ETHAN HARE
John lay on his back at the edge of the picnic blanket, one foot in the grass, listening to the radio beside Matt's elbow. Tears for Fears drifted across the park. Every so often, the wind caught the music and carried it away, leaving the rustle of leaves and Susie laughing at something Matt had said.
‘There.’ Susie pointed above the trees. ‘That's a hand.’
A long white cloud stretched across the blue. Five wisps reached from a thicker patch, with a smaller curl where the thumb might have been.
‘It's waving,’ she said.
Matt lifted his head. ‘Waving? It's obviously a fist.’
Susie spread her fingers. ‘A fist has to be closed, genius.’
‘Give it a minute.’ Matt curled his fingers one by one. ‘See? It's getting there.’
They turned to John. He could see the open palm Susie meant, but the wisps were folding inward. Beyond the park, darker clouds hung over the mountains.
‘What do you reckon?’ Matt asked.
John kept looking at the space between the fingers. There was something familiar about a hand frozen in the air, a moment in flux with endless potential.
He was eight again, watching a red ball roll off the front lawn.
He had chased it to the edge of the road and stopped, just as he'd promised Mum he would. A horn blared. A car clipped the ball and sent it spinning over the garage roof. The driver sounded his horn again, and John waved, pleased to have been noticed.
He was still waving when his mother caught his wrist.
‘John! I told you not to go near the road.’
‘I didn't go on it.’
She crouched, gripping his shoulders. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. ‘You could have been killed.’
John tried to pull free. ‘Where's my ball?’
Instead, she drew him against her. She held him so tightly that he could barely breathe. Then she took him inside, locked the front door and checked the lock again.
That was usually John's job. He knew the sound of Dad's Holden coming up the street and would race to open the door. Dad's hands were rough from the workshop, but they were gentle when they ruffled his hair. Lately, though, he came home after dark. Some nights, John fell asleep before he heard the engine.
‘Want some water?’
Matt's voice returned him to the picnic blanket. Susie was lying with her head on his leg, still studying the sky. Matt stood beside the car, holding up a bottle.
‘Yeah, thanks.’
Matt reached into the esky, passed him the water and shut the car door. The thud caught in John's chest.
At home that night, a loud thud came from the front door.
John was sitting in the lounge room, hoping Dad might have seen where the ball had landed. Outside, rain had begun to strike the windows. The door handle rattled. Mum hurried past him and turned the key. The door swung against the wall.
‘Why was it locked?’ Dad demanded.
‘I was coming, Sam.’
‘I've been standing out there in the rain.’
‘For ten seconds.’
Dad stood in the hall, his work shirt half untucked, a brown envelope crushed in one hand. The skin across his knuckles was red and peeling. The familiar workshop smell was still there, but beneath it was something sharp. John knew it from the bottles that knocked together under the car seat.
‘Go to your room, John.’
‘Did you see my ball? It went over the roof—’
‘Not now.’
John lingered, waiting for Dad to smile. Instead, Dad crouched and pulled him into a hug, his arms closing tightly around him. John coughed against his shoulder.
‘Off you go,’ Dad said, releasing him.
Even now, John was uncertain about the events of that day. The older he got the more things blurred. He thought he remembered the scratch of his father's shirt against his cheek. He thought he remembered the yelling starting immediately, but sometimes a haze fell over his memory. Sometimes the hug came after the shouting, sometimes before it, but for a long time not at all.
‘Earth to John.’
He blinked. The sky above the picnic blanket was bright. An ant had climbed onto the toe of his shoe.
Susie was pointing at two clouds drifting together. ‘Look. They're merging.’
‘More like the big one's eating the little one,’ Matt said.
‘Why do you always have to disagree with me?’
‘Because it's fun to wind you up.’
She laughed and nudged him with her foot. John knew neither of them was angry. Still, his chest tightened as he subconsciously waited for the instant when one might stop smiling.
As the clouds combined, a strong gust pulled a narrow piece away. It floated away… alone across the blue.
John remembered sitting on his bedroom carpet, listening to voices rise and fall down the hall. At first he caught only the ends of sentences.
‘...all day at work.’
‘...you didn't ask.’
‘...the neighbours heard.’
He crept to the door and pressed his ear against the wood. A chair scraped across the kitchen tiles.
‘I come home and find the door locked,’ Dad said. ‘Then I hear he nearly got hit by a car. What am I supposed to think?’
‘I was frightened, Sam. That's why I locked it.’
‘Why was he outside alone?’
‘I was in the house.’
‘Doing what?’
John touched the handle. He wanted to tell Dad he hadn’t gone onto the road. Maybe then they would stop arguing. When he argued with his friends an adult would step in. He wondered who was supposed to do that for grown-ups. He forced his fingers to turn the handle, slowly peering out the door.
‘Don't start on me,’ Mum said. ‘I've been here all day.’
‘And I've been at work. I've got bills we can't pay.’ The envelope struck the table. ‘Do you think I enjoy coming home at nine?’
