As he watched, his hand kept instinctively reaching for his mobile phone. Every time he brought it in front of him, he’d remember. He didn’t want to remember. Eventually, he threw the phone to the other side of the mattress and tried to just focus on the show, turning it down when he heard Pig Man get home. He knew the drill by now. If Pig Man could pretend he didn’t exist, then he’d leave him alone.
After about an hour, he heard the rattle of next-door’s gate. He got up and peered through his window. It was Fabian. He was walking his bike slowly, tentatively, as though his whole body hurt. He held another bag of groceries — he must have had to go back to the shops to replace what had been broken.
Michael turned off his light and got into bed, pulling the blanket over his head. He felt terrible. Gut-wrenchingly, achingly terrible. Now that there was nothing to distract him, all of it came flooding back into his head. The way they’d looked at him when they realised it was him. That he was one of the people they’d become so close with. The looks on their faces: shock, dismay. Tessie looked like she might cry, Fabian looked horrified. And Emma. Thinking about Emma’s face felt like a knife slicing through him. He’d always thought their banter was in good fun underneath it all. He liked riling her up, making her get all mad and haughty and start yelling about fascists or something ridiculous. She was the kind of person who liked, even needed an adversary, she enjoyed it, really. Or that’s what he’d thought. But obviously, he’d been dead wrong. At Mercy Point Lookout, Emma had looked at him with pure, white-hot hatred. A lump rose in his throat. He wanted to cry.
A soft meowing sound came from his window. He got out of bed and pulled it open, and a fluffy white cat jumped in.
‘Hey, Jeff,’ he said quietly, gliding his hand down the cat’s soft fur. ‘Finally found the time to pay your old mate a visit, hey?’
He never understood why Fabian’s family had called the cat Jeffrey. When he first saw it, he presumed it would be called Princess or Snowball or something like that. It was a beautiful cat, fragile and friendly with big green eyes. It looked expectantly around the room.
‘Alright, alright, I know what you want.’ Michael opened one of his drawers and took out a bowl of cat food.
He’d trained the cat a few years back. Offering it food in his backyard first, then on his back stairs, then he’d put a bowl under his window on top of the garage. He lay back down in bed, and after a few minutes, Jeffrey nuzzled into him and lay down against his stomach.
‘What am I going to do?’
He stroked the fur under its ears. The cat closed its eyes and started to purr.
‘You’re no help,’ he said, although he did feel a little better.
Later that night, something woke Michael. The sound of the phone ringing. It had only rung once, then it was snatched up. He heard the sound of his dad whispering. Even through his sleep-addled brain he realised something was strange; his dad never whispered. He got up and pulled his door open a few inches as silently as he could.
‘Tell me how that could possibly be a coincidence?’ Michael could only just make out what his dad was saying. ‘I don’t think so.’
He wondered for a moment if it was his mum on the other end.
‘Lia said she saw all of them, together, at Mercy Point.’
Michael’s breath caught.
‘Why else would they be meeting up? They must know something.’
CHAPTER 6
FABIAN
Fabian woke up with a wince. Everything hurt. There was a tender bruise on the middle of his back, scrapes up his legs and gravel from the road still embedded in his palms from where he had, unsuccessfully, tried to break his fall. It was bad. He knew that he got bullied at school, of course he knew, but it had never been like this before. He’d always tried to just ignore it, to turn the other cheek. Not that he was bottling it up and heading for a Carrie-level bloodbath. No, it was more like Al Pacino at the beginning of The Godfather. He was trying to just not get involved. To rise above it. But it had never been so physical before.
Still, nothing he was feeling on the outside compared with how he was feeling inside. His head, his heart, his stomach. They all ached. The memory of yesterday at Mercy Point Lookout kept looping around in his head. That moment when he’d realised, and it was like when you found out Bruce Willis was dead all along in The Sixth Sense, or when Snape killed Dumbledore. It made him re-evaluate everything right down to his foundations.
He heard the familiar clatter and voices from the kitchen downstairs. It sounded like his family was already up, so he may as well get up too. If he stayed in bed any longer, he knew he’d only end up feeling more wretched, so, gingerly, he pushed himself up. The window was all fogged up from the heat inside compared with the freezing cold morning outside. His parents liked keeping the heating turned up. Even on the coldest day of the year, his father would sometimes walk around in just his singlet and shorts. But this morning Fabian pulled on his jumper and jeans. He didn’t want his family to see the marks on his body, he didn’t want them to ask what had happened. It would only make him feel embarrassed to explain. Worse than embarrassed. They’d want to do something and that would only complicate things more.
Next to his bed, his phone dinged. Fabian hovered next to his bedroom door, looking back at it. It was the familiar ding, the one that indicated the message board. There was nothing they had to say that he wanted to hear right now, so he ignored it and went down the stairs.
Fabian kept his hands in his pockets as he went into the kitchen. His two older sisters were sitting at the bench drinking coffee, while his dad was cooking in the kitchen. They were all looking at Jeffrey, their cat, who was rolling around on his back on the tiles.
‘I think someone else is feeding him.’
Fabian inspected the cat too. He was definitely looking a lot rounder than he used to.
