Read Online The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta - Free Book Online Page B

knew they’d get through the shitty part.”
    “But they didn’t,” he argues.
    “They’re not divorced, Tom. That marriage is not over.”
    “Georgie, they’ve been living apart for more than a year and we don’t have a clue where he is.”
    And there it is. A look that tells him everything and nothing. All of a sudden he’s pissed off. Not quite sure who with, but somehow Georgie gets in the way.
    “Where is he?”
    She sighs, getting up from her chair. “Let’s not do this now.”
    “You have no right to keep it from my mother. You’ve always thought you were more important than her when it comes to him, but you aren’t,” he says angrily.
    She stops walking. Can’t hide the hurt.
    “Where did that come from?” she asks angrily. “I would never keep anything about Dominic from your mother, and he would never be in contact with me before being in contact with her. Sisters and daughters come second in this family, Tom. They always have. So if you want to find out anything about your father, pick up the phone and speak to your mother.”
    “I didn’t mean to —”
    “Yes, you did,” she says, cutting him off. She’s crying and it makes him feel like a piece of shit.
    “Georgie, I’m sorry!” he shouts as she disappears inside, but all he hears is the sound of her footsteps and the slamming of her door.
    He goes for a walk and finds himself two blocks away in Temple Street, outside the house he grew up in. It’s a semi, much smaller than Georgie’s, with a tiny garden path and a bit of lawn and a border for planting roses. His father was a stickler for keeping it perfect. At the moment, they rent it out and everything’s dead.
    It’s a bad place for memories. Some of the best moments of his life happened here and some of the worst. It’s where his father broke the news that Joe was probably dead. Tom remembers Dominic standing on this very veranda, waiting for him, saying, “Tom . . . Oh, God, Tom.”
    He crouches down to where a dead stem is buried in cracked dirt and crumbles the soil inside his fist.
    “I called police!” He hears a voice from next door.
    He peers around the hedge and smiles. The light’s on and he can see their tiny neighbor, clutching her quilted dressing gown around her.
    “Hey, Mrs. Liu. It’s me, Thomas. Thomas Mackee.”
    Her face registers shock and then joy. “
Oh.
Oh. Thomas. Very sorry.”
    She steps onto the lawn, and he climbs over the hedge and into hergarden, bobbing down to kiss her cheek. When he was at school, she used to walk up the main drag of Stanmore with a white mask over her mouth as if the SARS virus was in the neighborhood. Sometimes his father would have to go up to the shops with her to translate. It’s not as if Dominic knew how to speak Mandarin, but somehow both Mrs. Liu and the person behind the counter seemed happier when his dad was patiently repeating what the other had to say.
    Tom answers the questions about his mum and Anabel, and when she asks after his father, he tells her the truth and says he has no idea where he is. Then she invites him in and he wants to say yes, so that he can see his family’s kitchen from her living room. But he can’t stand the idea of seeing another Tom sitting at the table. Another Anabel resting her face in her hands, elbows on the table, grinning. Another Jacinta and Dominic doing the sums about whether they could afford a new fridge. People spoke within the walls of their home. His parents genuinely liked each other. They liked their kids. Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.
    “When Jacinta and Dominic come home, Tom?” Mrs. Liu asks, tears in her eyes. “People in your house,” she continues, leaning forward to whisper.
“Dirty. Very dirty.”
    That was another thing his father didn’t take into account when he allowed everything to fall apart. That neighbors like Mrs. Liu were left lonely, living next door to dirty people.
    They talk for a