The Serpent's Skin Erina Reddan (affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📖

other things rising. I got my shoulders to my ears and dropped them, and then filled my plate and took my seat beside Tye.

There was that look between Tim and Shelley again.

I bit my lip. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember how I was going to start this thing despite all the rehearsal I’d done with Tye. He squeezed my hand under the table. The breath was having trouble getting out of my throat.

‘How about you say grace, mate?’ said Dad, laying down his knife. Georgie straightened up and big-eyed his face, nodding like a toy dog with a spring-head. Tessa gave him a wink and he stilled to send an elaborate one back.

‘Bless us, oh Lord, and these, thy gifts which we are about to receive.’

‘Amen,’ we answered, although I couldn’t be sure there’d been an actual voice out of me.

‘Good man,’ said Dad, including Tessa and Geoff in his approving look. ‘Special occasion today,’ he said, and clasped his hands together and bowed his head again. We followed suit. ‘Fourteen years since the Lord took your mother to His breast. We don’t question His ways, but pray that He takes her from the fires of damnation into the bliss of paradise.’ He paused and we waited. ‘Amen,’ he said. ‘Amen,’ we echoed.

‘Think we can do a bit better,’ said Tim, getting to his feet. He looked at Shelley and she beamed encouragement back. ‘To Sarah.’ He swooped his stubby high. ‘To Mum. For the sweet milky tea in the mornings, for the pancakes on Sunday afternoons, and for—’ His eyes skitted along the ceiling.

‘For the Hail Marys at night,’ said Philly.

‘For the good tucker,’ said Dad.

‘For sewing our dresses,’ said Tessa.

‘For the paper giraffes,’ said Georgie. Tessa’s ‘shh’ was lost in the swivel of eyes towards him. He grew big with the importance of all those eyes on him. ‘Grandma made paper giraffes with Mum and Mum makes them with me. She says I can do them with my kids.’

Tessa flushed.

‘Now I feel cheated,’ said Tim, his beer bottle still charged. ‘Where’s my paper giraffe?’ Philly jumped on board with her own whine about how she’d missed out, too.

‘It was just—’ Tessa started.

Tim laughed. ‘That was just how Mum was, Tessa. She had something good with all of us. Flowers with JJ, baking and giraffes with you.’

‘Settle down.’ Dad’s voice rose above the wave. ‘To your mother. May she rest in peace.’

‘To Mum,’ we all said.

Tim stayed on his feet. ‘We got a bit of news.’

Shelley jumped up and grabbed him around the neck. ‘He proposed.’

Georgie bounced to his feet on his seat and jumped up and down, joining in all the clapping.

Ahmed stood up, glass charged. ‘To Sheeellleey and Teeem, may the moon hold your love in its arms at night and the sun shine on your lives by day.’

Philly did a proud he’s-with-me gesture. The rest of us looked at each other, eyebrows raised, impressed, but not sure how to do the echoing thing with this. Georgie got it, though. ‘To the moon and the sun,’ he shouted, shoving his empty plastic cup towards the ceiling. That’s what we echoed, laughing all around. Shelley grinned at me.

‘So, date?’ I asked.

‘March,’ she said happily. ‘Wedding at Our Lady of the Rosary.’

‘Party back at ours,’ finished Tim.

‘Dad’s moving out to the cottage and Tim’s moving in with me,’ Shelley said.

‘In the big house, Tim,’ I chided. ‘You’ll have to wear your big boy pants.’

He reached across the table to swat me. He took the opportunity to say urgently underneath it all so nobody else could hear. ‘You, too. Now’s your moment.’

So those shared looks between Shelley and him had been about more than wedding bliss.

And just like that I was back to the numb, shrouding me up. All the adrenaline and purpose of the last two weeks evaporated. I clawed at my palm. Then I stopped myself, fisted my hands and got them down deep between my legs, hard against the wood of the chair.

‘Mum would have been fifty-three today,’ I said, using the words like a knife through the layers. Tim sat down, nodding like he could see where I was headed. ‘Mum would have loved to be here for this. She would have loved you, Shelley.’

Shelley nodded seriously. She knew I was starting whatever it was she and Tim had hoped I’d be doing. ‘Mum also loved the truth,’ I said. Smiles faded. I kept my eyes on my plate. ‘Laid into us if she ever caught any of us with a lie between our teeth.’

‘JJ,’ growled Tessa.

‘Let her be,’ said Tim.

‘I won’t let her turn this into a circus.’ Tessa’s voice scratched along the surface. ‘Just—’

But I’d lost the rest, anyway. I held still, closed my eyes.

‘JJ?’ Tim asked. He had those urgent eyes on me again.

‘Reckon it’s time, is all,’ I said, forcing my eyes to look straight at Dad.

‘I warned you,’ he said, low and snarly. ‘I don’t know what you got in mind, but scrub it out right now. This is a special occasion and I won’t have your mother’s memory spat on.’

My eyes narrowed. It was just what I needed. Red reared up in me, snapping through the ropes I’d had it tied down with. ‘Because that would be your department,’ I said.

‘For god’s sake,’ hissed Tessa, jerking her head towards Georgie.

Philly pushed back her chair to leave.

‘You stay right there,’ I said.

‘I don’t—’

‘Sit down.’ I used all my big sister on her and she stayed put.

‘You’ve got nothin.’ Dad’s finger stabbed holes in the air. ‘You listen to me, JJ. You were a little shit as a kid and you’re a little shit now.’ His voice slithered out of him low and hissy.

‘Don’t even try,’ I said, the words snarling over each other to get out. ‘All those lies tying us in knots so we thought we were going mad ends now. It’s truth time.’

He set down his knife and fork, careful on his plate. He pointed his stubby finger. ‘Your mother