Dear Charlie. N.D. Gomes

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      ‘We’re having an open house for prospective buyers today.’

      ‘You never told me that,’ my mum said, turning around to face him. My dad ignored her and continued making his coffee. ‘Dan? You never told me.’ Her voice was getting louder, more desperate.

      ‘What does it matter?’

      ‘I just didn’t think we were in a rush to sell?’

      ‘Of course we are. We can’t stay here. Do you know I got my headlights smashed out again?’

      ‘Why don’t you park in the garage then?’ I shrugged, sliding a cup towards my dad for him to fill with strong black coffee. He ignored me.

      ‘I’m not ready to sell, Dan,’ my mum blurted out suddenly.

      So much for my normal Sunday morning. I braced myself for my dad’s response, moving my empty coffee mug out of the line of fire.

      ‘I’m not getting into this right now.’

      ‘You’re not listening. I’m not ready,’ she said again.

      ‘The sign’s been up for weeks! And now you tell me?’

      ‘I didn’t think we’d have any interest this soon. I thought because of the journalists still outside that it would take months, maybe even a year? I thought we had more time here.’

      ‘Well, we do have interest. Two people have already contacted the agent.’

      ‘So cancel!’

      ‘We’re having the open house today. I’m not cancelling. And that’s the end of it.’

      ‘And what about me?’ she cried.

      ‘For once, let’s not make this about you,’ he snapped, slamming down his coffee cup. Drops of black liquid seeped over the edge and trickled down the cup, forming a circle on the tile. After he went into the garage and Mum stormed upstairs, slamming the door behind her, I cleaned up the coffee with a dampened rag by the sink, worried that it would stain.

      Quickly showering and throwing on some jeans, I packed a bag with textbooks and a notepad and jogged to the bus stop. But instead of taking bus 09 to Knightsbridge town centre for the library, I took bus 11 to Priory Road in Pembrook, where the town’s cemetery was located.

      When I got off the bus, a dark gloomy cloud hung in the sky and seemed to follow me overhead. I hadn’t worn my raincoat, but whether it rained or not was the furthest thought from my mind. A path snaked around the cemetery and eventually led to the back section where a dozen new graves sat. Slowly making my way from one to the other, I read each headstone carefully, absorbing the names, the birthdates, the messages from their loved ones. Too many deaths. Too much loss. Mr Healey, Gregory, Mr Smith, Nick, David M., David R., Stephen, Laura, Michael, Cara, Geoff, Andrew, Robert, Joseph. There they all were, six feet underground, beneath the soles of my shoes as if they’d never existed at all. It was like their voices had never carried in the hallways, as if their laughter hadn’t filled the classrooms. But they had existed. I had seen them. I had heard them. And now they were reduced to merely bones and decaying flesh.

      I hadn’t thought much about the afterlife before that morning in June. The theory of heaven and hell isn’t exactly a popular discussion topic for teenagers. When you’re sixteen years old, death isn’t a possibility. It’s a story that you read about in the news, a sadness that spreads through hospitals, a tragedy that frequently visits the elderly, but never the young. Death should never meet the young. But it did. Thanks to my brother, death made fourteen new friends that day. Maybe even fifteen, if you count Charlie. But I don’t think death came for him. I think something darker and more sinister took his soul. When I imagine those students looking down, like that dark cloud above, I know my brother isn’t with them. I don’t know where he is.

      Walking over to section B of the cemetery, I glanced back at the new graves as they withered into rows of stone and fresh flowers. Section B was starkly different, its headstones made of remnant material and the flower bouquets reduced to a single stem. And there it was. It looked smaller, less worthy of the attention it had gathered. No amount of protest and headline could stop the development of Charlie’s stone. I didn’t know why people had got so angry. His body wasn’t even buried there. We had had him cremated, as he wished, with the intention of scattering his ashes at Harper’s Beach, where we had played as children. But the urn still sat on my mother’s bedside table, allowing her a place to think of my brother, away from my dad’s judging eyes and my face, which reminded her too much – and not enough – of Charlie’s. But my parents, or rather my mum, had decided on a granite bevel marker to represent a place of rest. As per my dad’s wishes, she had kept it simple: his name, date of birth and date of death. No message or prayer, just facts.

      When I got to my brother’s stone, I dropped to my knees. Someone had poured soil on top and garnished it with headless thorny rose stems. Scooping the earth off, I polished the granite beneath with the sleeve of my jumper until a pale greyish blue shone through. Words sizzled in my mouth, rising to the surface, but when I opened my mouth, images of fourteen graves entered my mind. So I left the cemetery, having not done what I had gone there to do – forgive my brother.

      I returned home earlier than I should have. Not even one o’clock. A silver Jeep Cherokee sat in the driveway. I quietly sneaked in and up the stairs, hearing my dad talk business to a guy who looked to be in his twenties. He looked a little young to be buying a house, especially for this neighbourhood. But when I reached the top, it quickly sunk in why he was there. Positioned in the doorway, almost too afraid to step any closer, was a young woman taking photos of my brother’s room.

      ‘You should leave before my dad catches you,’ I said, as she spun around, dropping the camera by her feet.

      ‘I… I was just…’ But she didn’t finish her sentence, unable to find a good reason to explain why she was doing what she was doing. She grabbed her camera, called down to her boyfriend and hurried to the Jeep. I met my dad at the front door just in time to see their car reach the end of the street, tyre streaks still visible on the concrete.

      ‘Dad, they were – ’

      ‘ – I know.’ He sighed and rubbed his forehead. ‘I know, Sam.’ He sauntered back into the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge and quietly closed the garage door behind him. A minute later, I heard him slam something hard against the door. He would later emerge that afternoon in need of a bandage to cover his bloody fist.

Chapter 6

       ‘Head Over Feet’ (Alanis Morissette, Autumn, 1996)

      ‘I’m going out!’ I yelled up the stairs. I was trying a new approach. Rather than sulk in a corner, I would dance in front of them like a circus animal until they noticed me.

      ‘I won’t be back until late. Probably around midnight or 1am.’ No response. ‘It might be dangerous out there. There could be lurkers… lurking.’ OK, so this wasn’t going to plan. Had Mum even heard me? Did they remember I still lived here?

      I pulled open the garage door and saw my dad hovering over a voltage box with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver in his hands. A pint glass of lager sat on the wooden workbench behind him, one third full.

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