Broken Brothers by McKelvie Peter

Author:McKelvie, Peter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2023-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Alex opened the garden gate at his mother’s house and strolled up the path. He could hear voices and he stopped in his tracks. He looked at his watch. It was 10:15 am. He’d agreed to come around for morning tea at 10:30. It was another quiet day at McKenzie Transport. He had a short run up to Tumut in the afternoon and that was it. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up if there wasn’t some sort of rebound in his business. It’d been a month, and the reality was, he knew it might take months, or even years to recover from the rumours of him attacking Sheryl. If nothing changed soon, he would struggle to make payments to the bank, and that would mean either selling or moving town, and quickly. It would need to be somewhere far away where no one knew him or cared about the stupid story. He looked up as he heard the voices again. He thought about turning around and getting back in his car, rather than facing another uncomfortable conversation with a local, whoever it was that was visiting his mum. Typically, these unplanned meetings with locals made the other people as uncomfortable as him. He turned around and looked longingly at his car.

‘Alex,’ his mother, Lorraine called out from the verandah, high up in the garden above him. ‘What are you doing? Come on, come up. Laura’s mum and dad are here.’

‘Shit,’ Alex mumbled to himself. He’d always been very fond of Laura’s parents, and they’d all gotten along well when he and Laura were boyfriend and girlfriend. However, he’d withdrawn from them when Laura broke up with him and soon after began going out with Chris. As much as he was heartbroken, he’d been completely humiliated. He’d never understood why she’d dumped him, and so emphatically for Chris.

As Alex walked up the steps to the verandah, he heard Laura’s father, Gordon, coming along, and he looked up to see him, hand thrust out, preparing for a handshake from six feet away. It was such a relief for Alex to know that they either hadn’t heard the rumours, which was not likely, or they didn’t believe them. If he knew Gordon and Joy, then most likely, it was the latter.

‘G’day Alex.’

‘Gordon, how’re you going?’

‘Alright, you?’ Gordon asked, looking closely at Alex.

‘Well, you know how it is.’

‘I’ve heard,’ Gordon said with a sigh.

‘Who hasn’t?’ Alex replied sarcastically.

‘Well, if it means anything to you, both Joy and I know it’s a great load of horse shit.’

‘Thanks, mate. It is horse shit, and it does mean a lot to me.’

‘Bloody Sheryl Palmer, what a piece of work she is. Come and see Joy. She’s looking forwards to catching up with you.’

‘I didn’t know you were coming for a cuppa this morning.’

‘Neither did I.’ Gordon laughed. ‘We finished shopping, and Joy said she wanted to say hello to Lorraine. So Lorraine didn’t know either. Hope you don’t mind us butting in on your catch-up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.