‘Are you calling him fat, Dad?’ his sister Connie asked, twisting her thick hair into a bun on top of her head.
Jeffrey stopped rolling, got up and walked out of the room. They all watched him go.
‘I think he heard you,’ Fabian told her.
Gina, the eldest, whacked her on the arm. ‘Geez, Con, no one likes being called fat!’
‘I never said he was, Dad did!’
His dad offered Fabian a cup of coffee before looking back at Connie. ‘I think you should apologise.’
‘Yeah, Con.’ Fabian took a seat next to her. ‘I can’t believe you’re fat shaming our cat.’
‘I’m not fat shaming anyone.’
‘I think you mean cat shaming.’
‘Oh God, Dad, no.’ Gina shook her head, but Fabian and Connie were laughing. And his dad too, of course. His dad never missed a chance to laugh at one of his own jokes.
This was what his family was like. His beautiful sisters, who were both more than five years older than him, looked like spitting images of his mother, and there was his father, with his bad dad jokes, his physical strength and his easy station as patriarch. They all fitted together so seamlessly. They were like a sitcom family. Well, maybe not the main family in a sitcom, but maybe the funny Italian family that lived around the corner. It was like a joke how clear it was that he didn’t fit in. For a while, he’d fooled himself into thinking he was like the runt of the litter. The weak little dog always hurrying to keep up. But just looking at a family portrait, it was clear that wasn’t even true. Wherever they’d got him from, they’d chosen badly. He didn’t look anything like them. His hair, his eyes, it was all so different. The cruellest thing about it was, as obvious as it was that he wasn’t one of them, they really did feel like his family. He loved them deeply.
‘Mum at work?’ he asked as his father started dishing up the crepes he’d been making.
‘Yeah. I’ve got to be off soon too.’
His father owned a plumbing business. It wasn’t like there was much competition around here, which meant he could basically set his own rates. He liked working Saturdays because he
could charge double while still accepting thanks for working on a weekend.
His dad was like the Rocky Balboa of Cameron, except without the boxing. He was a self-made man. A working-class hero. He was everything it meant to be masculine. He’d probably wanted to add a boy to the family so he had someone to play ball with, someone to watch the footy with, a real man like him who could one day take over the business. How disappointed he must have been at the way his choice had worked out.
After breakfast, Fabian made his way back up to his room. He’d tried not to think about the message board, but it was hard not to. He just couldn’t get his head around it. He didn’t mind Emma, she was nice enough, although even thinking of her made him remember being locked inside that closet just a few days ago. That Sam guy had seemed cool, Fabian would have definitely liked to get to know him a bit better. And he liked Tessie. He liked how different she was from everyone else, no matter how hard she seemed to be trying to hide it. He’d always sensed she was similar to him in some fundamental way. A misfit, not in the self-conscious way of Emma, with her grungy haircut and her pierced nose. It wasn’t like the girl in Juno, or Janis in Mean Girls, or Jughead Jones in Riverdale. They didn’t wear their difference like a badge of honour. No, they were the kind of people who were so aware they didn’t fit that they’d become well versed in ways to hide it.
Still, the knowledge that there was a new message was impossible to stop thinking about. He knew that even if he forced himself not to look at his phone, he would definitely think about it all day. He may as well just cave now and see what it was. He sat down gingerly on the bed and, as he clasped his phone in his hand, he felt the stinging on his palms. He turned on his bedside light to inspect them. The grazes looked deep, and there were definitely still bits of gravel stuck in them. He’d tried to get all of it out last night, but it was so painful and he was already feeling so utterly miserable and frustrated he’d just let it be. He opened up the message board: there were two new messages.
M.Dot: Listen, I know you guys all hate me, but we need to talk. I overheard my dad on the phone last night. He was talking to your parents, they were all ringing each other.
M.Dot: Come on guys, this is important! Somehow he knows we met up. I think something’s going on . . .
The deep frustration rose up in Fabian again.
Fontaine: Just go away.
He hoped Michael would listen to him, but he doubted he would. He was right. Almost immediately his phone dinged again.
M.Dot: I’d like to, trust me. But I think we were right, we are adopted, and I think our parents are hiding something.
He turned off his phone. Michael could send as many messages as he wanted, make up as many lies as he liked to try to mess with him once more, but if he didn’t read them, they couldn’t hurt.
What a stupid lie it was too. Fabian had lived next door to Michael’s family his whole life, and not once had he seen their parents interact. It was more like Neighbors the Zac Efron movie than Neighbours the TV show. It wasn’t like they were going over there to borrow some sugar, they didn’t even nod hello when they were both in their front yards at the same time. He was sure Michael was aware of that.
‘Hey, Fab,’ Connie pushed his door open, ‘we’re getting a ride into town with Dad. Do you want to —’
She looked at his hands, which he immediately put behind his back.
‘What happened?’ Her face crinkled with worry.
He forced an embarrassed smile. ‘Fell off my bike yesterday.’
‘Can I see?’ She came towards him and grabbed one of his wrists so she could have a look at the palm. ‘Ouch, that looks like it might get infected.’
