“Why didn’t you bank it?” asked Christina.
“After she left, I started to feel sorry for her,” said Troy. He tapped a beautifully manicured thumbnail against his teeth. “She’d obviously had a troubled childhood, and we were all cruel to her when she came to our house as a child, unwittingly cruel to her, but still, we were, and the more I thought about her, the more I realized how much we had in common.”
“What did you have in common?”
“Both our fathers chose Harry Haddad over us,” said Troy. He smiled wryly as if he wanted to give the impression that it didn’t matter now, but he couldn’t quite pull it off, the childish pain still visible. “She said something about how painful it was whenever Harry was on television, and I feel exactly the same way: I always change the channel whenever I see that guy’s smug face.”
“Just to clarify: is anyone in your family in contact with Harry Haddad?” asked Christina.
“Not that I know of,” said Troy, the distaste clear on his face.
“And this Savannah is estranged from her brother? As far as you know?”
“As far as I know. I would think if she had anything to do with her brother she’d go to him for money.”
That didn’t necessarily follow. Christina wrote down: Interview Harry Haddad.
It would probably tell them nothing, and celebrities took their time returning phone calls, but it was another box that needed ticking.
“So Savannah left … and your parents never heard from her again?”
“About a month after she left, this young couple showed up with a van and said Savannah had sent them to collect her stuff. Mum said they were ‘hippie types.’ She said they barely said a word, and they seemed terrified of Mum, so God knows what weird story Savannah fed them.”
“And that was it? No other contact from her?”
“As far as I know,” said Troy. His knees jiggled. He pressed his hands to his thighs to still them, as if they belonged to someone else.
“I assume there must have been some fallout after this revelation about what your mother had done. Presumably your father felt…” She paused, in the hope that he might fill in the word. He said nothing, so she gave him some options. “Angry? Hurt?”
Troy didn’t pick a word. He said carefully, “Possibly.”
“That moment he first heard,” said Christina. “What did he do? Did he lose his temper? Shout? Swear?”
“My father never shouts when he is truly angry,” said Troy. “He left. He just walked off. That is his … ah, coping mechanism, I guess.”
“Where did he go?”
“Well, this time he didn’t get very far. He was walking. About ten minutes from the house. He fell. A pothole. He dislocated his kneecap. Tore his meniscus. Fortunately someone we knew was driving by and drove him home. He already had problem knees so that … was pretty bad.”
“No more tennis?” asked Ethan.
“He was told no tennis for at least six months.” Troy unconsciously put one hand to his own knee. “Although he always defies expectations.”
“That must have upset him,” said Christina.
“Tennis is his life,” said Troy, with feeling.
“So no more tennis for your mother either, then,” said Christina, thinking of how often people had gone on about the wondrousness of the Delaneys’ marriage because they played doubles.
“Well, actually, my mother started playing in a singles comp,” said Troy.
“Without your father,” said Christina.
“My mother was a top-ranked singles player when she was a teenager,” said Troy obliviously. He seemed to be missing the symbolism. “She competed in her first Australian nationals when she was only fourteen, she beat Margaret—”
“Got it, got it,” said Christina, before she heard the woman’s full CV. “So your mother is out playing tennis while your father is stuck at home doing nothing, unable to play the sport he loves, feeling betrayed by his wife: I would assume it wasn’t exactly a happy household.”
“I guess not,” said Troy. “I don’t know, I was busy with my own life.” He looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then back at Christina. “I thought everything had gone back to normal, although I will admit—”