Echo Point

by Virginia Hale

  “Of course,” Ally said, realizing she’d put her foot in it. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  They fell into a comfortable silence until Ally said, “Next time we should bring flowers to your parents too. And Nanna Maggie.”

  Jackie already does, Bron thought, but Ally’s intention was sweet, so instead Bron whispered, “yes.”

  There was something about standing there at Libby’s grave with Ally that was more upsetting than Bron could’ve imagined. Was it because her sister had loved Ally so dearly, just as much as she had loved Bron?

  They needed to leave. Bron’s shoulders were burning, her mouth was parched, and her feet were a putrid russet colour from the mess of dry soil that had caked onto her thongs when she’d stepped out of the car. But it wasn’t any of those three things that made her vision glassy. It was the intense, horrible wave of acknowledgment that washed over her. There was her entire family, the one she’d been born into, all of them gone. There, beneath her feet, but…gone. She’d known this for months. It had been one of the dreadful thoughts that had travelled with her on that Virgin Australia flight from Boston to Sydney hours after she’d learned about the accident. Somewhere over the North Pacific Ocean, she’d reached for a sickness bag, blaming it on the heady cocktail of turbulence and profound grief. But again, that needy, ugly sensation of homesickness twisted in her stomach.

  “Can we go?” she asked, the question scraping against her throat.

  Ally tried to meet her eyes, but she’d already dropped her Aviators back down on the bridge of her nose.

  “Yeah,” Ally said. “Of course.”

  Bron shut the driver’s door behind her, grateful she’d left the window open. The second she slumped into the seat, a violent sting caught her arm. “Fuck!” she cried, twisting to meet the shining, silver buckle of her seat belt. Ally was staring at her, obviously shocked by the outburst. Nausea washed over Bron. It was threatening and overwhelming. She gripped the back of her arm where it had been seared. “Watch your seat belt buckle. It’s on fire,” she murmured, a tear escaping from the corner of her eye.

  Ally clicked her tongue, oblivious. “On fire, eh?” she teased. “Thought we were over the Ally the Arsonist jabs?”

  The black strap of Bron’s seat belt wasn’t giving. She pulled again, more firmly. It was locked. She grunted.

  “Just be gentle,” Ally chuckled. “Pull it slowly.”

  Bron let go of the seat belt and sat back. She closed her eyes. A choked sob escaped. Silent tears followed, flowing in desperate release. They were hot on her burning cheeks. She stung, all over.

  Ally shifted on her seat, tucking a leg beneath herself, turning toward Bron. They sat like that for a long moment, until Bron’s fast-falling tears slowed. She lifted her sunglasses and wiped at her cheeks, chin and jawline. She made a sound of disgust, belittling her outburst.

  “Just take little breaths,” Ally suggested.

  Bron slapped the top of the scorching steering wheel in frustration. An ache shot from the heel of her palm to her wrist. She let it fall heavily into her lap. More tears fell, gentler this time, an underwhelming, less impressive aftermath.

  “Are you okay?”

  Bron wet her lips. “That was the first time I’ve been there since the funeral.”

  “Oh, Bron. You should have said something.” Ally’s hand reached out, and Bron turned her own hand over in her lap, expecting Ally’s hand to find hers. But suddenly Ally’s hand, firm and soft, was pressed against Bron’s jawline. Her heartbeat quickened and her face flushed. A tear dared to drip from the tip of her nose. Before she could taste it when it fell to her bottom lip, Ally caught it with her thumb.

  A cool breeze placated the back of her neck, tattooing goose bumps to her skin. Ally leaned across the console and rested her forehead against Bron’s. She released a wanton, troubled breath. Unmoving, Bron felt it wash over her cheek. What is happening? Ally’s hand pressed more firmly against her jawline, and Bron’s breath hitched. When their lips met, Bron gave in.

  Ally’s mouth was eager but much less dominant, less entitled, than Bron would have thought. But she wasn’t thinking at all, not when Ally moved closer than she’d ever been. Too close. Ally’s other hand slid around to the back of Bron’s neck, controlling the gentle kiss. Bron immediately fell into the new rhythm and she heard herself whimper.

