Apples Never Fall

The computer buzzed to life.

“Know what?” she prompted. “I’ve got an appointment soon.” She looked at the notes on her computer screen. “Forty-eight years old. Thinks she might have tennis elbow. Remember when Logan thought he had tennis elbow and Dad…” She stopped. Sometimes when she pulled out a funny memory from their shared childhood it turned out to be not so funny after all.

“Brooke, I’m talking about Mum and Dad and their weird … houseguest.”

Brooke took out a clipboard and a new patient questionnaire from the top drawer.

“So they’ve got someone staying with them? In your old room? Is that the problem?”

Amy moved back into the family home at intervals, whenever the new job or new course or new boyfriend didn’t work out.

“I think she probably is staying in my room,” said Amy slowly. There was an aggrieved, faintly aggressive note in her voice. “But that’s fine. I’ve got my own place, Brooke. I’ve been living here for nearly six months.”

“I know that,” said Brooke. A share house?

“And I’m employed. Last week I worked over forty hours.”

“Wow,” said Brooke, and she tried not to sound condescending. Amy had actual

ly worked a full working week. Give the girl a trophy. “Sorry. I’ve just been distracted with the clinic.” And my “trial” separation.

Where was Amy working again? Was it a supermarket? Or wait, a cinema? No. She was a food taster, wasn’t she? That’s right. They’d heard all about the job interview. “It was like an exam,” Amy said. “Very stressful.” She’d had to arrange ten cups of liquid in order of saltiness, and then another ten cups in order of sweetness. She was given tiny jars containing balls of cotton wool and she had to identify their smells. She got the basil and mint right, but not the parsley. Who knew that parsley had a fragrance? Her final task was to write a paragraph describing an apple to someone who had never eaten one.

“I don’t think I could describe an apple,” Brooke had said idly, and her mother had said, happily, “Well, I guess you wouldn’t have got the job then, Brooke!”

And Brooke, who had done a four-year degree and two years of clinical practice to become a physiotherapist, suddenly found herself feeling inadequate because she couldn’t describe an apple.

Amy said, “Have you honestly not heard anything about this girl staying with Mum and Dad?”

“Nope,” said Brooke. “Who is she?” She could hear the pompous school principal in her voice, because for God’s sake, the drama. Why was a houseguest such a big deal? Her parents knew a wide circle of people. It would be a former student. So many of them kept in touch. As children the Delaneys had complicated feelings about the tennis students. They were their parents’ other children, with better manners, better backhands, better attitudes. But they were too old for that now. Now they laughed about it, teased their parents and each other about it. It was typical that Amy would suddenly make a fuss.

“Her name is Savannah,” said Amy darkly.

“Right,” said Brooke distractedly. “Is Savannah on the circuit?”

“She’s no one, Brooke! She’s just some stray girl who turned up on their doorstep.”

Brooke let her hands fall flat on the keyboard. “They don’t know her?”

“She’s a stranger.”

Brooke swiveled her chair away from her computer. The memory of the weekend’s migraine blossomed across her forehead.

“I don’t understand.”

“Late last Tuesday night a strange woman knocked on our parents’ door.”

“Late? How late? Were Mum and Dad in bed?” She thought of her parents waking, reaching for their glasses from their bedside tables. Her mother in that oversized pajama top with the sleeves so long they hung past her wrists. Her father in his boxers and clean white T-shirt, with his big barrel chest and leathery legs. He acted like he was thirty, but his arthritic, reconstructed knees were in a terrible state.

“We’re still winning tournaments, darling,” her mother said, patting her hand whenever Brooke expressed concern.

It was true. Her parents were still winning, in spite of the fact that after his last knee operation the surgeon had said to her dad, “Only run if you’re running for your life.”

“Got it,” said Stan. “No running.” He gave the surgeon a thumbs-up. Brooke saw him do it. Three months later her idiotic, incredible father was back on the court. Serving like a warrior. Running for his life.

“I don’t know if they were in bed,” said Amy. “They stay up late these days. All I know is that she knocked on their door and they let her in and then they let her stay the night.”

“But what … why would they do that?” Brooke stood up from her desk.