To make sure Fletcher hadn’t heard me, I crawled on my hands and knees to the end of the aisle. But he was just staring at his computer screen like normal, shiny blue squares reflected in his glasses, his stick leaning against the bench.
I knelt there for a second, heat crawling up my cheeks. Mum couldn’t actually be in the library of Saint Clarence’s – the laws of physics precluded that. Firstly, she had been dead for nearly three months and secondly, she was ash, scattered at her childhood home in Kelly’s Crossing three hundred kilometres away.
‘Idiot,’ I mumbled and crawled back to my spot in ‘S to U’. I picked up the book, but my fingers trembled as I turned the pages and stared at a jumble of words.
‘Are you looking for something, Sunny?’ I glanced up and the librarian was there, leaning on his stick. One of the many seams in his face had split into a concerned smile. I don’t know how he got there so fast but the girls at school did say he could teleport.
‘No.’
He must have seen the deathly white of my skin because the seams of his face quickly rejoined. ‘Are you all right, Sunny? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
I made a huge mistake. I told Mr Greenwood, the counsellor. I don’t know why. I guess I was in shock or something.
‘You thought she was in the library?’ He put on his glasses as if that would somehow make things clearer.
‘Yeah, sort of. I mean, just for a second. It was …’ I was standing in front of his desk, my thumbs hooked into my backpack.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Sunshine.’
My whole body tensed. Almost no-one called me ‘Sunshine’. I was chronically embarrassed by the hippy name my mother had seen fit to give me in a moment of after-birth euphoria and I had taken great pains to hide this piece of information from the world. But no matter how many times I told him, Greenwood always called me Sunshine as though seeing my name on some file had seared that particular sequence of letters into his brain.
He cleared his throat. ‘So, tell me more about this feeling you had.’
I pulled up a chair and shrugged off my backpack. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. Some major backpedalling would be required to fix this situation. I tried to smile.
‘Sunshine, it’s not uncommon for people to think they see a loved-one after they’ve passed …’
‘I didn’t actually see anything.’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m just losing it.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
I laughed. ‘No, I guess that wouldn’t be very professional.’ Trying to make a joke of it somehow made me sound weirder. ‘Look, it was nothing,’ I said. ‘You wanted to see me about something?’
‘Right. Yes.’ He seemed a little reluctant to leave the topic.
‘It’s just that my bus leaves soon,’ I added. ‘And I have to get my bags ready, so …’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I wanted to ask how you’re feeling about going home.’
‘Oh, you mean, how do I feel about spending the holidays with Kevin? Yeah, great, can’t wait.’ I was a little prone to sarcasm; I admit it.
‘Your father is very concerned about you.’
‘Stepfather.’
Greenwood adjusted his glasses. ‘Your … Kevin and I spoke on the phone today. He’s looking forward to your return to Kelly’s Crossing.’
‘Really? Well that makes one of us.’
‘I see.’ He paused. ‘How about your friends? Are you planning on seeing them?’
‘Evie’s going to Bali and Mia’s going to see her grandparents in Sydney, so maybe not.’
‘Listen, if you need to talk about anything, I’m here. You can email or call.’
I reached down for my backpack, sensing I was about to be released. ‘Sure. Okay. I will.’ I had no intention of making any contact with Greenwood via any kind of technology.
‘Sunshine, I’m only trying to help you. Remember that.’
I stood and slung my pack over one shoulder. ‘I know.’
The truth is I didn’t want to talk about it, to him or anyone else. There was nothing to talk about. Mum had crashed the old Datsun into a tree. She was dead.
Full stop.
I was cut up about it, more than anyone could know or understand. My insides were shredded, but that was that, and I had to get on with things. Humans have an incredible capacity to carry on regardless of all sorts of crazy stuff going on in their lives. The world is full of broken people pretending to be all put together.
I figured Greenwood, despite his obvious lack of any credible-qualifications-in-psychoanalysis-whatsoever, had to be right. What happened in the library was just a glitch brought on by the grief of losing my mother. I managed to make myself believe that for a while.
But now I know better, because that wasn’t the only time I saw her. And, as it turned out, she had her reasons for hanging around.
It was a four-hour bus journey from my boarding school in Dawson to Kelly’s Crossing, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town just off the highway. I sat with my head against the window as the sugarcane fields blurred by and thought about the fact that Kevin would be waiting for me at the bus stop in the main street. I hadn’t seen him since the last school holidays, which were spent arranging the funeral at the Craigsville crematorium. And no matter which way I imagined it, this new beginning was bound to be uncomfortable for both of us. He’d pick me up now, not Mum. These are the little things