  Then Ally’s tongue swiped across Bron’s bottom lip, hungry and unrelenting. Ally’s moan, guttural and feral, poured into Bron’s mouth. Ally shifted, moving to kneel on her seat. Suddenly realizing Ally’s intentions, Bron quickly pulled back, her eyes wide and bloodshot. Ally’s eyelids were pressed shut, as if ending the kiss abruptly had pained her.

  “I’m sorry,” Bron rasped, her entire body trembling. She dropped her gaze, only for it to land on Ally’s full, heaving chest.

  “I’m not,” Ally whispered, opening her eyes. “I’ve wanted to do that since I was like…fifteen.”

  I know you have. “I can’t,” she said simply.

  Ally’s hand on her jawline had receded, but the one at the back of her neck remained. Her fingers splayed against her scalp. “I’m not looking for anything serious,” Ally husked. Her fingertips trailed up into the bottom of Bron’s loose bun. “I think you know that. But we can make this…not serious. If you want,” Ally finished.

  What Ally proposed was simple—in theory.

  When Bron didn’t respond, Ally nodded. “Yeah, okay then. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve said no to me.”

  The memory of seventeen-year-old Ally coming on to her was hazy, but she remembered exactly how the conversation had ended. Bron searched for something to say to fill the uncomfortable silence. “Libby adored you,” she tried.

  Ally’s head snapped around, her entire disposition changing. “What has Libby got to do with what just happened?” Her eyes were a black maelstrom of grief and anger. She was far more complex and intelligent than she allowed others to perceive. The notion was as unnerving as it was fascinating. Ally’s reactions were intensifying with the passing of each day, pushing them further into dangerous territory where blame and guilt drew fault lines, fracturing the surface of amity.

  Bron pulled at her seat belt, gently, and started the car. They had passed the telegraph pole a kilometre back on Gibson Street when Ally spoke up. “We don’t have to pretend, you know. You can say something.”

  “Say something about what?”

  “I know that’s the pole. Dan and I passed it twice last week.”

  “Oh.”

  “He told me they’re Jackie’s flowers.”

  Bron swallowed. “Right.” Of course he had.

  Ally sighed. “I can still remember how old Jackie looked when she came to tell me about Libby.” She paused. “I mean, I’ve lost my dad, but Libby was an entirely different kind of loss. You expect old people to die, but someone like Libby…It’s like all of the joy just goes out of the world. And the worst part, the worst part, was not being able to say good-bye. I know none of us did. The impact killed her and she was gone instantly. But I was so close, Bron. Three months. What kind of shitty joke is that? You spend your whole life loving someone and then shit happens like it did and life just fucks you over in the worst way possible.”

  You spend your whole life loving someone.

  Bron’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, complete and total cognizance dawning upon her. Had Ally loved Libby?

  Chapter Six

  Bron was surprised to hear soft rapping against her opened bedroom door. She thought everybody had gone to bed an hour ago.

  “Hey.” Ally smiled from the doorway. “I’m sorry about earlier today.”

  Bron turned in her desk chair. She gently placed her pencil down against the drawing paper. “Really, Ally,” she whispered. “It’s fine.”

  But it wasn’t fine. She’d pushed the memory of Ally reaching for her over the console of her old Toyota to the far recesses of her mind.

  Ally leaned aga
inst the doorjamb and picked at the peeling paint. “I was just wondering if you’re planning on being here, you know, working from home, the day after tomorrow?”

  Bron drew her gaze away from the obviousness of Ally’s dark nipples in just a ribbed, white singlet and stared down at the partially completed draft she’d been working on all day.

  “I think so,” she murmured. “Why?”

  “Well, Jackie’s going out to Blackheath to watch Annie’s swimming carnival all day on Tuesday, and I heard you say that you’re thinking of going over to join her in the afternoon. I just needed someone to…” She hesitated. “My parole officer is coming by around eleven on Tuesday morning. I have to take the day off work to be here, and I’d…I don’t know. I’d kind of like it if someone else would be here.”

  Bron shifted and threw an arm around the back of her desk chair. “That’s soon. You’ve only been here a week.”

