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“Understood.” I do understand. But I can’t deny I feel a twinge of rejection. I reckon I just have to accept that I’m never going to be her mate. A father is a father, and always a father.
    Mia shakes her head. “You’re such a dick.”
    “Thanks. Your compliments always bring a tear to my eye.”
    “Anytime.” Mia stands there, plate in one hand, a glass of water in the other. She stares at me with a strange smirk on her face. I’m happy she seems happier today, but was it brought on by something? And how has the incident in class not gotten her down?
    “Mia. Go. I’m fine. Wanna watch 7:30 Report anyway,” I say. It’s true.
    Mia blinks, as if she’s just snapped out of a trance. “Yep,” she says, and walks out dragging her tattered and grimy tracksuit cuffs along the carpet.
    I flick to the ABC and pull the coffee table between my knees. Footage of a school trip gone troppo in Echuca with kids smoking and shooting up, drinking copious amounts of booze, and getting arrested flashes over the TV screen. I cut off a piece of chicken and put it in my mouth; chewing and chuckling at the memory of being a bit of a teen rebel myself, at Celeste and me smoking pot, getting drunk, having sex in the back of my father’s E-Type Jag while it was parked in the garage right next to my parents’ bedroom. God, it was fun trying to be so quiet.
    Crikey, C. We really pulled the wool over their eyes, you and me.
    I laugh out loud and chew with my mouth open.
    Then my chewing slows. I rest my knife and fork on the edge of my plate. Swallow. Rub my hands over my face. Squint at the TV, elbows resting on my knees.
    I sway side to side a little. Then hang my head.
    Oh, Mia.
    Suddenly, I feel sick. She wouldn’t be doing anything stupid, would she?

Chapter 13
    Sonia: It is simply a safety net.
    The phone rings. A welcome distraction. But how can I hear anything with Mick’s metal blaring like it is the end of the world? I lift the receiver off the wall and hold it to my right ear. I stick a finger in my left to block out the music.
    “Hello?” I say, trying not to shout.
    “Sonia, it’s Nash.”
    “Oh hi. Sorry about the racket, but I cannot do much about it at this point. Do you want to call back later?”
    “No worries, I’ll be quick.”
    I nod and pinch the skin between my eyes. “Is everything okay?”
    “Mia’s behaviour is—uh, I want to get your opinion about something. Can we meet?”
    I sigh with relief. Any excuse to get out. Any excuse that isn’t my own flight-before-fight syndrome.
    “Sure. Dexter’s in Northcote?”
    “Half an hour?”
    “See you soon.”
    I hang up, load the dishwasher, put the knife I was ogling back in the drawer, and slip on a pair of blue jeans that are hanging on the clotheshorse. On my way out I apply a bit of red lipstick in the hallway mirror, take a handful of cash from my briefcase and put it in my back pocket.
    As I step outside, I decide once and for all that the next time Ibrahim turns up on my doorstep, my pistol will be within reach.

Chapter 14
    Mia: Can I just squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I’m being responsible?
    I sit on the wooden bench in the backyard. The one my mother insisted go under the fig tree so she could read her fitness magazines in the afternoon shade. Pain in the arse, this bench. Rotten gunk that looks like decaying organs sticks to it twice a year. And I’m always left to clean it up. The spatula used to scrape the rotting flesh off the not-so-varnished-anymore bench is jammed in the dirt at the base of the tree’s trunk—its dark-green-tinted handle faded at the tip, where the sun hits it every morning. I can’t help but think it looks like a moldy penis-zombie escaping from its grave.
    Doesn’t help that Dad doesn’t give a toss about collecting the figs to eat, either. Or the garden. The only time he ever sat out here to “read,” was the day Mum left. His reading material? His own desperate text messages that he never got