Sweet Damage by Rebecca James

Anna had immediate access to her inheritance and to the title on the property .
    After the funeral they started coming to the house several times a week. Sometimes Marcus would call in on his way home from work. He’d have a beer or a coffee at the kitchen table, tell Anna about his day, ask about hers, make sure she was okay. Fiona would come for morning or afternoon tea and they’d sit in the kitchen and talk. On weekends they’d walk down to Manly and go to a movie together.
    Her old friends came to visit too, but suddenly their preoccupations didn’t match Anna’s. She didn’t want to go to nightclubs and dance, didn’t want to watch second-rate bands and get drunk on vodka. She started making excuses, making up reasons why she couldn’t go out or why they couldn’t come over.
    At weekends Fiona and Marcus came to the house together. The two of them would cook for her and they’d spend hours playing board games or watching movies. They’d stay so late they’d often end up sleeping over, taking a room each. Anna would go to bed on those nights feeling safe and content. She’d lie back and listen to the noises Fiona and Marcus made as they got ready for bed, the rush of water from a tap, the creak of floorboards, the flush of a toilet, and feel comforted and less alone. It was nice having them around. And it was especially good to wake up to the sound of other people in the house, the smell of toast and coffee coming from the kitchen.
    In a way it made perfect sense, their developing friendship. Despite surface differences, they actually had a lot in common. Like Anna, Marcus and Fiona were basically alone in the world. They had no extended family, no relatives.
    Anna treasured their relationship, she felt protected and cared for and understood, but she was curious about them, and wanted to know more.
    One Saturday night when they were playing Scrabble, she tried to get them to talk.
    â€˜You know, you guys know all about me, but I know hardly anything about you. Tell me about your childhood,’ she said. What she knew wasn’t pleasant. Their mother had been a drug addict, a petty criminal, and had given up custody of them when they were very young. They had never met their father, had no idea who he even was. They’d been raised by their elderly grandmother.
    She noticed Marcus glance at Fiona. He cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps another time,’ he said.
    â€˜Please,’ she said. ‘It’s okay. Whatever happened, you can tell me.’
    Fiona’s face closed over and a terrible, haunted look came into her eyes. She stood up so abruptly that her chair nearly tipped over. Anna could see her hands trembling. Her voice, when it finally came, was artificially bright. ‘Oh. Look at the time! We really have to go now. Thank you for dinner, Anna.’
    And there was nothing Anna could say that would persuade her to stay, nothing she could do that would remove the stony look from Fiona’s eyes.
    *
    The next few days were torturous. Fiona wouldn’t answer Anna’s calls or respond to her texts. Anna went to their house on the Monday but nobody answered the door. She thought their friendship, which had come to mean the world to her, was over. But Marcus turned up on Wednesday evening with a bottle of whisky. They sat at the kitchen table and drank a shot each in near silence before he started to talk.
    â€˜I know people wonder about me and Fiona,’ he said. ‘I know people wonder why we’re so close. Most siblings our age don’t share a house, or work together the way we do. We had a miserable childhood. I’ve told you that before, haven’t I?’
    â€˜Some of it,’ she said. ‘A bit.’
    â€˜You know we lived with our grandmother. Mum just dropped us off for a visit one day and never came back. Fiona was four and I was two. Grandma didn’t want us, she made that clear from the beginning.