  “It’s a fortnightly thing from this point on.”

  “And out of the blue visits to catch you out?”

  “Yeah.” Ally smiled. “Those too.”

  Bron nodded. “Right. Well, I have a Skype meeting in the early hours of Tuesday morning, so I’ll be around, working…” She smiled politely and turned back to her desk.

  In her peripheral vision, Bron watched Ally shift from foot to foot, and then step into the room. Her old bed springs squeaked with Ally’s weight. She raised her gaze. The pitch-black sky reminded her of the late hour, prompting her to wonder why Ally hadn’t gone to sleep when everyone else had.

  The quiet wasn’t as strange as it had been a week ago—before Ally had confronted her, before the cemetery saga. Just above the tops of the gumtrees, the Northern Star shone brilliantly. In Boston she never saw the night sky so clean and clear. She would have to drive up to Salem, or even further to Ipswich, if she wanted to see a crisp sky blanketed with stars. But she rarely left the city.

  Ally broke the silence. “You’re a hard worker, Bron.”

  Bent over her drawing board, she shrugged.

  “You’re always up here, drawing away. What is it that you’re working on?”

  “Just another children’s picture book.”

  “What’s it about?”

  She turned to Ally and tapped her pencil against the back of the chair. “It’s about a little girl who solves mysteries at school.”

  “What does she look like?”

  Bron reached across her desk and picked up the sketchbook filled with drawings just for her own reference. Ally flipped through it for a few moments. “They’re really great. I remember you drawing like this.”

  Bron raised an eyebrow. “You remember?”

  “Yeah. When Annie was born, Lib had one of your books. I used to read it to Annie all of the time.”

  Ally handed her the sketchbook, and Bron placed it back on the pile of drawing pads. “You work hard too, Al.”

  Ally shifted where she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been thinking of building a cubby house for Annie.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nothing fancy. I’m not great with construction, but I can put something rough together.”

  “I’m sure she’d love it.”

  “I haven’t told her yet,” Ally added. “But we’re going to the hardware on the weekend. I’ll let her pick a paint colour and stuff.”

  She could picture Annie, armed with so many choices in the hardware store. It wasn’t going to be a cheap cubby house if Ally let Annie have her way—and Bron knew that Ally would. She clicked her tongue. “The materials will be expensive. Let me help you out with the cost.”

  Ally shook her head, adamant. “It’s just a cubby house. Besides, I owe you enough as it is.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell upon them, turning the air in the room stale. She decided it was best not to push it with the money issue, but she couldn’t help but worry that Ally was being too generous with funds she didn’t actually have to begin with. The cemetery flowers and now a cubby house. Bron couldn’t deny that, however reckless Ally was with what little money she had, her intentions came from a good place. Her eyes fell to the Annie tattoo that decorated Ally’s chest. Maybe she’d been wrong to assume the tattoo was a guilt card to be played whenever Ally drew a bad hand.

  Ally pushed off the bed and stopped at the door. “I’m sorry I put you through all of that today.”

  “Ally—”

  “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you to take me. I know you’re still a mess.” She paused, and that dreadful, wild ache seized Bron’s heart. “We’re all a mess right now, but we’ll get it together soon. I’m sure of it.”

  She’d heard the same assurance many times before—from Jackie, from Annie’s psychologist, from strangers who had known Libby. But there was something real and believable about the way Ally said it. Maybe it was because, at the end of the day, they were both such a mess because they shared one thing in common—for the longest time they’d both been separated from their closest friend. Oceans, prison bars, it didn’t really matter. Borders were borders, and borders had kept both of them from Libby in her final years and her last days. Their heartache came from the same dark place. So if Ally could at least pretend to be one step closer to moving on, there was no reason Bron couldn’t do the same.

