Into the Grey by Celine Kiernan

Author:Celine Kiernan [Kiernan, Celine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7409-0
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2011-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

We sat through the telly. We ate our dinner. Our father left us. All those things happened in neat little packages of time: one, then another, then another.

On his way out the door, Dad gave me a fierce hug. “Love you, bud,” he said, and I hung on to him for a fraction of a second after he tried to let go. He patted my back and clunked my forehead with his own. “Got to go, sonny boy.”

He turned to give Dom a hug and laughed in disbelief when Dom stuck his hand out instead. Dad shook hands with him, the corners of his mouth twitching. Then he pulled Dom into a hug anyway. Dom’s arms remained at his sides. Dad released him and grabbed Dom’s face between his hands, shaking it gently to and fro, looking into Dom’s eyes.

“Listen to me, bud,” he said. “You’re never too big to hug your old man.”

Later, in a phone call to Ma, Dad would mention the mysterious burns on the palms of his hands. He thought maybe one of the bleach barrels at work had sprung a leak; it was the only explanation he could come up with. No, he couldn’t remember exactly when he got them, but they hurt like blazes.

I helped carry his bag to the car, Dom trailing behind. It was beautiful outside, the air tinted a clear pink, scented with the outgoing tide. The sandy garden was cold under the bruised shadow of the house, but the car was still in sunshine. It threw the mellow gold of the late-evening sun back at us from a dozen gleaming points, and radiated a day’s worth of heat up from its metal body. I leant against it, soaking it up.

Dom stayed in the shadows, his face glimmering in the oncoming dusk. We watched as Dad put his things in the boot of the car.

“I’ll be back Friday, bud, OK?”

I nodded.

He waved at Dom. “See you, son.” Dom lifted his chin in good-bye. Dad’s hand lingered in the air, hurt finally showing through his amusement. “Well, OK then,” he said.

He tousled my hair and got into the car. I stood back as the engine coughed to life. He pulled out into the lane, his indicator tick-tocking. Then he was gone, and I was alone.

It felt like a hundred years since Dom and I had pimp-walked down the strand, singing and swatting at each other with sticks. A million years. A lifetime. But it had been yesterday. Yesterday morning, I’d had a brother. I’d had a best friend. He’d been fun. He’d been interesting: my slow-burn, articulate counterweight. Now I was lopsided, a boat with one paddle, rowing frantically and spinning in a slow, maddening circle around the space that should have been him.

“This was a beautiful garden once.”

I turned, glaring at him over the warm stones of the low wall. I couldn’t care less about his bloody garden. He gave me his speculative look and stepped uncertainly from the shadows. The light obviously bothered him, because he immediately shaded his eyes.

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