A Home Like Ours Fiona Lowe (good novels to read .txt) 📖

and giving birth to Milo, the garden was the first activity that was just for her. She hated that some prick had stormed in to deliberately destroy it.

Helen thought it was Corey, and Jade resented her for that. Sure, he’d wrecked her cake, but everyone knew when the munchies hit they needed to be satisfied. It didn’t mean he’d wrecked her garden. Hell, he didn’t even know which bed was hers.

You should have been home waiting for me instead of here with stinking scum.

She tried shaking away Corey’s words, but like borers tunnelling relentlessly into wood, they ate into her confidence.

Did Macca know about the garden? She’d come here straight after he’d taken the PlayStation. Had he followed her?

A flash of colour caught Jade’s attention and she looked up. Fiza was rushing straight to the torn tent and snapped maize. She cried out and sank to her knees, her distress blooming like a mushroom cloud and drifting over to envelop Jade. She’d never seen Fiza other than happy and her audible wailing grief unsettled her. It was embarrassing.

Jade didn’t know what to do, especially when Fiza picked up the broken plants and buried them as carefully as if they were human. That felt private—something she shouldn’t interrupt.

Eventually, the need to commiserate over their joint heartache propelled Jade up the hill. Fiza was stroking the leaves on the surviving maize and murmuring something unintelligible to them. Jade itched with awkwardness. Fiza’s face was wet and shiny with tears, and the droop of her usually square shoulders made her look as broken as the maize.

Something deep inside Jade ached and she didn’t want to feel it. It was a path leading to a dark place she had no intention of revisiting.

‘Why are you even growing maize anyway?’ Her words came out harsher than she’d intended.

‘For my father. For my heart.’

The prickling sensation morphed into rushing heat. Jade’s father didn’t give a shit about her, but Fiza’s dad must have loved her if she was planting things for him on the other side of the world.

‘If you miss him so much, why did you come to Australia without him?’ she asked.

‘I did not choose to leave him or Sudan.’

Jade thought about leaving Finley. She’d hardly chosen to do that and even though it was only a couple of hours down the road, it may as well have been a plane ride away. When she’d told Charlene she was pregnant, her mother had stormed into Jade’s bedroom and taken what she’d wanted—dresses, make-up and her stash of cash—before dumping everything else, including her books, into two-dollar-shop bags and throwing them outside into the rain. She thought about how Charlene had screamed at her, calling her a slut, telling her to never come back unless she got rid of ‘the brat’. How Corey had insisted they leave town.

‘Did someone make you leave?’ she asked.

Fiza looked at her then with strangely empty eyes. She laughed, only it was nothing like the usual tinkling happy sound that matched her colourful clothes. She stood, her beautiful face twisted and ugly, her eyes flashing with angry light.

‘Who does this in Australia? Why here, where people have so much?’

Jade squirmed. ‘I dunno. Amal might know?’

‘No!’ Fiza’s yell reverberated around the garden. ‘My son was at home with me. He did not do this!’

‘He might know something though. Stuff like that gets talked about at school. At Tranquillity.’

But Fiza wasn’t listening. She was watching Helen and a police officer Jade recognised walking up the hill. She’d met him a few times before. Not that she was going to admit to that in front of Helen and Fiza.

‘Ladies, this is Constable Tom Fiora,’ Helen said. ‘Constable, this is Jade Innes and Fiza Atallah. Their garden beds sustained the most damage.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’ The police officer looked straight at Jade. ‘Helen says Corey might have decided to defecate on your daisies. Is he at home for a chat?’

Corey had priors—dumb stuff from when he was a kid, like nicking a car for a joy ride and some bottles of Bundy from the Bottle-O. It marked him, so whenever the police turned up ‘for a chat’, Jade played dumb. At least this time she didn’t have to lie.

‘He shot through at six last night. Haven’t seen him since.’

‘Any idea where he might be?’

Macca came to mind, but if Corey was still in town the police would find him without her help. ‘No.’

‘Did he hurt you last night?’

‘He wasn’t around long enough to do that.’ The words came out uncensored, shocking her. Helen pursed her lips and that was enough to light Jade’s fuse. ‘What? It’s the truth, okay.’

But Helen remained silent.

The copper wrote something in his book, then turned his attention to Fiza. ‘Anyone you know who might have done this, Mrs Atallah?’

Fiza’s hands balled into fists by her sides. ‘Are you talking in general or specifics? Half the town is unhappy that people like me live here.’

‘Are you aware of anyone in town who might want to upset you?’

‘No.’

‘Anyone in your own community?’

Fiza’s eyes narrowed. ‘Boolanga is my community.’

The policeman flushed. ‘I meant, any Africans.’

‘Africa is a continent,’ Fiza muttered. ‘No.’

‘You have children, Mrs Atallah?’

‘You know I do.’

‘What has this got to do with the vandalism?’ Helen asked.

‘General lines of enquiry. How are things between yourself and your eldest son, Mrs Atallah?’ Constable Fiora asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Boys that age often run wild.’

‘You think Amal did this?’ Fiza’s chin lifted as regally as a queen’s. ‘Amal was at home last night studying. He has exams soon.’

‘You sure he didn’t sneak out with his mates to let off a bit of steam?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Helen said.

Jade’s guts suddenly loosened like she’d eaten a bad dimmie. Oh God. She’d done the same thing to Fiza as the copper—implied that Amal might know something just because he was a black teenager. Why had she done that? It wasn’t like she was unfamiliar with being targeted by the cops. They always came to talk to