Elle absently watches the name James flash across her screen as the phone rattles and jumps along the kitchen bench, screeching and demanding. She inhales deeply through her pursed lips and turns the phone over facedown with one hand while the other continues stirring the pot of bolognese bubbling on the stove. Elle tries to ignore the image her mind conjures of her brother pressing the red button on his Samsung, swearing out loud when she doesn’t answer, James’s lanky body hunching over a coffee table laden with an overflowing ashtray, a broken ice pipe, lighters, and crinkled porn magazines, overgrown fingernails hastily rolling a cigarette, his dark algae eyes darting around a dull room filled with smoke, reeking of spilt rum, spit, and dirty socks. Elle watches him from the shadows of her imagination; he is twitching, his knee bouncing frantically. In her cabinet of memories, she hears James call her name.

She shrugs away the illusion, shudders, and spies the split second Asher reaches up to the bowl of grated cheese, catching the lip with his grubby fingers. The bowl somersaults to the kitchen floor, a confetti of cheese scattered around their feet.

“Asher!” Elle scolds, her tone more aggressive than she intended. Her brother’s imposition on her quiet home life rattles her more these days than ever before. Asher is blissfully ignorant of his mum’s tone. His eighteen months of life have yet to teach him about other people’s emotions, and he happily scoops up strands of cheese, his blonde head bobbing between Elle’s shins and the cupboard drawer. Elle makes a mental note that she needs to wipe down the cupboards after dinner tonight and then acknowledges how she would rather watch Netflix and instead convinces herself that she will clean the cupboards at least before the weekend. Definitely before Sunday night when Mum arrives.

***

It’s dark in the cupboard and Ellie has her delicate hands folded over her body. Her breath is loud and quick. She is tucked between some clothes hanging from the bar above her head. She can see light filtering in between the slats in the old timber frame. With her knees pressed up against her chin, she can hear his voice outside. Loud laughter. A cuss word she knows she must not use. A question she does not answer. The silhouette looms closer. Elle’s small frame sinks deeper between the clothes, even though he knows she is in there. This is a game they play. Ellie does not like this game. She feels nervous and vulnerable but is too young to know these words yet. This is a game her brother plays when her mum goes out. Elle wishes he would let her leave her clothes on when he tells her to get into the closet.

***

Elle awakes to the flashing light of her phone insisting she open her eyes and reads the message from Lily, James’s girlfriend.

Sorry to contact you so late at night, but I finally heard from James. Call me when you wake up.

Elle looks at the time: 4:27 am. It’s the middle of winter and the fire has gone out. Her arms bristle against the cold. Elle sighs and heaves the doona over her body, wrestling her head into her pillow. She breathes in heavily, wondering if she can hear Asher snoring from the room next door. Satisfied he isn’t waking, Elle allows her mind to wander. She wonders what Lily will tell her— is her brother alive and well? Is he cooped up in a drug den in Washington? Is he cold and wet on the Appalachian trail? Where is he?

There is no more sleep. Elle reluctantly—and a little resentfully—drags herself from bed at 5:15 am when she hears Asher calling from his cot—“Maamaa, Maamaa-aa”—and together they commence the morning routine. Boob, nappy, grown-up toilet, prep for breakfast.

At 6:37 am, Elle’s phone vibrates across the dining table. It’s Lily. Could she not wait for Elle to make the call? It must be important. But isn’t it always? Elle sighs and sips her hot broth, pushing toast closer to Asher’s disinterested clapping hands.

Elle remembers when she first met Lily, at Christmas a couple of years ago. Of course, James had been raving about this “angel” and “soul mate” with a clover tattoo, sent to guide him through these “dark, dark days.” James talked about Lily as though she knew all about his deepest demons and the precise way to soothe his nightmares, and she still loved him unconditionally. Elle imagined Lily to be strong-headed and steadfast in her convictions—religious, maybe. But Elle wasn’t quite prepared for the whimsical, twenty-something waif who glided through her front door on that hot and stuffy Christmas Eve wearing a crocheted bra and a long cheesecloth skirt. Lily’s thin blonde hair fell limply around her shoulders, collarbone catching the stringy strands. Elle’s impulse was to scream at Lily to stop loving her brother, to tell her to run, run far away. But instead, Elle met Lily with a warm embrace, pulling her close and smelling coconut, lavender, and tobacco smoke.

