Joan

Two weeks later.

     “Rage.”
     Joan leaned heavily on the counter in front of the open cupboard, staring at the stale biscuits inside the tin that hadn’t been closed in a fortnight. As the radio droned on in the background, she sensed Theo’s eyes on the back of her head and shivered.
     “That’s all I can feel right now. I’m so angry at myself— I mean, at him, I…”
     Her brother stepped forwards. “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Joanie. You had no idea what was going to happen — no-one did.” He began sliding his arms around her.
     “He did!” She pushed him away, groaned at the ceiling, then brought her head back down with her eyes squeezed shut.
     Theo gingerly touched the middle of her back, but drew away when she shuddered violently. “He was a very disturbed… individual.”
     “I don’t mean Stold, I mean…” She sighed. “It should have been me.”
     At that moment, the girl called from the lounge: “Mummy…!”
     Joan’s nails dragged along the counter surface. Without turning her head, she replied, “What?”
     Lois’ feet pattered on the kitchen tiles, then stopped abruptly. Joan could imagine the disgusted look on the face of the girl behind her. She heard Theo say, “Hey, Lilo, wassup?”
     The girl mumbled back: “I can’t find a yellow.”
     Theo crouched beside her. “Can’t you use a different colour? It’s a beautiful p—”
     “I need yellow for the sun.”
     Joan snarled. “Ha!”
     There was a pause, in which Joan could feel them scanning her, analysing her. Then Theo told the girl, “Well, sometimes the sun is different colours — like orange, when it’s sunset. Have you got an orange?”
     “Maybe… Mummy?”
     Joan blew out a long, loud breath.
     The girl’s voice was quieter now. “Can I have a drink?”
     Theo asked, “What’s the magic word?”
     Before the girl could answer, Joan reached out and yanked open the fridge — then pressed her palms back into the counter.
     Theo took the girl’s order, poured her an orange juice, and sent her back into the lounge. Then he came and stood beside Joan, close enough to lightly brush the fibres on her cardigan.
     She sidestepped away from him. “Get away from me, I stink.” She picked up her glass of water and dropped into a seat at the kitchen table, facing away from him.
     “Joanie… You don’t deserve any of this.”
     Joan sighed heavily. “Please, Theo, just… You don’t know what’s going on… in my head. I hate… I hate myself…”
     The thought lodged in her throat, but she resisted the urge to cough. Her eyelids trembled, but there weren’t any tears left in her.
     Theo knelt beside her, and her chair creaked as he steadied himself against it. Joan heard him thrust his hands into his pockets — probably resisting the urge to make another attempt at physical consolation.
     He spoke softly. “Joanie, none of this is on you. What you are feeling is natural, normal. Many parishioners are feeling the same right now. Heck, I am full of hatred and anger right now. But you mustn’t hate yourself. I’m sure… I’m sure God feels the same way towards—”
     Joan rolled her head around her neck. “Oh, but God is love Theo!”
     Theo’s pace was slow. “Yes, but if there are things you love then there are bound to be things you hate. Jesus got angry. He showed it’s OK to feel anger, grief, pain…”
     Joan’s head snapped to face him. “Of course he did — God is anger, grief and pain Theo. Or did you forget that part where your book tells us God is everything? These things happen because he lets them. He wants people to go to hell, that’s why he made it. I just can’t understand why he hated—”
     A scream pierced their conversation and rattled the glass on the table. Theo stood — but Joan cupped her forehead and groaned.
     The girl ran into the kitchen, skidding around Theo to cling to Joan, desperately announcing, “Bee! There’s a bee!”
     Joan tried to shrug the girl off, but her grip tightened.
     Theo stroked the girl’s arm. “Hey, Lilo, don’t panic. It’s probably just confused about how it ended up in your lounge. Bees aren’t very clever.”
     “It wants to hurt me.”
     Theo laughed softly. “I’m sure it doesn’t, Lilo. I bet it likes the smell of your orange juice, though.”
     The girl shook her head so violently that Joan was nearly rocked off the chair. “No! It wants to sting me!”
