the ridge of scar tissue. She traces her fingers over and over the puckered edges of it.
Clara wonders if she should distract the child, but Jayden is just watching her explore his skin. Clara can see Lachlan watching them too. There’s that shame again, at what he’d done. After their father’s imprisonment, Jayden had thrived and Lachlan, who’d been strong for so long, fell. So far.
He’d been high – again or still – and Jayden had tried to take care of him, and to get rid of his brother’s stash. In the struggle, Lachlan had shoved Jayden through a plate glass sliding door. He’d nearly died. Lachlan had been beside himself with horror and grief, and had checked himself into rehab as soon as he knew Jayden would survive.
Four years clean now. Clara is proud of him, of how he’s worked to climb back up again, and be strong again, for himself as well as Jayden. And he dotes on his niece, as though that little girl were his salvation.
Amelia, meanwhile, prods the marks on her father’s chest, the skin and muscle, then pats at them with her soft, chubby hands.
‘Daddy has an ouch,’ she says. It’s the term she’s been using lately.
‘A big ouch, yes.’
Amelia’s eyes are large with curiosity and concern. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘Not any more.’
‘Are you all better?’
‘All better now.’
‘It gets stiff some days,’ Lachlan supplies suddenly. ‘Especially when it’s cold like today. I... forget, sometimes.’
The look Jayden gives Lachlan is a complicated thing, part forgiveness, part irritation, part affection, part exasperation. The way that brothers do.
‘Poor Daddy’s ouch,’ says Amelia. ‘I’ll kiss it better,’ and she plants a sloppy kiss on the smaller scar, the way her parents give her kisses to make it better when she falls or bumps her head. She draws back and pats the hard tissue again. ‘It feels funny.’
‘If you get a big ouch and then it gets better, sometimes the skin goes pale and hard like that,’ Jayden says, his voice low and even. ‘It’s called a scar.’
Amelia considers this information. ‘Mummy has a scar on her tummy and Lachie has a scar on his head and his side and his mouth. Unca Lachie has lots of scars. I’ll kiss them better too.’
Jayden flicks a glance at Lachlan, as does Clara, and Lachlan is very still, seemingly caught between pride at Amelia’s cleverness in noticing these things and regret that she is so aware of all his old hurts.
Amelia wriggles off Jayden’s lap and toddles over to Lachlan. He has to manoeuvre a bit to maintain his modesty in the silk robe as she clambers into this lap, stands on his thighs and stares earnestly into this face. He lets her scrutinise him without comment.
She pats the scar at the corner of his mouth. ‘Poor ouch.’
‘It’s nothing, Amelia,’ he tells her.
She wetly kisses the side of his mouth anyway.
She peers at him further, then kisses the scar in his hairline. Then she sees something that Clara never knew she could. Amelia squats. Lachlan’s hands are on her waist to keep her from falling, and she leans over to peer at the inside of his elbow on his left arm. The track marks are almost invisible.
Almost.
She goes to kiss them and Lachlan flinches, pulls away.
Amelia is immediately full of childish concern. ‘Does it still hurt?’
Lachlan swallows.
‘No.’
‘Was it a big ouch?’
Clara holds her breath, wondering what he’s going to say. Her husband, too, she notices has gone very still.
‘Not any more,’ Lachlan says carefully. ‘Your Mummy and Daddy helped to make it better.’
‘I want to make it better, too,’ Amelia pouts.
‘You do.’
‘No. I have to kiss it better,’ she insists. ‘It’s the rule.’
Reluctantly, refusing to look at Clara or Jayden, Lachlan holds his arm up. Amelia kisses the inside of his elbow with a loud, wet, noisy smack of her lips. A big kiss for a big ouch.
Then she grins up at him. ‘All better?’
His reply is delayed while he clears his throat. ‘All better,’ he agrees.
Amelia’s expression is full of pride – and then she is all giggles and shrieks as Lachlan ducks his head to pretend-bite her fingers. ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t!’ she shrieks while making no actual effort to escape, ‘Don’t eat me up!’ He manages to get to her belly and blow a raspberry (and narrowly avoid being accidentally kicked in the balls – that’s unclehood for you) before letting her squirm free and run across the carpet to Clara.
‘Mummy, Mummy, don’t let Unca Lachie eat me!’
Laughing, Clara drops to her knees and makes zombie-hands and gnashing-teeth motions at her. ‘I’ll eat you up!’
Jayden jumps to his feet, crouches down and chases Amelia all over the living room, threatening to eat you all up until Amelia turns on him, bares her teeth and says ‘I’ll eat YOU all up!’ and chases him in turn.
By evening’s end, Lachlan has commandeered a pair of Jayden’s track pants and a t-shirt, both too short and too loose on him. He is lying on his back on the sofa, more or less respectable now, and explaining how her Daddy is the most graceless diver the world has ever seen. Amelia, belly-down on the carpet, falls asleep to his voice.
Jayden and Clara are dancing in the kitchen to the radio, kissing, cuddling. Canoodling. As date nights go, it hasn’t been too bad.
Lachlan is the one who gets the call from the teacher. Clara and Jayden have taken off for a romantic anniversary week in New Zealand and the teenaged Amelia is in Lachlan’s care for the duration.
Lachlan is a driving to the school hall as fast as he dare. He wants to go faster, but he can’t risk being stopped by the police. He can’t risk failing her, though his heart is hammering, because he feels he already has.
How did I miss it? he’s thinking. I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I would know if Amelia was an addict. If anyone would know that, I would. Therefore, she is not. There has been a mistake. I will fix this. I will fix this. Oh god, what if it’s my fault?
Lachlan doubts himself all the time, but he has never doubted Amelia.
And yet.
He remembers. He remembers choices made because they seemed to be the only ones left. He remembers wanting to calm the storm in his head and his heart, and finding only one way to do it. He remembers defiance and rage and despair and how a simple solution and a simpler needle gave him respite,
