“Perhaps he’s misled me,” I said, which I didn’t believe at all, “but he tells me you’re the ones who have the gall to be late on paying him back the money you owe him. Six figures, not pocket change.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “Darling, everyone has debts. Nobody pays their debts if they don’t need to. Mr. O’Hare doesn’t need that money, you’ve been out and wined and dined by him, you know he throws it around like it’s confetti. So long as you keep track of the interest, at the end of the day, what does it matter?”
“So it’s all true… you’re in some mafia.”
“We don’t use that term around here, Julia,” said Daddy, grimacing. “It’s too tied up in movie culture, and that’s just not real life. We refer to ourselves as an extended family.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of me. “Family? That’s a much more cliché term right there. Cheek-kissing, back-slapping… the works.”
My parents were finding new levels of not laughing inside of themselves. “Well, sometimes real life emulates fiction,” Mum snapped. “It’s a general enough word for a group of people who share a connection that is difficult to sever. And we don’t go in for cheek-kissing or… whatever that other thing you said was.”
“No, I didn’t see you being the type.”
She looked even more annoyed at that. “There is an intricate web of families who live all over Tasmania and have interests all over the world. Maybe it seems incongruous with the image of the place, but that’s just to our advantage, isn’t it? We enjoy an elite status here and are mostly able to manage things however we want, and there are few people here who have connections beyond this island that would lead them to suspect we are anything but regular wealthy people.”
“Well I can believe that, because I couldn’t even get the truth out of you!” The more they talked, the more the whole situation was doing my head in. “You’re home way earlier than should have been possible too, if I’m to believe that itinerary you left behind. There’s no way yo
u could have gotten back here so soon… I suppose if you found out I was kidnapped the very instant it happened you’d be close, but the time frame just doesn’t seem right.”
“Maybe we were somewhere a little closer to home already.” Mum’s shrug made me feel like I was dressing down my teenage daughter… an experience I’d never even been a part of myself. “And maybe we had access to a friend’s private plane that was ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
“And maybe you went to a whole lot of effort to convince me your schedule was very different to the reality so I could be a part of the deception.”
“So you could at least not blow our cover,” Daddy retorted. “Here you are getting all upset because we didn’t tell you every little detail of our lives… since when have you offered us that same respect, Julia, when we have the responsibility to guide and protect you?” I knew my expression had turned uncertain and I hated it. “Oh yes, we know all about your little excursions out of the house, all those parties you used to go to. We have a few connections you wouldn’t be aware of.” By which I thought he meant some of the other kids who had been at those parties were part of the ‘extended family’. They must have been laughing at me behind my back, the same age as them and yet completely clueless about what really went on under the surface of my life. Ignorant of the reasons for my comfortable existence.
“Do you think it’s some tremendous zinger to bring up things I did when I was a teenager, Daddy? If you knew, if you had an issue with what I was doing why did you never step up and bring me back into line, like you just agreed you were supposed to do? Like, maybe it would have actually been nice to get some of your attention for once.”
Daddy was clearly not even listening. “Did you really think when there was that trouble with the boy that we’d just believe he happened to see you one day and decided to do something so drastic? It was quite obvious you’d done something to lure him in, and we were impressed, actually, by your efforts to exert maximum control over the situation even when it took a turn you hadn’t anticipated… but you showed you couldn’t maintain your control over the boy. You are lucky you targeted a true innocent and he had no thoughts of retaliation… and so is he. Certainly you proved you’re not to be trusted with all the secrets we could burden you with.”
They knew, then, that Steven had managed to find someone else despite everything I’d thrown at him, that he’d left me feeling so humiliated I stopped sneaking out, even though I hadn’t realised at the time that anyone would notice or care.
Now it turned out everyone had noticed: everyone in this world nobody had bothered to mention I was a part of. And my parents had let it happen because they didn’t want to trust me with a responsibility I’d been born into anyway!
I hated how they were bringing me down like this to my face just because I’d dared to question their judgement and behaviour. I knew that was what they were doing because it was always like this: they could never own their mistakes. And they let mine slide at the time when addressing them could actually help me, because they wanted to be able to save them up for when it would best suit them to unleash on me.
Well, I wasn’t going to let them get away with it as easily as they usually did today. I’d had a hell of a day thanks to their completely infeasible way of dealing with the tremendous problem of having me in their lives.
“Oh, never mind all that ancient history.” I wriggled so my dressing gown slid just enough to keep whether or not I was wearing anything under it unclear. “It seems like Devin told you the important detail: we’re getting married.” I embellished on impulse. If I was going to at least pretend to be Devin O’Hare’s intended wife for a while, I was going to need to do all I could to live up to him. “As soon as possible. No drawn-out engagements here.”
“Julia, this is fucking insane.” Daddy slammed his hand against the wall. “This man invaded our home and took you, and suddenly you’re going to be his wife as soon as possible?”
“Someone has to take responsibility for your debt, Daddy. Devin says he’ll wipe it clean for you entirely if I do this.” I saw the way their eyes fucking lit up at that. I wasn’t going to have it. “A sort of gesture of goodwill for his new in-laws.”
Mum grimaced. “Julia, he—” She turned to Daddy. “Do something, do you hear what’s happening here?”
“Julia, Devin O’Hare is not the sort of man we want to have connected to us in that way. Do you remember that old saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer? If you let O’Hare close to you, then you give him power to harm you in ways you can’t imagine.”
I smirked and shimmied my shoulders a little. “Oh, Daddy, I’m pretty well aware of what Devin can do if I let him close to me.”
“Have some dignity, Julia,” Mum snapped.
“Like you do when you’re getting a man’s kneecaps smashed up because he had ideas about planning for the future of our neighbourhood that didn’t align with yours?”
She rolled her eyes, and then her whole head as well. “Rocky Halloran had it coming, trust me.”
Something about that pushed my buttons in a way no other part of this mess had yet. “Trust you, Mum? Why should I trust anything that comes out of your mouth when you’ve done nothing but lie to me and sit on everything you know about me for your personal gain since I was born, probably?”
Daddy stepped in between the two of us, so I had to recoil even as I was lunging to get in her face. “Don’t you be histrionic, Julia, and show your mother the respect due her.”