Matthew shrugs. ‘Still. Worth a shot. I’ll get Ginny and Richard out, too.’
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘’Course I do. They’d want me to tell them.’
I go down to the river because I don’t know where else to go. It’s still and sticky and for a while I’m alone, walking up and down the bank like I’m expecting her to wash up amongst the old trolleys and mattresses. Then Dad’s there and he glares at me.
‘I told you I’d check the river,’ he says.
‘I know.’
‘Go check somewhere else! We have to fan out!’
‘She won’t be found until she wants to be,’ I say. ‘This is all pointless. All this looking. She’s always been a good hider.’
‘Stop talking.’
‘It’s pointless.’
We stare at each other and something snaps between us, and I think that I won’t be the one to move. That I’d rather die than leave the river first. Dad shrugs and walks away and it makes me so furious. How quickly he always gives in.
***
Later on, I sit in the annex and watch Mum manically sorting through the kitchen stuff. She’s teary as she sorts. She’s decided Taylor will probably just turn up at home and that we need to stay here and wait and not talk about the fact that she’s missing.
‘The job’s a sure thing, a definite,’ Mum’s saying very quickly to herself. ‘But I think he’s been better, lately. More present. Don’t you think so? I think so. But I guess he’s picked up before and seems to be doing so well and then . . . well, no sense worrying about it, is there?’
‘Why don’t you just leave him?’ I ask without really meaning to.
‘What?’ she asks and I know she’s not really listening to me.
‘Why don’t you just leave Dad? He’s stopped going to counselling again, you hardly talk to each other, he’s the reason you’re working fifty hours a week. He lies to you all the time. He steals from you. Why don’t you just leave him?’
She startles then. She looks at me like I’ve asked something ludicrous; unimaginable. ‘Because I love him, Stell. And he’s still your father.’
‘What about us?’
‘This is temporary. If we do happen to be here longer than I’m planning, you’ll be old enough to make your own decisions in a few more months.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m staying with him. Of course I am. I love him.’
‘Why? Why would you—’
‘You don’t choose who you love, Stella. You’ve read enough of those books to realise that.’
I swallow. The books unpick love as though it’s something you can choose and manipulate and turn on and off like a light switch. That was the whole point to me with those books; being able to make changes.
‘I wanted to rescue him,’ Mum says, her voice soft. ‘I thought I could fix him.’
‘But you couldn’t.’
‘No. I couldn’t. But I still love him. He might not be exactly who I wanted him to be, but I love who he is. Don’t give me that look! You don’t understand. How could you? You’ve never had a boyfriend. You’ve never been in love.’ Mum stares out the window and I know she’s watching for Taylor.
I go to bed thinking about love, thinking about Taylor. Sometimes I want to kill her, but I love her fiercely. Still, I can’t imagine loving someone the way that Mum loves Dad. The sort of love that brings about your own ruin. I’m not entirely sure that I want to.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The day is a long one. Mum calls in sick from work and drives in loops around Sutherbend, calling me up on her brick of a mobile phone to see if Taylor’s been found. She cries into the receiver until I hang up.
I try to avoid Dad, but it’s like all the passivity of the last few months has disappeared. Whenever I look up, he’s there. Telling me to go somewhere else. To do more. To help.
When Mum calls me up again, I hold the phone tightly against my ear. ‘Why’s Dad being so difficult?’
‘He blames himself for all of this,’ Mum says, blowing her nose. ‘He blames himself and he’s just taking it out on you.’
‘It’s not fair.’
‘Of course it’s not fair! None of this is fair! Poor Taylor getting broken up with! Us having such a hard time of it. None of it’s fair.’
***
It’s late afternoon when I leave Fairyland again and trace the roads that I’m sure Mum has already checked ten times. Then I keep walking, because it suddenly seems so obvious. I walk across Sutherbend to the place that had been our home for so many years. When I knock on the door there’s nobody home, and I look at the long grass of the front yard and wonder if anyone’s been living here since we moved out. It hurts being here. It hurts being barred from a place that still feels like home.
I slip around the side of the house into the back garden, where I crane my neck up towards the roof.
‘Taylor?’ I call.
There is a pause, a beat of silence. My breath held. ‘What?’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ I snap. ‘Mum and Dad are going mental!’
She glances into the backyard. ‘I just needed to get out of that bloody cabin,’ she says. ‘It’s not my fault they went berserk.’
‘It’s completely your fault!’
Taylor shrugs. ‘Whatever. I’m going home.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Around. Stayed at a mate’s and then came here this morning.’
‘Taylor!’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t you going to say sorry?’
Taylor looks confused. ‘Why would I?’ she asks, and disappears out onto the street.
I follow her, jogging to keep up.
‘Taylor! Just stop for a second!’
Taylor stops so quickly that I run into the back of her and half fall over. ‘How’d you find me?’ she asks.
‘It’s where you always go when you’re not getting your way about something.’
She sags somewhat. ‘You know, every time I’ve gone up there, I’ve figured I could actually change something. Stop something.’
‘And?’
‘I never have.’ She starts walking again, more slowly this time. ‘I’ve never been able to change a single thing.’
***
Mum cries and Dad goes to sleep, and I lock myself in the bathroom and try not to get too angry at them.
Later, I sleep curled up in my corner of the bed, waking up every so often to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming of Taylor snoring next to me. Safe. She doesn’t sleepwalk and I’ve never been so thankful for anything in my life. I couldn’t stand the empty bed, not tonight.
The next morning, Mum talks too much and Taylor cries and tells us – in detail – about all the things she hates most about us.
My head aches. I walk down to the swollen river, which is now lapping at the bench. I pull out my phone and dial in a number I know by heart, even though I’ve only ever called it once.
‘Kelly? It’s Stella.’