Selling the Drama (40 page)

"They died a long time ago." He wondered if
that would be enough.

"What from?"

Apparently not. "An accident." Not entirely
untrue.

"Like yours with the car?"

"Nothing like mine."

"What like then?"

Toby could not help but grin at Ashley's
persistence. He was too much like him. "Just a different sort. It's
a bit hard to explain."

"So, no cars?"

"There was a car. But…look, it's not
something I can explain to you. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you
about it."

His eyes widened at that. "Oh." Biting his
lip once more, Ashley sat quietly, seeming to consider the concept
of an accident so bad that his father could not even articulate the
details to him. "Do you miss them?" he asked eventually.

Toby pondered this, searching his mind for
an answer that would suffice. He did not want to lie to his son,
but if he said yes, that could open up a new line of questioning,
just as saying no would. "I miss that my mum never got to meet any
of you. I think she would have really liked Mummy and she would
have loved all of you a lot."

"Do you have a picture of them?"

"I have a couple."

"Do you have any of their stuff?"

Toby frowned at that. "What sort of
stuff?"

"You know, like keepsakes or something.
Ralphy has this old pocket watch that was his grandpa's. His
grandpa is dead now, so he likes to carry it around and show
people, telling them it's a keepsake." Ashley swung his legs,
kicking at the railing while he looked up at Toby,
questioningly.

Toby exhaled. "I don't have anything that
belonged to my father. I have some jewellery though, that belonged
to my mother. That's all." He had not pulled it out in the longest
time. It was stuffed into small flat box, buried within the
wardrobe. He had considered showing it all to Charlotte once, but
he became so overwhelmed by the sight of the jewellery, so
assaulted by memories, not just of that long ago day when he'd
meticulously removed it all from his mother, but of all the others
that had preceded it, for years and years; so he had simply shut
the box and pushed it to the back of the wardrobe, never opening it
again, merely shifting it from place to place on occasion.

"Does Mummy have the jewellery?"

"No. I don't want Mummy to have it. It's
not…" Toby paused, stuck for the right words. Shit. "That
jewellery, it wasn't nice jewellery. I never liked it. I would only
give Mummy something that was really nice. That I liked." That did
not give him nightmares each time he saw it. Swallowing deeply, he
forced a smile onto Ashley, deeply disturbed by how uncomfortable
this entire turn in the conversation was making him feel.

"Why keep it if you don't like it?"

A good question, the answer to which Toby
had never really taken the time to examine with any depth. Looking
at Ashley, taking in his innocent curiosity, he decided to just
keep it simple. "I think I've kept it because no matter how much I
don't like it, it was all important to my mother. She liked it all
very much." And that was a really sad truth to acknowledge, because
she had adored the jewellery his father had pressed onto her, the
consideration that they were forms of payment for injuries incurred
only harboured by Toby, it would seem. She wore many pieces of it,
every day, flaunting her husband's generosity, hiding the bruises
as best she could, hiding from public when she was unable to
disguise them, feigning illnesses when people asked her why she had
not been out for so long, lying to protect him, always lying,
lying, lying. To protect a man who had treated her worse than an
animal. A man who did not ever once show her any mercy, despite her
begging, despite her screams.

Toby closed his eyes and brought his hands
up to his face, breathing shallowly, attempting to hide his misery
from his son. Time never really dulled the horrific. What was bad
then was still bad now; time did not lessen. In some ways, as you
got older and time passed on, the memories had the ability to make
you feel worse, the acknowledgement of the wrongness of it all now
viewed with an adult's clarity. Pulling his hands away from his
face, opening his eyes to look at Ashley, he decided to put an end
to the questions about his parents.

"How about you get ready for a swim before
Mummy gets home with Bree and Courtney? I'll get in with you," Toby
offered. Swimming was good for increasing his strength to his left
side, and while he was unable to keep his prosthesis on while in
the pool, the stump was less exposed below the water.

