Rubbing soothing circles on Mum’s back, I bit back the retort I should say to her and instead went with only what Mum wanted to hear–with a twist.
“We all miss him, Mum, but he isn’t here anymore, and we can’t live wishing that he was.” The second the words left my mouth, I regretted letting my frustrations leading me to speak my mind. This was neither the time nor the place to let Mum know Naomi and I were never going to happen.
“This family needs you, Luca, I need you,” Mum sobbed into my shirt, her hands fisting my shirt at my back, “if it wasn’t for you, I would have left to be with your father long ago.” And there it was—Mum’s golden goose.
The fear that I was responsible for more than just the family’s name.
I was responsible for lives.
Why I decided that I could paint the exterior of my house on my own with just a quick YouTube tutorial I couldn’t say. However, I knew the exact moment when I realised the whole idea was a piece of poo, and that moment was now because l was currently standing on the roof of my house looking down at the ladder lying flat on the ground eight feet below.
My father’s voice popped into my head, giving me a right good talking to about how I was always starting a house project without thinking. Of course, Dad was right, even three kilometres away at my childhood home with not a clue of what I was actually doing.
“This could get complicated,” I muttered, standing awkwardly on the hot tin roof, the grooves in the corrugated sheet digging into my feet … my bare feet.
I had been in the middle of painting the eaves when I noticed that my TV antenna had a cable come loose from the roof. So, of course, I pulled my rounded arse up and over the gutter, thinking that I could fix it, only to kick the ladder over when I not so gracefully and rather perilously hauled myself onto the tin.
One hour later, I was still here, going mentally through my neighbours, wondering which one would be able to lift the ladder back into position. It didn’t help that all my neighbours were over the age of seventy, most homebound and none with the muscle strength of a mouse.
“I wonder how far away that tree branch is from here?” I murmured, looking at the large eucalypt to the side of my house, remembering having watched First Blood with Sly the other night, the scene where he jumped into a large pine tree came to mind.
“It has to be no more than ten feet, close enough for the leaves to gunk up my gutters on a windy day.” Staring at the branch and calculating how much it would hurt to sew my own arm up, I missed the clunk of the metal ladder against the gutter until a blonde head popped up, scaring the shit out of me.
“Spring! Damn, where did you come from?” I squealed, holding my hand to my chest, feeling the wild thump of my heartbeat under my palm.
My sister smiled crookedly at me, her eyes rolling. “Well, I came around to pick up my sister because we have plans to go out tonight, but imagine my surprise to not only find she isn’t ready, but she is stuck up on her roof. Although, I shouldn’t be surprised considering the source of which I speak.”
Laughing, I had to agree. This was not my first rodeo when it came to finding myself in a pickle. My history in the disaster zone well known and documented by my family and friends–and just about anyone who knows me.
“Yeah well, I got sick of waiting for Dad and Brecken to come and paint the house. Looking at peeling paint every time I pull in the drive is getting to my OCD.” Waving Spring to start down the ladder, I shimmied down to the gutter on my butt, turned on my belly and found the first rung with my feet.
“OCD!” Spring huffed from below me, “since when do you have OCD? Last time I saw your lounge room, there was nothing organised about it, or your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom—”
“Oh, shut up,” I giggled, seeing where she was going with this.
“For your information, little sister, that is not mess; it is shabby chic and eclectic. I don’t like to limit myself to one décor.”
“Oh, is that what you call a bedroom floor littered with clothes and a bathroom sink you can’t see for all the make-up and tampon wrappers?”
Making my way down, I jumped off the last rung and joined Spring on the ground.
“What’s with all the attitude, Spring, and oh my god, what is with your dress?” Finally getting a good look at my sister’s outfit that I didn’t see before because of the gutter obscuring her lower body.
“What this old thing,” Spring gushed, doing an exaggerated pirouette showing off the floating handkerchief shirt that barely covered her thighs and the bodice, which was just as sexy. Tight and bandage style, it left little to the imagination as to how big her breasts were.
“Aren’t we just going to the Western tonight? Seems to me, that outfit is a little saucy for a dinky watering hole.”
A red blush stained my sister’s cheeks, but her smile was wide and almost giddy.
“Ace is going to be there, and I want to look good, no biggie.” Her flippant reply was followed by a leg lift to show me her sky-high heels. Red and sexy, right up Spring’s alley.
“Don’t tell me I finally get to meet the famous Ace, the sexy hunk of a man that has my normally intelligent, level-headed sister turned inside out