Asher is still clapping his hands when Elle finally taps the green icon on the phone screen to answer Lily’s call. Shhh, she mimes. Clap, clap, clap, flaps Asher.

“Hi, Lily.” Elle forces a smile as though this is a regular tellme-how-amazing-your-holiday-has-been kind of call.

“Hey, Elle.” Lily doesn’t force a thing. Naturally effortless. Lily takes a deep breath. Her words are slow and calculated, rehearsed, but nerves—or worry—hinder the delivery.

“So, I woke up to a message from James. He … He … I don’t think he is well. In the message he was, like, saying he had no shoes, no phone, no meds, no cards, and um, he was yelling at people.” Lily’s thin voice tapers at the end.

“Okay. What was he saying?” Elle sips her bone broth, licks her lips, and crosses her legs.

“Um, he was ranting. You know. Saying he would kill someone.”

“Oh.” Elle stands up, lifts Asher out of his highchair, and puts him onto the floor, where he runs free into the living room, a trail of crumbs falling in his wake.

Lily continues, “I’m not sure, but I think he needs help. Like a doctor. Or hospital. Or something.”

“Hmm. Yeah, sounds like it.” Elle looks at the clock on the wall and listens to the tick tick. Asher’s vroom vroom in the room next door. The chickens’ cluck cluck outside.

Eventually, Lily speaks again. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know …”

Elle hears Lily shuffling, moving and twisting her body in that grotesquely beautiful way.

“Yeah. Thanks, Lily. I guess I can call the consulate, maybe the DVA, see what I can do. But right now, I need to get Asher dressed and off to day care.”

“Aw, yeah, totally. Okay. Um, yeah, so just let me know how you go.” Lily’s tone is the most energetic it has been during the whole conversation. Elle feels a slight pang of remorse.

“Well, try not to worry,” she offers. “But thanks for letting me know. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay. Thanks, Ez. Hey—” Lily starts, then pauses. Elle scoops Asher up into her arms and smiles at him. He pushes his face into hers and lets a loud “wooooow” escape his little cherry-pip mouth.

“You know, I really do love him. I just want him home. After everything that has happened, I just need him back here in Australia.” Lily sniffs into the phone. Elle’s lips purse and her eyes glance up at the ceiling, but she responds with as much compassion as she can muster.

“Yeah. Me, too, Lil. Me, too.” Somewhere, buried beneath years of burden, stress and thankless support, Elle nearly means what she says.

***

Later that day, Elle is watching Asher play in the sandpit. He has found a pool of water in the old sink that was placed under the frangipani tree earlier in the season by his dad, Bryce. Asher’s khaki pants are soaked up to his knees, evidence of how he climbed into the sink and sat for a confused moment, baffled by the encroaching coolness up his legs. Asher rolls out of the sink and back into the sand, looking like a crumbed calamari tentacle wriggling on the sand. Asher squeals with excitement as he throws a cardboard toilet paper roll into the sink and watches it darken and then disappear under water. Where did he get that from? Elle muses over its origin.

As she sits on the verandah in a rickety and slightly mouldy wooden garden chair, Elle looks across at the garden of salad greens and grape vines. Her appreciation for Bryce surges in a wave that she rarely feels these days. Her husband is a hard worker and has invested endless after-hours into generating the once grass-only James & Elle 6 garden to become a sustainable and kid-friendly space. The sand pit, the climbing frame around the frangipani tree, the sandstone path that curls around the pawpaw trunk, the pond with terrified tadpoles and a collection of trucks and spoons sunk to the bottom. Asher loves accumulating insects and he has not yet learnt to stop picking the tadpoles out of their watery oasis. Elle is often pinching the wriggling amphibians and plopping them back into the bucket. Bryce’s passion for permaculture had inspired and motivated Elle to research, cook, and explore food in a way she hadn’t before. Elle has fed from his knowledge, learning how to preserve, ferment, and dehydrate herbs, fruits and vegetables. Bryce works tirelessly on growing food while Elle works tirelessly in the kitchen. As an adult, Elle had achieved the simple life she always wanted, far from the chaos and drama of her childhood, adolescence, and twenties. Now, nearing forty, Elle has finally found pockets of calmness.

Until, of course, James needed her.