Family Togetherness

Chapter 13- Clara

The house was darker inside than it was outside. Packets of cereal cast long shadows across the kitchen table; and the water that hadn't been let out of the sink was oily and still. After the harsh lights and noise of the studio, it felt as though a velvet blanket of darkness and silence had been thrown over the streets.

"I'll get in touch," Layla announced, "that's what he said."

Nathan kicked off his shoes underneath the table. "The first five-person group on Teenage Talents! Do you think we'd be in the papers?"

"I'd put it in the papers." Abby pushed her school bag across the table and tapped the laptop into life. The blinking screen lit up the room in weak, green-tinted light. She turned to Luke. "My Neighbourhood Watch column should come out tonight. You'd forgotten, hadn't you?"

"I hadn't," he replied distractedly, "and it's not only your column, anyway."

After a silent debate with himself, Luke had left the shield in the car. It might not have been made of real silver, but it was still heavy and unwieldy. There certainly wasn't a place for it in his shared bedroom.
If he was honest with himself, Luke knew that he didn't really want the trophy at all. If he took his prizes into the house, that conversation between him and Katie Evans might slip through the door with them; and linger in the foreground. She'd made it seem like it was his fault she hadn't entered. That she was only backing out because of him. And that wasn't fair, surely?

"When that phone started going off during my verse," Victoria was saying, "I thought I was going to forget it all. Everything just went blank."

"But it can't have gone completely blank." Layla hastily drew her hands out of the oily sink water, "'Cause you did get to the end. And so did I!"

Nathan fished Victoria's phone out of the bulging bag. "Missed call. I knew it." In a flash, Victoria was beside him. She tapped the screen.

"Hello Victoria." The voice was familiar, even though it had a strange new weariness to it. "This is Dad. I'm sorry I didn't pick up before."

"That isn't Dad," Layla scoffed. "Sounds more like Grandpa."

"It is Dad," Nathan hissed, "so stay quiet!"

The message was still playing. "So, if you want to talk to me, I'm all ears. Remember, I'm just a phone call away. Take care, now."

And then they heard a beep, and the phone fell silent.

"You don't need to talk to him now anyway," Nathan said after a while. He slid the phone across the cluttered tabletop, and it knocked into a cereal bowl with a metallic crash. After their father's quiet, tired new voice, everything sounded louder. Realer.

"You don't need to talk to him now?" Abby echoed. "When did you ever need to talk to Dad?" She looked from face to face disbelievingly. "You've been calling him? I can't believe nobody told me about this! Not even you, Victoria!" She paused for a moment to glare at her sister; who had suddenly become absorbed in silently reading the nutritional values off the side of the Cornflakes packet.
"And Nathan too! As if it was some kind of private gathering! All over one stupid TV audition!"

She probably would have gone on for a lot longer, if she hadn't been interrupted by the front door swinging open and slamming shut again. They could hear their mother's angry, high-heeled footsteps over her piercing yells.

"You're here now," Sophie raged. They could hear her clearly from the kitchen. "You weren't here at five, when dinner was on the table, or at six, or even seven, when I was considering calling the police to arrange a search party; but you're here now!"