Ben nodded his head in the direction of her house.
‘Nearly there.’
The smell of home baking teased Kara’s nostrils as they rounded the corner to her street. It smelt like chocolate orange muffins. Rosemary was baking. She hadn’t baked since the funeral. Kara, in her distracted state, let herself be led right to the front door. Instantly, she knew she’d made a mistake. Ben rang the doorbell.
Damn.
She scowled up at him. She should have rooted out her key from her satchel when they were at the street corner.
The door opened and Rosemary stood there, her apron flecked with white flour, a string of congealed cake mix stuck to her hair. She took one look at Kara and the blood drained quickly from her face leaving it porcelain pale.
‘What happened? Are you OK? I knew I should have come to collect you . . .’ Rosemary’s voice escalated an octave or two.
Kara needed to get rid of Ben. She and her stepmum were overdue a conversation. Kara opened her mouth to lie, but before she could get a word out Ben had launched into a rendition of events. She thought of stomping on his foot or barging in the door, closing it firmly on his face, anything to get him to shut up. Rosemary seemed to be getting paler by the minute. When he got to the part about her screaming, she shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
Why had she been screaming? The question ricocheted through her brain. She searched her memory of the journey home and couldn’t remember. She had been thinking about the accident, her heartbeat on that day and about the fact that it had stopped for a moment or two.
In effect she should be dead.
She looked at Ben and tried to establish a concrete emotion towards him. Did she like him? Did she lust after him? Did she even really know him? She shouldn’t be thinking of these things. He was with Ashleigh . . . not even interested in her.
What was that irritating noise? Thump, thump, thump. She switched her attention away from her thoughts and listened. It was the kid from two doors up, bouncing a ball against a wall.
She grimaced again, completely disregarding the conversation going on around her. There was nothing unusual about being capable of hearing that far . . . if she were an elephant.
She wouldn’t let go of the belief that she was normal, not just yet. She didn’t want to face the rising questions and the feeling of impending doom they brought with them, not just yet. Not just yet.
It looked as if Ben had finished his retelling of the evening’s events; he and Rosemary were looking at her anxiously.
‘What?’ she snapped. ‘I fainted. That’s all.’
She moved in a straight line through the front door and down the hall, not looking back. She didn’t even say thanks to Ben for walking her home. She was too annoyed. Why had Rosemary gone to school to tell everyone to stay away? Was she embarrassed?
Kara heard the click of the front door behind her and the soft footfalls of Rosemary as she moved along the hallway into the kitchen.
The countertop was covered in flour, the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. The smell of chocolate orange muffins enveloped her, so delicious. But Kara wasn’t interested.
She wanted to fight.
‘Are you –’ began Rosemary but Kara cut her off.
‘What the hell did you do? You went to my school and told my friends to leave me alone?’
‘Excuse me?’ Rosemary stood in the doorway, her floured hand on her hips.
‘You went to the principal. It’s because of you that no one came to see me? Because of you I have no friends!’ Kara knew that this was a slight exaggeration, but she didn’t care. She was saying the words loudly, on the cusp of a shout. She could feel the anger rolling inside her, stirring itself up. The heat of it was intoxicating.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I went to the school, yes, but the principal was busy. I didn’t speak to anyone. Only Ashleigh.’
‘Ashleigh?’
‘Yes, I met her outside the office. She kindly delivered a note to the principal for me.’
Kara walked to the countertop, leaning against it.
‘What is all this about, Kara?’ Rosemary went to the sink, stacking dishes ready to be washed. ‘Are you on drugs?’ She untied the strings of her apron, turning slowly. ‘I mean if you were on drugs then that would explain your behaviour these last eighteen months, even the . . .’ She stopped, her voice faltering.
‘Even the what?’ pressed Kara, knowing where this vein of conversation would lead.
‘Even the incident with the coroner’s report.’
‘That was not an incident, Rosemary.’ Kara laboured over her name, dragging the syllables out, one after the other. ‘That was me standing up for my father, challenging the lies in that report. But all you wanted to do was shut me up, have me fixed. You and that counsellor, convincing me that I was stupid, that I was just grieving. I should never have listened to you. Dad would never . . .’
‘Kara, please.’
‘No. Don’t you please me. You want to have this conversation now, after all this time? Fine.’ Kara stepped away from the counter, her voice shaking. ‘You never loved him. Not for one second.’
‘Stop it.’ Rosemary’s voice had taken on a steely undertone.
‘How could you love my dad if you believed what they said in that report? It was a lie. It was all lies. You gave up on him! You gave up on the truth.’
Rosemary’s shoulder sagged. ‘I don’t want to fight, Kara. I’m tired.’
‘Ya, well I’m pissed off!’
‘Kara!’
‘We could have found out what really happened. We could have got an answer, if only you hadn’t given up. The truth would have made things better.’ Her voice cracked.
‘Nothing can make things better. Patrick is dead. And he’s not coming back.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ said Kara, slumping against the countertop, the energy of her anger trickling away, leaving her empty.
A feeling of helplessness settled around her. There was nothing she could do. No appeal process, no reassessment. The verdict was final. She was alone in her belief and it was a cold, barren place to be.
Chapter Eleven
The bathroom mirror fogged with condensation. Kara wiped it with the edge of her towel. She had barely slept all night. There were so many things to think about, her elephant hearing and Superman vision for one. She boxed that away for contemplation later. She was good at that, compartmentalising things, like her grief, the pain of her recovery, weird medical side effects. It was kind of a skill, a high level of concentration.
The argument between her and Rosemary had rotated round and round in her head, keeping sleep at bay till the early hours of the morning.
Then there was the business with the announcement at assembly. Rosemary had given Ashleigh a note to deliver to the principal, a message detailing Kara’s recovery, asking for school work, talking about repeats and exam scheduling. Somewhere along the way the note seemed to morph into a request for solitude, for people to leave Kara alone.
Ashleigh Jameson forged her father’s signature on a regular basis, had no compunction about falsifying letters both to and from the school. Could she have substituted the note? Changed the content?
It would explain why Ben hadn’t come to visit, why the rest of her friends had given her a wide berth.