‘I know you work hard…’ She paused, swallowing hard. ‘And I know you need a drink sometimes.’
‘A drink? I've been washing dishes at Tom's every night for four months. Where did you think I was going?’
The haze returned; John was unsure of his father’s explanation… or if his years of justifications had tainted his recollection.
‘You never told me,’ Mum said.
‘When would I? You're asleep when I get in.’
‘Because I'm exhausted. I cook, clean, do the washing, look after John—’
‘Then where were you when he was out on the road?’
‘He wasn't on the road.’
‘Where were you?’
Mum's voice broke. ‘I let him play outside. I was cleaning and I…’ she stammered momentarily, ‘I lied down for a second. I didn't mean to fall asleep.’
John stopped breathing for a moment. He had pictured her at the front window, watching him kick his ball. The more he recalled this night the more confused he became. He had always pictured her standing behind the glass, watching him. But as time went on the memory of the glare on the window remained but he was unsure of anyone standing behind it.
‘You fell asleep?’ Dad said.
‘I woke up when the horn sounded. I thought—’ She stopped. ‘I thought he was dead.’
‘You left him out there and went to bed?’
‘I didn't leave him. I was right inside.’
‘You could have lost him.’
‘I know!’
John slowly made his way down the hallway. From there, he could see his father beside the kitchen table and his mother with a wineglass in her hand. Dad took a step towards her.
‘You think sitting here drinking fixes anything?’
‘Don't you dare,’ she said.
‘What else am I supposed to call it?’
‘Stop talking to me like that.’
‘Then stop acting like—’
A smack sounded through the house. The sound reached John before he understood what had happened. A red mark spread across Dad's cheek. Mum drew her hand to her chest as if she had surprised herself. Dad rubbed his face with the back of his wrist.
John waited for his father to strike back. Sometimes he thought he did, sometimes he thought he initiated the violence but lately he was plagued by the simple fact. He had never seen Mum hit anyone before. He wanted one of them to say it was over, but neither spoke.
‘John?’
Susie was sitting upright. The cloud had broken apart, leaving thin white streaks over the park.
‘Are you all right?’
John realised he was gripping the blanket. His other hand rested against the shallow dent above his temple. He lowered it.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just thinking.’
Matt glanced at the radio. ‘Want me to turn it down?’
‘It's not the music.’
They had known each other for years. They knew he lived with his grandparents and that his parents were divorced. But they knew something. They were just kind enough to never ask. He wondered how he would explain what he remembered? Did he recall his father's embrace or the flying glass with the same painful certainty? Or how, lately, the memory of his mother's empty place at the window troubled him almost as much.
Susie moved closer without asking another question. She laid her hand beside his on the blanket, close enough for him to take it if he wanted, but as he reached across, he was back there.
Dad reached towards Mum's glass. Whether he meant to take it or knock it away, John could never remember. His arm caught hers. The glass flew across the kitchen and shattered against his head as he turned away.
His foot slipped on the polished floor, and the side of his head burned intensely. For an instant there was no sound. Then something warm slipped past his ear.
‘Mum?’
Neither answered. They were still shouting, their words running over one another. Wine had splashed across the floor. John touched his hair and drew back fingers wet with blood.
‘I'm sorry,’ he said, though he did not know what he had done. He did not know how long he sat there. But he was certain it was Mum who turned first.
The look on her face frightened him more than the shouting. Dad was beside him in two steps, kneeling, one hand pressed against John's hair. The pressure hurt. Mum pulled a tea towel from the kitchen drawer, her fingers shaking so badly she could barely unfold it.
John tried to apologise again, but his teeth had begun to chatter. For the first time that night, his parents were looking at him instead of each other.
John looked past the trees. The dark bank of cloud still hovered over the mountains, but sunlight lay across the grass around them.
He remembered the drive to the hospital. Rain had stung the cut as they hurried to the car. Now Mum sat beside him in the back of the Holden, pressing a tea towel against his head. As Dad reversed down the driveway, John glimpsed his red ball wedged in the gutter above the garage.
At the traffic lights, Dad reached one hand back between the front seats. John remembered those red, peeling knuckles suspended there. Sometimes, in his memory, Mum took his hand. Other times she turned away. He could never settle on which was true. He could remember the ball in the gutter, the blood darkening the towel, even the ticking sound the indicator made. The hands were the part that remained in a haze.
‘John?’ Susie asked quietly.
He turned towards her. Her hand was still waiting beside his. He placed his own over it.
Matt followed John's gaze to the sky.
‘Hand or fist?’ he asked.
John watched the white fingers dissolve, allowing the blue to show through.
‘Depends where you're looking from.’
Susie's hand remained beneath his. This time, he did not pull away.
Ethan Hare is an aspiring teacher currently studying at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. With a passion for education and the outdoors, Ethan enjoys running, teaching and spending time outside. He hopes to bring his love of the arts and outdoors into his future teaching career, inspiring students to be curious and develop a deeper appreciation for the world around them.
