Bunny by S. E. Tolsen

Author:S. E. Tolsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2023-05-18T03:34:48+00:00

As he and Goob descend the stairs, Silas is in the best mood he’s been in since the incident at the lake. That comes to an abrupt halt when he sees downstairs washed in gloom; the only light source is a weak orange glow from the corner of the kitchen counter where Lou Lou sits, moribund in its halo.

Hmm, she must have got the memo about my influx of positivity. Silas can read the scene from the way her shoulders hunch and how her elbows rest on the table. The shoe box of old pictures and the large wine glass with multiple lipstick imprints around the rim, act as sufficient supporting evidence. The shoe box is a sarcophagus for her wedding pictures and (after the divorce) any picture that contained his father. She visited the box two or three times a year to tear the healing scabs off and make the wounds bleed again. From what he figured, in her eyes, if the wounds were still bleeding, then the drinking was justified. And so, over the years, out came the box periodically like a masochist boomerang.

No chance of any drama-free sandwich-making now.

Her watery eyes drift to his feet, then climb to his face. ‘Hello, son.’

Silas tries to maintain the pretence of ignorance as he slips past her into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Mom. Uh, Bunny home?’

‘I don’t know.’ Lou Lou always sprinkles strange and unnecessary inflections into her speech when she drinks. ‘I haven’t seen her this evening. I think I saw her this morning but it’s hard to tell sometimes. She’s so quiet. Poor thing. She’s waiting for God now, my son.’

Silas notices that both doors are ajar – usually a telltale sign that Bunny is out. He gathers sandwich accoutrements in an attempt to multi-task as the well-worn drinking conversation topic unfolds with the familiarity of a used summer chair unpacked after a hard winter.

‘Yup. She leaves the doors open all the time. Given up trying to close ’em,’ Silas says without any attempt to hide his exhaustion with the dilemma.

‘You know I tried to help her, don’t you, son?’

‘With what?’ Feign ignorance. Ask questions. Keep her talking till you can finish the food and leave. He drops a slice of bologna to a waiting Goober – who has strategically manoeuvred himself below the counter.

‘The drink. She was okay for a while. I think. But over the years, it just got worse and . . . worse,’ Lou Lou says as she pushes herself up off her elbows and stands haughtily.

Oh Jesus, strap yourself in. ‘Uh-huh. Yeah.’

‘It was harder to . . . support her after she moved out to the boathouse.’ Lou Lou drifts closer, leaning on the edge of the counter. ‘You know, I had hoped the solitude was helping her, but I think it made it worse. She needed the structure of being together in the house. Together . . .’

Lady, structure with you is like the structure of a burned-out building after a fucking fire guts it; you two are the Twin Towers of sisterhood, he thinks.

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