     Theo took the girl’s hand. “Come on, let’s open the window and show it how to go home.”
     But the girl squeezed Joan’s arm enough to draw out a gasp. “I don’t like it!”
     Now Joan stood. “God, Lo! It’s just a fly.”
     “But it’s got a sting…”
     Joan seethed. “For fuck’s sake…”
     In a stride, Joan repelled the girl and grabbed a can of bug spray from the top of the fridge. Another step and she was in the lounge.
     The room was still.
     Joan gave a tut and began to turn.
     Then came the buzz.
     Joan’s sight pinpointed the insect instantly, flittering between the window and the curtain. She marched over and whisked the curtain away, and the bug — not quite hairy enough for a bee — shot out in the direction of the kitchen door.
     As Joan raised the nozzle of the spray can, she vaguely registered the shape of Theo in the doorway opposite her, directly in her line of fire — but she squeezed hard on the nozzle regardless.
     Hit by the spray, the wasp veered towards the lampshade in the centre of the ceiling. Joan sprayed it again. It circled the light with a gradually increasing orbit until, suddenly, it took a dive towards the window and crashed hard into the glass. It flicked onto its back and began drumming its wings on the ledge.
     When Joan looked back towards the kitchen, she now saw both her brother and daughter in the doorway, the latter wide-eyed and tightly hugging Theo’s leg.
     Joan snatched a telephone directory from the top of a cabinet beside the doorway, crossed the lounge, and flattened the wasp out of its misery. Then she returned to the cabinet, pulled it open, and glared at the girl.
     “Lo. I’m putting the spray in here, OK? If another fly gets in, get rid of it yourself.”
     Joan pushed past them to refresh the water in her glass at the sink. By the time Theo had calmed the girl and encouraged her back to her picture, Joan had found some more tears. When Theo put a hand on her back this time, she couldn’t muster the strength to shake him off.
     “That’s the kind of person I am, Theo. I’m a killer. A thoughtless, cold-blooded killer — just like that piece of shit who killed my boy, my darling boy…”
     Her knees gave way, and she collapsed into his arms.
     “I can’t forgive him, Theo. I can’t. And if I can’t forgive him, how can I forgive…?”
     He helped her to her seat by the table, then knelt beside her. The radio continued to drone at them. Theo hugged her side for what must have been five minutes at least.
     When he eventually pulled away, Theo was already holding down a number on his mobile for speed dial. He stood. “Salma? Hi, two things. First, could you get back to that researcher? Let her know I can do that interview after all. And sec— Yes, well, I’ll be in the car in just a minute, I’ll do that then.
     “And then also, could you contact the agent for Mum’s house and tell them to take it off market? Right away? … Even if they have, you’ll just have to say we’ve changed our mind. No, we won’t. Just for now. Good, thanks. Thanks Salma. We’ll come back to the office first. See you in a bit.”
     Theo crouched down to hug Joan again — but it was different this time, tauter. Sensing he was about to leave, Joan’s body sagged towards him.
     Theo took a deep breath. “Joanie, I refuse to believe you have any reason to hate yourself. But as I said, you’re not the first to talk to me like this, so… so there’s something I have to do. Will you be OK while I’m gone?”
     Joan shrugged. “You do what you need to do. As always.”
     Theo nodded slowly. “As soon as I’m done, let’s go back to Mum’s place, hmm? No-one will bother us there. It’ll just be the three of us. What you reckon?”
     Unable to move much more than her jaw, Joan mumbled, “Maybe.”
     Theo nodded, then rose. “Once I’m done, I’ll head to Acton and meet you there. Or I can come pick you up…?”
     Joan drew out a long sigh. “We’ll meet you there, it’s fine.”
     Theo bent over and kissed the side of her head. “Love you, sis.”
     With that, he walked through the lounge, telling his niece he loved her too. Joan waited for the front door to click shut behind him.
     Then she continued to stare at the chair opposite, where her beautiful darling boy had eaten his last bowl of cocoa cornflakes.

Next Chapter: Ambrose