Ashley's face lit up and he took off, racing
to get ready for their swim. Toby sank back into the seat, closing
his eyes once more, feeling as though he had been drained of all
energy. He thought about his mother, as she had been, separate from
his father and her constant injuries, the way she was when she was
only his mother and nothing else. And he realised, for the first
time since that fateful day, that he did indeed miss her. He missed
all that she had been cheated out of, and correspondingly, all that
he had never had with her on account of it.

Charlotte glanced from her mother to Toby,
then back to her mother again. Iris looked as calm as can be, while
Toby, well, Toby looked fit to explode.

"It's my house," Iris stated, an air of
superiority about her that Charlotte knew would just rile Toby up
even further. "They'll be in the shed. You won't even notice
them."

Toby snorted at that, a sound of disgust
that went well with the derisive shake of his head. "You think?" He
leaned forward, slapping his hands onto the table with a force that
startled Charlotte and seemed to break Iris out of her cool
reserve. "Seeing them, is not the issue!" he seethed.

"Then what's the problem?" Iris cried out.
"I thought you liked Chad! Jenna has her moments, but I never
thought you had a problem with her!"

Toby frowned at Iris. He stepped back from
the table and put his hands onto his hips, and Charlotte could see
how hard he was working to control his temper. When he had come to
her and asked if she knew about her mother letting Chad and Jenna
move into the shed, she could not have been more surprised. It was
the first she had heard of the notion. Why would anyone want to
live in a shed in far north Queensland, for a start, and why her
mother would want Jenna around permanently when they fought so
often, was a close second in the range of thoughts that burst into
her mind as Toby paced before her ranting about her mother's
underhanded duplicity. He had quickly deduced that she knew nothing
about any of it, and moved onto hunting down Iris for some
answers.

It seemed apparent, that this plan had been
underfoot for some weeks, with the renovations already planned and
scheduled. The shed was to be turned into a flat, something Iris
was financing, and something Toby was dead against.

"The problem isn't about whether or not I
like them. I like a lot of people, but that doesn't mean I want to
support them," Toby bit out.

Charlotte looked at him and she could see it
then, the root of his concerns. Chad could not work, Jenna would
soon be too pregnant to want to, not that she even had a job here
anyway, so she would be looking for only temporary employment if
she even did get out and look, which so far, she had not been
showing signs of doing. Toby had always maintained he was happy to
float Iris; they lived in her house rent free and she helped them
enormously with childcare. At the moment, what Charlotte made at
the gym she was largely putting back into it, paying off the
investment of the refit. Which left Toby's income as the sole one.
And while it was a good income, that was not the point. It was not
his role to support her entire family, including all of its
extended members. Yet, while acknowledging this, Charlotte was
unsure about what a possible solution might be.

Iris rose to her feet. "I will support them.
Chad gets a bit from his disability pension and Jenna should get a
baby allowance-"

"Welfare?" Toby spat out, over riding Iris.
He shook his head. "No. I'm not doing this."

"Doing what?" Iris demanded. "This is my
house! I have final say over who lives-"

"We'll move out."

Charlotte gasped, turning to face Toby.
"What?!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Iris berated,
pointing at Toby with a shaking head and a very concerned
expression upon her face.

Charlotte searched Toby's face, but he
refused to meet her eyes for more than a moment and he was giving
nothing away through his expression. As she stared at him, she
waited for the panic to set in. How would she look after all of the
children and still work without having her mother on hand? How
would she manage the evenings without being able to come home to an
already cooked meal? How would she juggle all of the laundry
without her mother hanging out the loads she put on before she left
for work?

She waited, and waited, for that panic to
invade her so she could tell Toby to stop, they were not leaving,
to not even think about it; but it never came. Something else was
there in its place, forming and taking shape within, and she
quickly recognised it as excitement. A place of their own again,
but this time, a proper place, a house, just for them and their
family, where the children did not have to share two rooms and she
and Toby could do whatever they wanted whenever they felt like it
with no explanations to anyone at all.

Turning from Toby to face her mother, she
looked at her carefully before crossing the kitchen to put her arms
around her, hugging her hard, all of the many things she had done
for them to make their lives easier over the years converging into
one grateful embrace. "It's the right time, Mum. Let Chad and Jenna
live here in the house and we'll live in our own. It's their turn
to have you help them. We love you so much, and we're so grateful
for all that you've done for us, but it's the right time."

