Her brother’s face was ashen, like she’d actually punched him. She wished he was the type to punch back.
‘Haven’t I done enough?’ she hissed, tears retracing their predecessors’ tracks. ‘Can’t you just leave me alone?’
‘No,’ Tom said, ‘I can’t.’
‘I’m going to go,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m sorry, Nella. If I knew the stuff about Clarkson would have helped you or stopped this from happening to Jett, I would have reached out sooner.’
‘It wouldn’t,’ Nella said, not taking her eyes off Tom. ‘Slither away, Kingsley.’
The journalist left the eldest Barbarani siblings alone in the room.
‘I’m sorry about Randall,’ Tom said.
‘He’s not dead.’Yet.
‘You saved him.’ Tom put his phone on the plastic chair, a gesture equivalent to an extravagant bow.
‘I couldn’t have done it without everyone else who showed up.’
‘Guess you have more friends than you thought.’
Everything they weren’t saying pressed against them.
‘You saved us too,’ Tom said, blinking slowly. ‘Greyson told me everything.’
‘I’ll pay the price. So will Libby and Poppy.’
‘There’ll be another way,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll get Valentine another way.’
‘We?’ Was it possible Tom was suffering from undiagnosed smoke inhalation from the drive back from Nannup?
‘Of course.’ He coughed. ‘It’s a family matter now. I’ll help you.’
For the second time in as many weeks, words failed Nella. ‘I didn’t ...’
‘I know. Me too.’
They stared at each other, unspoken apologies hanging in the air and lightening Nella’s heart.
‘I assume you found out I knew about Sally Sue’s release. I shouldn’t have kept that from you. But I didn’t think it would help. I was, ah ...’ He looked up as though suddenly fascinated by the off-milk paint of the hospital ceiling. ‘Protecting you.’
She swallowed. ‘Thanks.’For getting Jett shot.But even she knew that wasn’t on Tom. That was all her fault.
‘It’s what Dad would have done.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He loved you.’
Her sobs broke through the dam. Somehow, her brother, the one who knew their father best, who respected everything about him from his dress sense to his lack of emotional vulnerability, saying those words to her burst whatever tenuous, temporary wall she’d put up after pulling Jett from the water.
Nella couldn’t remember the last time Tom had hugged her. The last time they’d touched. But his arms were around her, sobs shuddering through his body too, their shared familial pain heaving and groaning like an antique they’d inherited from a well-meaning relative but would never find a place for, forever shifting it around, trying to find the spot where it fit. Here it was.
Tom let her soak his monogrammed Gucci jacket with her face fluids. The linen blend was surprisingly absorbent.
After, they sat side by side in the empty waiting room in silence.
‘Do you think Dad knew the truth about Nonno Emilio and Antonio La Marca? How they created the recipe together?’ Nella asked eventually.
