Apples Never Fall

He’d been here visiting his mother at Christmas. He had not heard or seen anything untoward from across the road.

His thoughts turned to a long-ago Christmas Day, when he was around ten or eleven and he somehow ended up at the Delaneys’ place, umpiring a late-afternoon doubles match between the four siblings, who had all received various types of tennis gear for Christmas that they wanted to try out.

“Don’t let my awful children take advantage of you, Jacob!” Joy had called out, but Jacob loved umpiring the Delaney matches. He knew all the rules because his dad was a sports nut, and so Jacob was a sports nut too. He felt as powerful as God up there on the high umpire’s chair, with a bird’s-eye view, able to see every mistake. He put on a loud, grave voice, imitating the umpires on TV, and the Delaneys didn’t even make fun of him. They appreciated the effort.

It was Logan and Brooke playing Troy and Amy, and at that time they were evenly matched, although they shouldn’t have been, because Brooke, although clearly talented, was just a little kid and Amy was a teen, an incredible player, but Amy was hampered by Troy, who made stupid errors in between flashes of brilliance, and they were up against Logan, who at fourteen had the power and speed of a man, and made the court look small.

The match went on and on, until Jacob’s dad came over to collect him because dinner was on the table, but then his dad, being his dad, got caught up in the match.

Joy and Stan set up picnic chairs. The two grandmothers tottered out in high heels carrying gin and tonics and cigarettes. Stan gave Jacob’s dad a beer. The sky turned pink. The four children played as if lives were at stake.

Jacob couldn’t remember who won. He just remembered their passion and their talent. He still loved witnessing the combination of passion and talent, in any endeavor, whether it was sport or musical theater. The grown-ups were respectfully silent during each rally and then applauded like they were watching a grand slam. The Delaney kids fed off their applause. They punched the air. They roared with delight. They fell to their knees. It felt like Jacob was part of something big and important.

“Remarkable family,” Jacob’s dad marveled on their way back across the road to a cold dinner and a rather cross mother. “Your umpiring was top-notch, Jacob.”

It occurred to Jacob that a man who could take such pleasure in watching someone else’s children compete in a backyard tennis match would probably have quite liked at least one athletic child of his own, rather than the two uncoordinated, academic kids he got.

It said something about his dad that it had taken Jacob thirty-four years for that thought to occur to him.

Your umpiring was top-notch, Jacob.

Just when he thought he had a handle on this grief business, it walloped him, as if he’d only just got the news. He pressed the back of a hand that still smelled like lamb casserole to his mouth and a small white butterfly fluttered by so close he felt its wings brush against his cheek.

His mother believed every passing butterfly was his dad stopping to say hello, which was convenient, because there were plenty of butterflies in this leafy suburb.

Hi, Dad, thought Jacob. He didn’t believe the butterfly was his dad, but still. Just in case. He watched the butterfly sail up above his mother’s front door. It hovered under the eaves, right next to the small metal bracket where his mother’s security camera usually hung. It had been smashed by a hailstone in the storm a couple of weeks back.

Yeah, I know, Dad, thanks for the reminder, I’m getting it fixed. I’ll pick it up—

Then he stopped in his tracks. He turned around and looked back at the Delaneys’ house and wondered what mistakes that camera might have witnessed from way up there with its bird’s-eye view.

Chapter 49

CHRISTMAS DAY

“That is the creepiest Santa I’ve ever seen,” said Troy to Amy.

They sat side by side drinking champagne on the dark brown leather three-seater couch in their parents’ living room, watching a miniature Santa Claus gyrate his hips to “Santa Claus Rock” on the coffee table.

“He’s leering at me,” said Amy.

“Don’t turn him off,” said Logan as he set up a stepladder under a light fitting to change a globe. “I suggested Santa might appreciate a break and Mum called me a Grinch.”

It was the first time they’d all been together since the dramatic confrontation with Savannah back in October, and it was also the first time in years that the Delaneys had celebrated Christmas with just the immediate family: no in-laws, no partners, no random friends or second cousins.

No strangers who turned out not to be strangers.

In fact, thought Amy, as she chugged back her second glass of champagne on an empty stomach—an extremely empty stomach—it was possible this was their first Delaney Christmas ever with just the six of them, because growing up they’d always had the two grandmothers at Christmas lunch, gently lobbing passive-aggressive compliments back and forth across the table.

It felt pointless celebrating without other people, as if the whole objective had always been to perform the festivities for an audience. Why bother with any of it now? No one was religious and there were no children to become sugared-up and adorably excited about Santa.

Yet Amy’s mother appeared to be on a crazed mission to make this the Christmas-iest Christmas of Delaney family history. She’d decorated the already cluttered house with a quite extraordinary volume of newly purchased Christmas decorations. Shimmering lengths of tinsel had been thrown indiscriminately along windowsills. A series of identical grinning snowmen ornaments were precariously perched on top of the signed tennis ball collection. A nativity scene had been crammed in the middle of the tennis trophies, so that Amy could see the surprised face of baby Jesus reflected in a Bundaberg Seniors Mixed Doubles Tournament

trophy. Baubles hung from doorknobs. There was reindeer-shaped soap in the bathroom. Steffi had been forced to wear jingly gold bells tied to her collar, which she clearly found mortifying. Right now she sat beneath the coffee table with her head between her paws, morosely munching on a piece of Christmas wrapping paper with the gift label still visible. It said, To: Troy! From: Mum and Dad. With love!

Joy wore a new red dress and flashing Christmas tree earrings and was whirling about the kitchen, preparing an incredibly elaborate hot lunch that was clearly beyond her capabilities. No one was allowed to help her with anything. They had been instructed they must not bring anything except themselves and alcohol. They were “busy people with their own lives.” “I’m not a busy person with my own life,” Amy had protested, but she hadn’t even been allowed to make brownies.

When they’d arrived, three hours ago, they’d been told to remain in the living room, where they should all sit back and relax. It was extremely stressful.