She said, “It was too big for you to comprehend, you were in shock.”
It’s interesting how a simple kind comment from a stranger can make you feel better.
I do remember my mother’s reaction. She fell, almost to the floor, as if the lightning had struck her heart, too, but Auntie Pat caught her with a chair, just in the nick of time, and Mum put her head down on the kitchen table and said, over and over again, No, no, no, no.
I looked away from her. I found it undignified. I didn’t think Dad would like it.
The day after my dad’s funeral, Ivy and I were heading to the creek when I saw Jiminy Cricket trot down the pathway of someone’s house. I was thrilled. What good timing. I ran up to him and I said, “My dad died, so now you have to pay us money!”
Ivy said I had a big creepy smile on my face, as if I’d won a bet, and it was no wonder that Jiminy looked so alarmed.
Insurance is like a bet. You’re betting on your own bad luck. The insurance company mostly wins because mostly you don’t crash your car and mostly your house doesn’t burn down.
Life insurance is a bet on when you’re going to die.
We won, because it was unlikely a big strong clever man like my dad would die at thirty-two.
But that’s what he did.
Chapter 49
It’s a Saturday morning streaming with early winter sunlight when Ethan wakes to the smell of butter, vanilla, and sugar. Jasmine doesn’t cook often, but she makes great pancakes. He’s hungry, and his mood, as he opens his bedroom blinds all the way, is as bright and sunshiny as the day. Ever since their visit to the psychic, he and Jasmine have been talking more, spending more time together. She calls him Jason Bourne now. He still calls her Jasmine. No nickname has come to mind.
They have talked a lot about Luca’s readings that day. Ethan told her about how Luca had channeled Harvey’s words, “guys like us.” Jasmine said the first time she saw Luca he told her that he could see someone behind her plaiting her hair. “That’s Nana!” Jasmine had cried. Ever since then she has felt a wonderful sense of peace knowing her grandmother is with her at all times.
Ethan isn’t one hundred percent convinced. Luca could have hit on that “guys like us” phrase by pure luck. It’s not that specific. “It’s pretty specific,” said Jasmine. Also, when Luca read Jasmine’s cards that day he told her to be prepared for “financial difficulties” later this year, which seems as likely as Ethan dying in a fight. (Does the guy really not know who Jasmine is?)
Ethan is still fairly chill about the lady’s prediction, but he has noticed that when he’s out, he is more aware of the possibility of violence. He scans the streets like he’s actually Jason Bourne on a mission. He keeps an eye out for drunken angry thugs. On more than one occasion he’s crossed the road so he hasn’t had to walk past the entrance of a noisy pub. He’s not sure how he feels about that. More sympathetic to how women live their lives?
He reminds himself to never accidentally mention this revelation to an actual woman.
He pulls on a T-shirt and jeans and heads to the kitchen. He can hear the sizzle of butter. There is a skip in his step, a “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” tone in his voice. “Do I smell pancakes?”
“You sure do, mate,” says a deep voice, and Ethan fails to catch his face before it falls like a disappointed child’s.
There’s a guy in the kitchen, in fucking Calvin Klein boxer shorts, tanned bare rugby-player chest, private-school floppy hair, strong jawline no doubt inherited from his dad along with his trust fund, drinking coffee from Ethan’s favorite mug, leaning back against the counter, watching Jasmine cook pancakes.
“Morning, Ethan,” says Jasmine. She gestures with her spatula. “This is Carter.”
“So you’re the flatmate.” Unmistakable animosity in the word “flatmate.” Carter puts down Ethan’s mug, holds out his hand, and Ethan knows what’s going to happen and it does: Carter crushes his hand, holding eye contact, letting Ethan know he’s the highest-ranking chimpanzee in this kitchen.
“Nice to meet you,” says Ethan. “Wow. Good grip there, mate.”
Jasmine glances over. “Watch it. Ethan broke his wrist rock climbing. He only just got the cast off.”
Fury flares in Carter’s eyes, because Ethan called him out on his alpha male behavior, in front of Jasmine, and everyone knows women hate that, but the guy isn’t stupid. He comes right back at him with a right hook of good-humored good manners. “Sorry. My old-school dad is obsessed with firm handshakes.”
“You want a pancake, Ethan?” says Jasmine. She’s wearing a tank top and pajama pants, and her hair isn’t as wild as it normally is in the morning, she’s swirled it into a kind of topknot.
“Does she cook breakfast like this for you every day? Lucky guy!” Carter puts a possessive hand on Jasmine’s shoulder, rubs up and down, up and down. Ethan’s skin crawls.
Oh, Jasmine, thinks Ethan. He’s trouble. Can’t you see he’s trouble?
When he first moved in he was ready to run into hookups in the kitchen. They are two single people, it had to happen at some point, but Jasmine had only just come out of a long-term relationship at the time. He’d stopped expecting it. He got comfortable. He got delusional.
“I’m good,” says Ethan. “I’m about to go out.”
Everyone knows it’s a lie. His trilling “Do I smell pancakes?” still echoes.
“Take ours back to bed?” says Carter to Jasmine, his hand now low on her back. He gives Ethan a shit-eating grin. It says: I know how much you bench-press, your bank balance, the crappy car you drive, how badly you want her. You lose, I win. On every count.
Ethan gets out of the apartment as fast as he can and walks toward Bronte Beach, as if he really is meeting someone for breakfast.
What a loser he is, thinking he had a chance with a girl like that when she gave him no indication whatsoever that she had any interest. Carter is probably “someone,” or his dad is. People like that date each other. They speak the same language, holiday in the same ski resorts. Jasmine and Carter are probably in bed right now imitating his hopeful nerdy tone: Do I smell pancakes?
Sorrow and humiliation make his throat catch. He pulls his phone from his back pocket, dials. As the phone rings he sees a couple passionately making out. The guy is sitting on a low brick fence. The girl is standing between his legs. It’s nine a.m. It’s unnecessary.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice.
His heart plummets. He takes the phone away from his ear to look at the name of the person he has just called and the realization of what he has done crashes through him.
He has called Harvey. Harvey is the friend he calls when he’s miserable. You don’t call Harvey when you get a promotion, you call Harvey when you crash your car. Harvey loves misery. He never tries to make you feel better or downplays your feelings. He wants every detail, the more humiliating the better.
Ethan can’t speak. That axe-like sensation of grief again. He wants to speak to Harvey.
The woman says, “Ethan? It’s Lila. Harvey’s sister. We met at the funeral.”
Pocket dial. Pretend it’s a pocket dial.
