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passed over.
    "Oh, of course,
honey, he's right here. Love you," she chirped.
    "Love you too,
Mum," I said with a grin.
    There was a
pause and, over the scuffling noises as the phone was handed over,
I could hear my mother telling my father not to talk too long as
she wanted to talk to the boys. I rolled my eyes at her bossiness,
my mum thinks she has a greater claim over us than my dad because
she carried us in the womb for nine months. The fact that she
didn't even meet Jack until he was eight doesn't seem to
register.
    As is probably
blatantly obvious, our family follows the age old stereotype where
the mum is closer to the son and the dad closer to the daughter.
They even had an agreement before either Matt or I were born that
Mum would get to name the child if it was a boy and Dad would name
it if it was a girl. I was born on Christmas Day and my dad chose
Natalia as it means Christmas in Latin. This was all very well for
formal stuff, but I much preferred to be called Talia
day-to-day.
    Finally I heard
Dad shush my mother, not a small feat. "Hello sweetheart." His
voice sounded long-suffering although I knew he was just putting it
on to annoy Mum.
    "Hi, Dad." I
smiled, bringing my legs up to sit cross legged on the kitchen
chair. "How’re you going?"
    "I'd be a lot
better if your mum would just drop this anniversary thing. If I've
told her once I've told her a thousand times I don't want to have a
huge party, let alone one involving a massive tent in the
backyard," he ranted.
    Ah, so that was
what I'd said was a good idea. Whoops.
    "We've gotten
to know an awful lot of people over three decades of marriage, and
most of them are imbeciles. Why on earth would I want to be stuck
with them in an expensive pavilion that's probably churning up my
lawn?" He continued crossly.
    "Because then
you'll know where to organise the air raid?" I suggested
playfully.
    He chuckled.
"Well there is that I suppose," he conceded.
    We chatted for
a bit, but, after a while, Mum's squawks in the background became
too insistent and we reluctantly said goodbye.
    "Tell Mum that
I tried to convince you of the merits of a huge garden party for
your anniversary, alright?" I joked and he groaned.
    "If I have to
be there so do you, missy, so I wouldn't get too cocky," he warned.
"Take care."
    "You too," I
replied before shouting out, "Heads up Matt," and throwing the
phone across to him.
    He caught it
and began to talk to Dad, oblivious of the racket his friends and
the TV were making. I was just about to trudge off to my room to
change when Jack came up behind the chair I was sitting on and
leant down to whisper, "Somebody's in trouble."
    I looked across
to where Matt was still looking at me with an annoyed expression
even though he was carrying on a perfectly normal conversation over
the telephone. Sighing, I nodded my head. Considering Matt and I
were super close, the fact that I hadn't told him I'd broken up
with Brad had obviously made him pissed.
    "Yep," I
whispered back. "It looks that way, but I honestly didn't have time
to tell him. Not to mention I would have spent the whole day
expecting to hear that my brother had threatened to kill Brad and
who needs that kind of stress?"
    Even though I
couldn't see Jack I could feel that his posture had suddenly
stiffened. I craned my neck round to look at him and saw he was
staring off to the side like he was deliberately avoiding looking
at me.
    "Did you see
Brad today?" He asked, still keeping his voice low as if he didn't
want the others to hear us.
    "No, why?" As
he continued to avoid my gaze, I sighed heavily. "Jack Morgan
Whitby what have you done?"
    Before he had a
chance to reply, a high-pitched phone ring erupted shrilly from
somewhere quite near us. Swearing softly, I reached down under the
table for my bag. I dug through the layers of trash until I found
the sparkly blue phone (I painted it with nail polish at a boring
party) and answered it.
    "Hey, Simone.
I'm about to extract some sort of