Journal of Rose Ingrid Castle

JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE

Daniel, we found out, was a commercial pilot. He had been married to Billy’s mother, a woman named Trish, for ten years before they divorced, and they were still on friendly terms. I knew this because Fern asked Daniel about it. Fern had an amazing way of being able to ask these kinds of questions without upsetting people. Even Mum didn’t seem to mind when Fern asked why they broke up.

Daniel smiled, like this wasn’t rude—like it was, in fact, a very good question. “I travel a lot for work, being a pilot. I think Trish got sick of being alone all the time. And I, well, I wasn’t always the best husband, let’s put it that way. We’re much better as co-parents than we were as husband and wife.”

It was funny the way he spoke about Trish. With fondness! He never used the kinds of words Mum used to talk about our dad. Deadbeat. Loser. Dickhead. I wondered how Mum felt about Daniel talking about Trish fondly. Outwardly, she didn’t seem bothered by it, but I knew Mum better than that. It would be driving her crazy. But she was on her best behavior around Daniel. She was her same old self when he wasn’t around, though, and as strange as it sounds, I preferred it this way. The new, uber-nice Mum was unsettling for sure, but the constant back-and-forth from nice to horrible gave me whiplash.

I was on guard around Daniel at first, naturally. Reassuringly, he was much less interested in Fern and me than Gary had been. He was polite enough—asking about our day at school and appearing genuinely interested in the answer—but he seemed to be far more interested in conversation with Mum than he was with us. He never tickled us or massaged us, or even touched us at all, beyond the offer of a high five every now and again. He did, however, talk a lot about Billy. Billy, Daniel’s son, was fourteen, and it was clear how much Daniel adored him. Fern and I wanted to meet Billy, and Daniel kept saying we would “soon.” I got the feeling he was waiting for something—but I never knew what.

It took six months before the meeting finally happened. By that time, we were planning a camping trip, at Daniel’s suggestion. “Three or four days together,” he said, “so the kids can bond.” Mum seemed overjoyed about this, though she’d never showed any interest in camping previously. Fern also seemed happy and immediately started reading a book about camping. I was the only one who seemed to be bracing for something bad. Why was it that I was always the only one bracing?

The fact that we didn’t have any camping gear didn’t seem to be an obstacle; Daniel simply suggested we go to the shops. I’ll admit, I was excited about that. Mum never had money to buy much other than food at the shops, and when we needed something else essential, like clothes or crockery, we got it secondhand at an op shop. But even more exciting than buying something new was the fact that Billy was coming with us to buy the tent. Daniel had told us a lot about him by then, and Billy had built up an almost mythical status in my mind. Not to mention the fact that I was twelve at the time and boys were fast becoming something that interested me.

When we pulled up outside Billy’s mum’s very nice house, Billy was waiting on the manicured nature strip. He wore jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap. His head was down and he was chewing a fingernail aggressively. His mum was by his side with her hand on his shoulder and she waved at the approaching car.

“Hello!” she said to us when Billy opened the door to get in. She looked both Fern and me in the eye. “I’m Trish, Billy’s mum. You must be the twins! Let me guess—you’re Fern and you’re Rose?”

Fern and I stared at her as if she was an alien. We had never met a woman like Trish before. She was different from Mum—fatter and frecklier, with a round face and a gummy smile. Another difference was her obvious adoration of Billy—before he got into the car, she planted several kisses on his cheek, which he wiped off as Fern leaned over and touched her bracelet against mine. I frowned at her. What is it?

But she kept her gaze on Billy.

“Be good for your dad,” Billy’s mum said as he slid into the back seat, taking his place beside me.

Billy had a round face, green eyes, and hair that was swept over his face. He grinned at me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I replied.

“What kind of tent are we going to get, kids?” Daniel said as we began driving.

“I’ve taken the liberty of doing some research,” Fern said. She had her camping book in her lap, as well as a handful of flyers from camping stores. “For a family of five, hands down the best option is the Montana 12. It features near-vertical sides and a very spacious three-room interior with zippered dividers and a third removable wall so you can further divide one of the end rooms into two smaller compartments. It also features a large front awning with built-in sidewalls that allows you to create a big verandah at the front of your tent. Or, if we want separate tents, I have recommendations for those too.”

“Someone has done her research,” Daniel said.

“Glad someone around here has,” Billy said. Daniel laughed good-naturedly. It was hard not to be buoyed by the sense of camaraderie in the car. It looked like Billy and Daniel were going to stick around, at least for a little while. That had to be a good thing. Still, as I heard Mum’s tinkling laugh I felt that familiar sense of dread. Something is going to ruin this, I thought. If there’s one thing I knew about Mum, it was that she had a gift for destroying everything good.