle tries not to laugh. “Were you JT?”

“I was Fatone,” Billy hangs his head.

“Amazing,” Elle lets her giggles free and I can’t help but smile watching her laugh with my family.

“We should have a concert!” Penny chimes in.

“Yeah, come on Billy. It’s been ages since you graced us with your dulcet tones,” Sanjay encourages.

“You are…” Guy starts singing a very familiar tune.

Billy throws a cherry tomato from the bowl in front of him at Guy’s head. “That’s Backstreet Boys you total imbecile.”

We all laugh and start a small food fight before Mum puts a stop to it and starts putting final touches on the buffet style food.

“Can I do anything?” Elle asks.

“Yes,” Mum says with a smile. “You can sit there and tell me all about yourself.”

We ate and chatted for hours. Ruby arrived later in the afternoon—much to everyone’s delight—and sat with Elle chatting and bantering with the family, and helping make her feel at ease. Elle was subtly interrogated by each one of my sisters in turn and when I told Jules that Elle had a degree in English Literature, she stole her away to read over her paper. When they were stowed away in Jules’ room, I was asked by everyone at thesame time if Elle was my girlfriend, if we were serious, if her suddenly being here means something. It hurt as I told them no, no, and no.

“Come help me with something in the garage, will you?” Mum says and I follow her out to the garage where she points to a Tupperware box up on a shelf she can’t reach.

---