  * * *

  At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, Bron stumbled down the hallway on autopilot. The bedroom doors were all open but nobody was upstairs. Why was it so humid so early? Why had Jackie and Annie left without waking her? Why had she stayed up and continued working another two hours after that Skype meeting with her editor at Yellowstone? In the future she wasn’t going to accommodate three a.m. videoconferences. Besides, could the company actually call it a conference when her editor hadn’t even had the courtesy to Skype Bron from the office? She was still irritated by it. If Yellowstone considered an editor criticizing an illustrator’s drafts over video chat while in line at Starbucks a conference, she would really have to consider their definition of the ‘formal’ dress code at next year’s company Christmas party. No more middle-of-the-night meetings. She needed to stop putting other people first. It had been her only New Year’s resolution, but any trace of that had certainly gone out the window back in August after the accident. A lighter workload with Yellowstone was a heavenly thought, and she’d be able to afford it too with the pay packet MIT was offering for only four two-hour lectures a week and a couple of seminars. Morning lectures meant she’d be free to pick Annie up from school each day, spend weekends with her on the Common or in one of Boston’s many museums. Perhaps she’d even dump Yellowstone for a while once she settled in at MIT. Let Yellowstone see what they’re taking for granted, she thought.

  In a daze, she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. “Jesus!” she shrieked, her cheeks flaming instantly.

  Ally stood before the mirror, completely naked but for the black cotton hugging her hips and the surprised expression she wore. Her short hair was wet, slicked back, her breasts bare and nipples dark, just as Bron had guessed. But it was the burn scar, the mottled and taut patch of skin that drew Bron’s attention to Ally’s navel. All Bron knew was that Ally had been burned during her time as a volunteer firefighter. The scar was so much larger than she’d thought it would be, a faded pink against Ally’s perfect skin.

  Sensing Ally’s stare, Bron immediately checked herself out of her stupor. “I…You didn’t lock the door…”

  Ally pressed a hip against the sink. An eyebrow arched. “So? You didn’t knock.”

  Bron quickly exited, her ears ringing. She closed her bedroom door and sat down on her bed, rubbing at her face in a vigorous attempt to wake herself. Embarrassment flushed through her in a second wave. Her neck was hot and her hands were clammy. She heard the bathroom door open and then the click of Libby’s bedroom door. She sat, unmoving. Quiet.

  Everybody was gone. It was just the two of them. The house was so empty, devoid of Annie’s squeals and Jackie’s whistling, that
Bron could actually hear it creak. During the day. While there was sunlight. It was a rare phenomenon.

  She walked briskly back toward the bathroom, desperately hoping for Ally to stay in her room until Bron had hidden herself away. She turned the bathroom lock, the heavy snap of sliding metal brasher than usual. Undoubtedly, Ally would have heard it and assumed Bron was making a point.

  When she flicked off the hair dryer twenty minutes later, her freshly-washed hair dry enough that it wouldn’t dampen the back of her T-shirt, she could hear a muffled, male voice responding to Ally’s always-amplified questions. She made her way down to the kitchen. When she stopped in the doorway, Ally’s gaze lifted from the burly man sitting in Jackie’s spot at the kitchen table.

  “Bron, this here is my parole officer, Barry.”

  She moved across the room to shake Barry’s hand and introduced herself.

  Barry smiled warmly. “I read your letter of support for Ally’s parole, and the one your mother wrote too. Really helped us out in the beginning there.”

  She could feel her face warming again. She noticed Ally avert her gaze at the mention of the letter. Barry motioned toward Ally. “Bet you’re regretting it now that you’re stuck with her.” In true form, Ally had shrunken down into her chair, completely relaxed and confident. The insecure girl who had stood in her bedroom doorway two nights before was nowhere to be seen.

  “No regrets. She loves it,” Ally jumped in. “Want a cuppa, Baz?”

  Bron busied herself putting the kettle on. She waved good morning to Tammy, who sat outside the screen door, tail wagging, desperate for their new visitor’s attention.

  Barry and Ally made small talk while Bron listened intently. This wasn’t their first meeting. Apparently he’d been the one to get the ball rolling on Ally’s parole, but after she’d submitted the application, she’d been assigned a different parole officer while he was on long service leave.

  “Has she been a handful to manage?” he asked.

  Bron smiled. Manage. He’d found the perfect job description for this role Jackie and Bron had volunteered to take on, a role which demanded they made sure Ally met curfew and didn’t attempt to burn anything with greater consequence than a steak. “No,” she chuckled. “No more of a handful than usual.”