‘It’s fine.’ He pulled his hand away from her.
She looked carefully at him. ‘Was that really what it was? Falling off your bike?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘Just checking. ’Cause if anyone messes with my little brother, I’d have to kill them.’
That was exactly what he needed: his sister to go over to Michael’s house and tell him to stop picking on him.
‘Okay, I’ll make sure to warn anyone who tries anything that I’ve got a five-foot-three sister who isn’t afraid to scratch.’
Connie rolled her eyes. ‘That was years ago, and you were being really annoying. Anyway, are you coming?’
‘Nah, I need to stay here for a bit.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She walked back to her room, calling out behind her, ‘But make sure you put some antiseptic on your hands.’
Once he heard his dad’s van reverse out of the driveway, Fabian went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. He opened the second drawer and pulled out a pink makeup bag. Unzipping it, he took out the tweezers. As he squeezed the cold metal tips into the almost scabbed-over wound, his eyes started watering. He thought about Michael and his latest attempt to mess with him. He tried to imagine it, his parents back when they were young, friends with Michael’s parents, or Emma’s. A perfect image of it popped into his head. He tried to push it out and focus on what he was doing. One tiny rock was really deep into his skin. He dug in further with the tweezers and fresh blood began to well in the cut, but he could feel the hardness there scraping against the tweezer’s metal. Biting his lip, he clamped down on the piece of gravel and pulled it out. He rinsed his hand under the tap and, even though it was throbbing, realised it was feeling a bit better.
Once he had covered his palm in antiseptic cream and Band-Aids, he got back into his bed. Pulling his laptop onto his mattress, he thought about what to watch. Maybe a Scorsese film, like Taxi Driver. Something that would make everything else that was on his mind disappear. In the end, he chose Heat. He’d seen it about a million times before, but the familiarity was somehow soothing. He liked watching Al Pacino. The guy was small like him, but he was as tough as nails. No one would ever think of messing with him.
After about half an hour, he pressed ‘pause’. He just couldn’t concentrate on the film. That image kept flickering in his head, the image of his parents and Michael’s parents. Every time it did, more details started filling in, until it didn’t seem imaginary anymore. It seemed like a memory. Something he’d actually seen.
Groaning, he pulled his phone out from under his pillow and turned it back on. After just a few seconds’ silence, it launched into a long series of dings, each accompanied by a new message.
OhSammyBoy: How did your dad know we met up?
M.Dot: He said someone called Lia told him.
Twelve: That’s my mum’s name. I thought she didn’t even know your dad.
Twelve: This is Tessie by the way.
M.Dot: Something’s going on. I think we need to meet up again. Somewhere that isn’t public this time.
OhSammyBoy: I agree! I don’t know what beef you guys have with each other, but shouldn’t we at least give it a chance?
Twelve: Okay. You guys can come to the motel at midday. If you come around the back, I’ll leave the window open to room twelve.
M.Dot: Okay.
M.Dot: Thanks.
Fabian threw the phone back under his pillow. It didn’t matter anyway. He was done with all of them. He wasn’t going anywhere.
But the image kept driving its way into his head, and he was starting to remember when he’d seen it. He’d found it in his mum’s memory box, right at the bottom under old letters and documents. A few years back, when he had first started suspecting he was adopted, he’d snooped through the box, hoping to find some kind of evidence. He’d seen the photo then but barely even looked at it.
Slowly pushing himself off the bed, he went around to his parents’ bedroom. The door creaked softly as it slowly opened, but it sounded loud in the empty house. Fabian didn’t want to be sneaking around in his parents’ bedroom, it made him feel even more like an impostor. But the memory of the image was tugging at him. He had to know.
Standing up on their bed, he leaned across to the sliding doors of the top section of the cupboard.
The way he was standing was a little shaky, but as long as he kept his weight thrown forward onto his arms, he was fairly sturdy. Once the door was slid across he leaned further into the cupboard, standing up on his tippy toes on the bedspread. Holding onto the door with one hand, he reached in with his other, trying to grab at the edge of the cardboard box. Finally he had it; he pulled it towards him. He slightly shifted his weight and the corner of the door dug into the wound on his hand. His hand flinched away and his body fell forward. Dropping the box, he tried to grab on to the edge of the shelf with his other hand, but he missed. He whacked his shoulder against the cupboard doors and fell awkwardly onto the floor.
He lay sprawled on the carpet. Pain shuddering through his body. Everything that was already injured felt hurt again. He forced himself to breathe into the blackness. Slowly, the shudders subsided. He wriggled his toes. He moved his fingers. He was about to open his eyes, when he realised he’d never closed them. His eyes were open, yet all he could see was black. He rubbed them with his sore palms. No, he could still only see black. He pulled himself up so he was sitting on the carpet. He could feel it under him, he was definitely awake. Maybe he’d hit his temple and gone blind. Was that even possible? He started to sweat. His heart started to hammer. And then, like a light switch being flicked on, he could see again. He could see the contents of his mother’s memory box strewn out in front of him. He could see the picture that had been flickering through his mind all morning. The picture that proved everything.
Mercy Point Page 5
