The Break by Deb Fitzpatrick Page A

the kitchen table, this late, with none of the homely atmosphere that normally goes with eating — but she knew she’d wake up starving in the night if she didn’t. Cray would have gone out and eaten on the balcony. She flicked on the late-night news, settled down with her microwave-warmed bowl, tucked her feet under her knees. After five minutes the test pattern came up. She hadn’t seen the test pattern for years, didn’t know it still existed. Maybe the station had a few different ones, she thought, just for variety. She tried the ABC. Accounting class. Shit. That was worse.
    â€˜Cray,’ she whispered loudly. ‘Are you awake?’
    Nothing.
    â€˜Cray.
CRAY
.’
    â€˜Mmmnnnhhhh … what …’
    She crawled onto the bed. ‘Hello, I’m home.’
    â€˜Rosie, I need to sleep,’ he said thickly, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow.
    â€˜I’ve just got home from work … I’m all awake. It was my first day, remember?’
    â€˜I left a note,’ he croaked.
    She leaned back. ‘Oh, thanks, very kind of you.’
    â€˜And some dinner!’ He was waking now, propping himself up. ‘Jesus Christ, Rosie! I was completely asleep. What’s the story?’
    â€˜I’m not tired, Cray! My mind’s going a million miles an hour and I just thought you might have stayed awake. There’s only crap on telly. Unless you want me to watch the test pattern.’
    â€˜God …’ He fell back into the sheets. ‘I just want to sleep, Rosie. I left that note …’
    Rosie closed the door behind her. Fine. He didn’t want to hear about her day. He wanted to
sleep
. She wanted to know: how could he be tired when he hadn’t done anything all day?
    Rosie washed her bowl and put the kettle on. She looked sideways at the bowl, dripping in the rack, and imagined Cray putting dinner aside for her after he’d cooked and eaten (on
his
own).
    After a moment she made a weak cup of tea, turned off the kitchen light and made herself as comfortable as possible on the seventies sofa. She’d not been able to hear it before, but the heavy rumble of the surf as it struck the sand and sucked itself away again came in through the sliding doors, came right into the house. And between the water and the houses, even closer, she could hear the bush, almost loud with noises still unfamiliar. Maybe there were a few accounting skills she could brush up on, she thought, concentrating on keeping her breathing steady.
Nothing to be scared of, Rosie.
She took a positive mouthful of tea and scorched her tongue. White-hotness travelled from her throat to her belly.
    Rosie stood up and moved away from the sliding doors and the strangeness of the night. She flung open the front door, turning on the houses that leaned at the silvery night water.Shouting pounded in her. Blackness pressed itself close.
    Not a light was on. Fifty or so houses on the face of the hill, and not one window glowed.

22
    Sam loved the night. Everyone was asleep; the world belonged to him. Him and the stars.
    Stars. Weird things. He reckoned they were unreachable, mysterious, something he’d never be able to understand. Not
really
, not properly. What was weirdest was that they were part of things, part of the world, part of this solar system. Earth was a star. Well, a planet. Sam knew from his charts that Earth was just another speckle in the sky, one of the millions of speckles he could see most nights out his window. He wondered if maybe there was someone looking out from one of those stars at this one, this bright one, like he could see Venus and Mars sometimes. Maybe. It was funny, the way people thought of this planet as separate, as on its own, like it was special or something.

23
    The next morning, Mike flipped the bonnet to check the Sunbird’s vitals. Oil slid down the rocker cover. It didn’t seem to matter which angle he came from, he just