He turns his head without facing his body to me. “I’m figuring that out for myself.”
• • •
Later that day I’m on my bed, fiddling with my phone, wondering if it’s right to call Aunty Nicole back about the her and Mum saga. No matter the mess I make here or the time I spend cleaning it, it’s the same. It has been ever since that party and the rift between Nate and I. It’s so quiet, but not the peaceful one; rather, a quiet where I’m always tensed, looking over my shoulder. If I’m not thinking about Nate, it’s something else. Once, when I was little and everyone was speaking, Nicole and I were playing the card game snap, and I asked her why I had to sit back from the cards that far like she told me, and why I had to hold my hand either on my cards or by my side.
“But Mum let’s me sit with my legs out, lying around the cards, and she never ever cares about my hands. Why are you so mean?”
Aunty Nicole told me, “They are the rules. Games aren’t any fun if you cheat.”
I, being the kid I was, scowled and acted disinterested because she wasn’t fun at all. I wanted to peek at her cards and she wouldn’t let me. I wanted to play the way I knew, and I got confused remembering all these new restrictions.
Sitting on my bed, I know now games with Mum versus Aunty Nicole weren’t fun versus boring. They were different. Mum and I don’t worry about rules. We can be reckless and weird. Mostly spontaneous. With Aunty Nicole, I’d have to be on the ball, decisive, thinking a step ahead. It excited me in an alternate way.
I don’t know which type of person I prefer to be. Mum had thought her ways were fine; my aunty was always uptight about everything. I adore them both, and don’t want to choose who I love best. It’s not that I’m on my aunty’s side of this argument, but I miss the banter. The sisterly back and forth. The teasing. And the fights.
All that feels like a dream sometimes. A dream that I long to have back.
For the first time it doesn’t matter to me if I don’t get at least one guy a party, or if I’m not the hottest girl in a room. I don’t want to study to get the certificate so I can land the high-paying job that’s generally expected of university students, either, but I want to let things just happen.
I push the memories to the side and dial Aunty Nicole. The memories plant an ache in my heart that blossoms into full longing. She answers on the second ring.
“Kalli! Hey, how are things?”
We catch up on bits and pieces, trying to talk like we did before I knew the big secret. I now have to work hard at my tone of voice and choice of sentences so I can imitate being normal. But it’s hard, trying to act like the person I was then.
She tells me about my cousins. One is going to university open days and the other is choosing subjects for their final high school year subjects. She talks about them like a proud mum, adding in phrases like “oh my God, and you know” before something important like an A+ grade on a test. I’ve always idolised her as a mother and a person. Not seeing her regularly since seven, I think, however, she’s a fantasy in my mind. No one is perfect, even when they seem to be a lucky one with no hang-ups like the rest of us.
Her voice pulls up my attention to the change of topic. “I have to request one thing.”
“Uh-oh, what is it now?” I say, adding a coy edge to my tone purposefully.
“Can we stop pretending to be interested in this full-time working, mum-of-two bored woman? I won’t believe you if you tell me your youthful, university self has nothing interesting to say.”
I sigh then cover my mouth as if that’ll take it back. It’s not that I was bored at her, but rather the relief that she understands I have issues I’m hiding. Out in the open, I decide to give a no bullshit answer since I blew my cover anyway.
“Ha! There is plenty. Where do I start?”
“At the juiciest,” she replies.
I’m about to say, “There’s nothing to say” which is what Mum says. Considering I have so much going on and life is not normal at the moment, I’m a little concerned about that being my reaction. I need to stop burying.
“Uh,” I go with. “It’s long.”
It’s the truth.
“Mary or boy stuff?”
“How …” I don’t even finish; I’m sure she knows where I’m going with it, basically.
“I was nineteen and at uni too, my dear. I had a non-standard Mum, too. So, which is it?”
“Both. But you can fix one.”
“How’s that?”
All I can hear is her retort last time, biting back at me when I pushed too far on this topic. But her tone of voice during this call is honest, interested, unlike many times where out of habit, we act cordial, asking about weather and life and recent events. This call, she’s daring to ask for more, although that’s me assuming lots here.