Apples Never Fall

“I haven’t said that in years,” said Troy, offended. “No one says that anymore.” He winced. “Do you think she is?”

“Do not leave me,” said Brooke. It wasn’t so funny anymore, now that she could see Amy actually carrying her tray of precious brownies. Now it was kind of stressful, and mean, and Brooke felt personally responsible.

She swung back and forth like a pendulum when it came to Amy. Growing up, she and her brothers had believed Amy to be a drama queen, who felt the same things everyone felt but chose to make a bigger deal of them. They made fun of her. At times they got angry with her when she held them up or stole their mother’s attention. How could you tell what was truly going on in her head? Brooke got depressed, she got anxious, but she still managed to get herself out of bed each day. It was a choice, surely? There was no need for Amy to lean into her feelings with such gusto. But then a university friend got diagnosed with depression and described it to Brooke as a kind of half paralysis, as if all her muscles had atrophied, and Brooke had a sudden memory of Amy eating cereal in slow motion, swaying like seaweed under water, and she realized she was offering this friend more sympathy and understanding than she’d ever given her own sister. These days she tried hard to see Amy with objective, compassionate eyes, but it was hard, because this was still her big sister, her bossy, charismatic sister, who used to call Brooke her “peasant.”

“What are you all doing milling about out there?” Their mother opened the front door and called out from the front porch. She wore a tea dress with a cardigan, as if she were hosting a garden party, and she was in hectic, pink-cheeked “we have special guests” mode. “Come inside, all of you! Forget the mineral water, Logan, Savannah says we don’t need it.”

Troy said, “Oh, well, if Savannah says we don’t need it.”

“Hurry up!” Joy beckoned impatiently. “Your father is wondering where you all are! Is Grant coming separately, Brooke? I hope he’s on his way. I think Savannah is ready to serve.”

“What don’t we need?” trilled Amy.

“Brownies,” said Troy.

Amy’s smile vanished. “I beg your pardon?”

A familiar constellation of flashing dots appeared in Brooke’s peripheral vision.

Chapter 23

“Well, this has been a very special Father’s Day,” said Joy. “Very special.”

She sat at the head of her beautifully set dining room table, like a woman in a magazine or a television show. Savannah had picked yellow freesias from the garden and put them in a water jug, and they looked perfect.

Joy’s head felt a little swimmy. She thought maybe she’d drunk more wine than she was used to drinking at lunchtime. Savannah kept refilling everyone’s glasses, like a waitress. In fact, Savannah had spent most of the lunch on her feet, no matter how many times people suggested she sit down, or offered to help. Eventually everyone gave up and let Savannah serve them an incredibly delicious lunch: lemon and rosemary roast chicken, roast potatoes, and a green salad with walnuts and goat cheese. (Poor Brooke’s salad looked positively wilted in comparison.) It was quite remarkable that this level of quality had been produced in Joy’s kitchen. What must her oven think?

Savannah had served their lunch efficiently, without that whirling, feverish Oh I nearly forgot the bread rolls, up-and-down-and-up-again thing that Joy knew she did whenever she hosted, and Joy’s greedy family had gobbled everything up and accepted offers of seconds.

Now everyone had a cup of tea or coffee in front of them, along with their glasses of wine, and there were two plates of brownies on the table. Every person at the table had carefully, fairly, taken a brownie from each competing plate.

Even Steffi had been waited upon by Savannah like one of the Queen’s corgis. She sat now in the corner of the room curled up on an old cushion that Savannah had set up for her, her head resting on her paws, occasionally licking her lips and thumping her tail with the happy memory of the various morsels and scraps that Savannah had convinced her tasted better than paper.

Stan sat at a strange sideways angle at the other end of the table from Joy, trying to avoid the bobbing Happy Father’s Day balloon that Amy had tied to the back of his chair. Every now and then it brushed against his face and he batted it away like a fly, which was normally the sort of thing that would eventually make him lose his temper, but he was still in a remarkably good mood: expansive and chatty. It was either the revival of their sex life or the change in his diet since Savannah had taken over the cooking. If Savannah hadn’t turned up he would probably have spent this Father’s Day privately obsessing over Harry Haddad’s comeback.

Joy’s children, on the other hand, were not at their best. Joy wanted to say to Savannah: They’re normally much nicer than this!

She’d been looking forward to Savannah seeing her children all together, in the same way that she would feel about any new friend meeting her children. But today, nobody had much to say, although they had been polite and complimentary about the food, thank goodness; they all sat in a similar fashion, their shoulders rounded, backs hunched, especially when compared to Savannah, who sat so upright, like a small, well-behaved child. Her posture was beautiful.

Joy scanned her children.

Amy was sulking about the brownies and pretending not to, and needed her hair brushed.

Logan seemed to have entered a kind of dissociative state, staring vaguely into the distance. If he behaved like that too often, Indira might get impatient and leave him. Joy wished Indira was here today. She was a breath of fresh air, and she would have been polite to Savannah.

Troy, normally the life of the party and the one to cajole Amy out of her moods, seemed preoccupied and not quite as handsome today.

Meanwhile Brooke was dead-white and wearing a shade of badly applied lipstick that did not suit her at all. Joy worried that a migraine loomed, and also, where the heck was Grant? Brooke said he had a cold too, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence that both Indira and Grant would be sick, and as far as Joy could remember that man had never even had as much as a blocked nose. He drank those awful green smoothies.

Brooke was a terrible liar. Could Grant have run off with another woman? Joy had always nursed a secret, never-expressed fear (except to her hairdresser, Narelle) that Grant might have an affair. He wasn’t especially good-looking but he was very charming and chatty, and Brooke woul

d insist on keeping her hair so short. Narelle agreed that a longer style would soften Brooke’s sharpish features.

“Why is today so special, Mum?” asked Brooke.

It was special because Joy hadn’t had to do a single thing except hand over her credit card and turn up, but obviously she wasn’t going to say that to her children.

“I don’t know,” said Joy. She took a bite of Amy’s brownie, put it down on her plate, and then took an equal-sized bite of Savannah’s brownie. Savannah’s was better, sad to say. “It just feels special.”