Releasing her stunned mother, Charlotte
turned back to face Toby, an excited grin spreading over her face.
He raised his eyebrow at her, a question, and she nodded. He nodded
back and she could see the tension leave him, right before her
eyes, as they decided on the spot that this was the next step in
their future. It was the right time, and without even having
previously thought about it or voicing it to each other, they both
knew without a doubt that it was what they both wanted more than
anything else.

They bought a spec home in the end, wanting
something new but not willing to wait the time it would take for
something to be built from scratch. Toby wanted a house that would
require little maintenance, no stairs, a pool, and
air-conditioning. He was sick to death of being hot all the time
and the humidity tended to cause an increased friction between his
leg and the prosthesis. At least at home now, he might be able to
get some relief. The children were wildly excited, except for
Danielle who was too young, but the others were more than making up
for her. Bree and Ashley were going to have their own rooms, and
they were both chomping at the bit to get into them.

"We have to buy so much stuff," Charlotte
moaned, sitting in the middle of the empty family room on the bare
tiles. "Not just furniture, but everything else too!"

Danielle was lying on a small quilt on the
floor beside her, rolling from side to side, babbling around her
fist. Charlotte looked at her with a smile, reaching out with a
finger for Danielle to latch onto. Toby reached down to pick up
Courtney, the strain of something so simple lessening more and more
as the weeks passed by. He could even hold her now and bear weight
on his prosthesis at the same time without causing too much stress
on his own leg at the point where it all connected. He was yet to
trial running, figuring that was something he should hold off on
doing at present in case he caused himself any damage that needed
recovery time. They were able to move into the house anytime from
today, having effectively taken ownership just that morning. There
was a lot that needed doing, so being laid up and unable to put his
leg on just because he wanted to start running again did not seem
like such a bright idea. He did miss going for a run though. It was
a time when he could just blank his mind from everything for twenty
minutes, just breathe and run, nothing more, nothing less, no one
to answer to, no problems to fix.

"We can go shopping anytime. We actually
should go today and order furniture. You were supposed to go
earlier," he chastised lightly.

Charlotte shrugged. "I know. Alright, we
should do that now." She got to her feet, stretching out the kinks
from sitting cross legged on the floor. "We should drop the kids
back at Mum's."

Toby shook his head. "We'll take them with
us."

"That will be insane!" Charlotte
protested.

"We need to look after them ourselves more.
Besides, Ashley and Bree can pick out their beds. Even Courtney
might like to have a say." He looked down at the little face
resting against his shoulder. Giving her a bit of a jig, he said,
"Hey, baby cakes, you want to pick out your own bed?" She looked up
at him with a smile, nodding. "See," he pointed out to Charlotte.
"They have to come."

"You can't avoid Mum forever." Charlotte
gave him a very pointed glance.

"I'm not avoiding her!" Toby protested. "I
live with her. I eat at the same table as her."

Charlotte just rolled her eyes, gathering up
Danielle and her quilt. "Ashley! Bree! Come on, Daddy wants to go
shopping!" Turning back to Toby, she pointed at him. "I still need
her to babysit these two every day, so make it right!"

"She's the one who isn't talking to me."

Iris had not yet come to see the new house.
She had told Charlotte it was too far away - ten minutes by car -
and that she was not especially interested in new homes. Old ones
had more character. When Toby had tried to talk to her about the
move, to explain once again why it would be good for everyone, she
had thrown a mighty fit at him, accusing him of stealing her
grandchildren from her and spoiling the family dynamics because he
was too selfish to show a bit of charity towards his own flesh and
blood. Toby had been far too weary of the whole episode to point
out that all the members of this family who were his own flesh and
blood were actually coming with him, and that he was almost
entirely certain that staying all together under the one roof would
have been a sure way of ruining the family dynamics. Instead of
pointing these things out though, he merely told her to stop trying
to manipulate everyone. Since then, she had been blatantly ignoring
him.