‘Maybe. Let’s get her kennel up and let her adjust outside while we have dinner,’ Cait said, then walked back into the kitchen as Jack gently tugged onto Mitzi’s collar.
For a moment, Maia and I were left alone in the hallway. I knew I had to take my shot and see if she could really see me.
‘Hey, kid?’ I whispered, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she skipped off to join her mum back in the kitchen.
Had I imagined her smiling at me?
I walked into the living room which seemed like a completely different room compared to what it had once been before. One thing that I was beginning to notice was that this family hated any colour. The walls had been stripped of its green floral wallpaper and had been painted over in white. The sofa was large and grey, and the rug under their glass coffee table was also grey. Above the white fireplace was a huge black picture. They had even managed to make my piano seem blacker. Apart from the colourful glass figurines Cait had displayed on the fireplace, you’d think you had become colour blind walking into the room.
As I stood beside the fireplace, staring at one butterfly figurines, I wondered if Maia really had seen me until I remembered the new energy I had felt. I needed to know if it was real, and there was only one way to find out. I raised my hand in front of me and quickly, swiped at one of the butterflies, watching as it made contact with the colourful glass before tumbling to the floor. In seconds, it was completely shattered into tiny pieces as Jack walked into the room, staring down at the glass beside me.
‘Jack, can you get the boys, I am just dishing up,’ Cait shouted from the kitchen as he bent down, carefully picking up each piece of glass.
‘Just a second,’ he called back before throwing his collection into one of the full black bags in the corner of the room. He stood staring at the fireplace for a moment with a frown before looking around the room. There was something off with him, I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
‘Sweetie, you’ve put too many plates out,’ Cait said to Maia as I left Jack staring at the fireplace. ‘There are only five of us.’
I watched as Maia shook her head. ‘No, there are six.’
‘Ok, how about we count everyone together?’ Cait smiled, bending down in front of her to hold out a finger for each person she named. ‘There’s you, me, Daddy, Theo, and Finn.’ She finished with her hand stretched out before Maia, who pulled at her mum’s other hand and pushed one finger up.
‘You forgot the girl,’ she said, so casually that I almost didn’t realise she was talking about me.
‘You can see me,’ I said slightly boosted by the fear Cait had suddenly felt. She looked around the room before looking back at Maia with concerned eyes.
‘What girl, sweetie?’
‘I don’t know her name, but I think she lives here,’ Maia replied as she played with her fork.
‘Oh, she does? Where is she now?’ Cait asked, trying her hardest to keep smiling.
Maia looked up and pointed right at me. ‘She’s there.’
I couldn’t help but laugh as Cait’s jaw almost dropped to the floor. She couldn’t see me, of course—strangely, it was just the kid that could—but it had made my job tonight much easier now that Cait was already spooked.
‘Right, well, why don’t you go wash up for dinner?’ Cait said before walking off into the kitchen, and Maia bounced off upstairs.
The kid was growing on me.
I was about to follow her upstairs when Jack walked into the room and placed a kiss on Cait’s cheek.
‘Everything ok? Dinner smells great,’ he said. She barely noticed him.
‘Look at the table,’ she finally said, and he did.
‘Are we expecting someone?’ he said turning to the dining room, putting his back to me.
‘Well according to Maia we are. She seems to think we have a girl living with us.’
‘Oh.’ He had taken too long to respond. ‘She’s a child with a big imagination. I am surprised she hasn’t had an imaginary friend before this,’ he said sounding more relaxed as he grabbed a beer from the new fridge.
‘Hmm…I don’t know Jack, that’s very unlike her. What if there’s something here? It was abandoned for such a long time after all.’
‘Cait,’ Jack said a little louder than expected. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. You sound as mature as Maia.’
Cait stood frozen for a moment before she opened her mouth. ‘Boys,’ she said as both Theo and Finn arrived in the kitchen with wary eyes. ‘Good timing, I am just about to dish up dinner.’ She kept her usual smile plastered on her face before she slid past Jack with a dish of some sort of stew. Pausing for a moment, she tiptoed to his ear and whispered loud enough for only him and I to hear. ‘Don’t you dare ever speak to me like that again.’
I couldn’t help myself but smile at Jack’s scorned face.
‘Why are there six plates?’ Theo asked with cheeks stuffed with bread.
‘Maia has an imaginary friend,’ Jack answered before Cait could.
‘She’s not imaginary. She’s right there,’ Maia said before all eyes were on me but only seeing another freshly painted white wall.
‘Maia, enough of this. There’s no one there. Now eat your dinner or no iPad tonight,’ Jack said sternly, and they all finished their meals in silence.
4
Finn
Dad had finished eating first, and once he had left the table to dump his plate in the sink, we all began to relax. Ever since I could remember, Dad had never been the paternal type. Being a dad just never seemed to suit him, despite his best efforts. It was easier for all of us if he was just called into action when a ‘bad cop’ was needed. His rough voice could scare you from a distance once he started to yell. Being a dad was easiest for him when he had something that he could relate to you with. Theo had football, and Dad loved football. They could talk for hours about it, and Dad would always attend Theo’s matches. Maia had it easiest. She was the ‘apple of his eye’ as Mum would say. There had been a time when I had gotten on well enough with him, and he had cheered me on at my races, but all that was over the minute I gave it up. Now we had nothing in common. There was nothing he could talk to me about anymore, no matter how many times we both tried.
I didn’t talk to him or any of the others again that evening, though that wasn’t unusual. Unless forced otherwise, I spent every evening after dinner in my bedroom. It was bad enough having to pretend like we all enjoyed each other’s company around the dinner table every day, let alone spend an entire evening together. Any longer than an hour and the cracks of our family would begin to show. I wasn’t stupid though, I knew I was the biggest crack. If I wasn’t being yelled at by my dad then I was arguing with Theo while Mum constantly sighed in the background trying to remain ‘Switzerland’. It was easiest if I stayed away. They’d usually sit in front of the TV after dinner, talking about their day or whatever was on TV while I played a game on my PlayStation or listened to music. Sometimes, I would stand at the top of the stairs wanting to go down and join them, but I could never take the steps forward. Instead, I would just listen to them laughing and joking— they never wondered where I was or if I wanted to join them. I knew how much easier it would have been for them if I had been more like Theo. Everything he did just seemed to be ‘right’. He never had to try and make friends in school, they just naturally gravitated towards him. He never played sports religiously as a child and yet, the minute he began football, he was incredible at it. It didn’t help that he also had seemed to grow into his body and become a person someone either fancied or wanted to look like. I, on the other hand, had just grown tall. The rest of me hadn’t quite filled out and so I just hung awkwardly beneath the bagginess of my clothes. People didn’t want to be my friend, even with Theo as my brother. They just avoided me and over time, I had become the weird loner kid that no one wanted to be associated with. A new town to live in should be a good thing, with a new school and new people, but none of that matters when you are still you. I was never going to be a ‘Theo,’ I was always going to be a ‘Finn’, and there just didn’t seem to be any room for me in this family.