I paced to the kitchen, where I saw not one but several hummingbirds darting around the backyard feeder. I shut the kitchen blinds and sent Meredith a second, more urgent text. Write me as soon as you get this. Over the next hour, I sent text after text, while small shadows flitted across the drawn curtains. When I finally worked up the nerve to look outside again, the air was filled with whirring hummingbirds. Hardly able to dial, I called Meredith’s number and left what I hoped sounded like a relatively normal message. “Hey, it’s me. Did you get my texts? There’s a… situation here. Call me.” I hung up and immediately phoned again. Before long, I’d filled up her machine, and was forced to switch back to texts—keeping things vague, not mentioning the birds. There were thousands of them now, roiling in the windows like theoretical particles. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head, having all but convinced myself that I was never going to see Meredith or Christine again, until I heard the distinctive sound of an engine in the driveway. I looked out and saw Meredith walking around the car to collect Christine. The hummingbirds had vanished.
Where were you?” I demanded, charging out to meet them in my bare feet.
Meredith hoisted Christine out of her car seat, looking confused. “At the rec centre.”
“Oh.” I’d forgotten that Christine had a music class every Sunday morning. “Well, did you get my messages?”
“No, my phone was off.”
“Daddy!” Christine chirped.
Meredith swerved around me with Christine in her arms. “Come on, honey. Let’s give you a bum change.”
I followed them into the house, where Meredith laid Christine on the change table in the nursery. I hovered behind her. “So… you were at Toddler Tunes?”
“Of course.”
“How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
I peered over Meredith’s shoulder. “Did you have fun at music class, pumpkin?”
Meredith shot me an annoyed look. “Do you mind?”
“What?”
“You’re crowding me.”
I stepped back and she positioned herself firmly between me and Christine, taking what felt like forever to put on a new diaper.
“There we go,” she said, picking Christine up. “Come on, let’s get you a snack.” She carried Christine past me into the kitchen and started going through cupboards. “When did you say their flight was coming?” she asked me.
“Um…”
“Never mind, here it is.” Meredith pulled a yellow sticky note off the fridge. “Five o’clock. That gives us, what? Four hours?” She handed Christine a teething biscuit and shifted her from one hip to the other, holding her like she never intended to put her down. “They’re bound to be hungry when they get here. We should pick up some snacks. What do they like to eat?”
“I—I’m not sure,” I stammered, unable to imagine who “they” might be, or why I’d know anything about their dietary habits. Up in Meredith’s arms, Christine had started to squirm. “She wants down,” I said.
“What?”
“Christine. She wants down.”
Meredith reluctantly set her on the floor. “Go play nice in your room, okay?”
“Kay.” Christine toddled out of the kitchen.
“Daddy will be there in a minute!” I called after her.
“Oh, no you won’t,” Meredith said. “I need you to set up the spare room downstairs.”
I wasn’t sure what I found more troubling, the revelation that someone was actually going to be staying with us, or the tone Meredith was taking with me, as if I were a disobedient child. I had no choice but to pretend it was all perfectly normal. If she knew I’d been missing time again, I would find myself back at the psychiatric unit that very afternoon. I peered into Christine’s room on my way to the basement and found her sitting on the floor, whispering into the ear of a plush doll.
“What’s the secret?” I asked, smiling at her.
She jumped and started to cry. Meredith was in the room in an instant. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I held up my hands.
“Daddy scare me!”
“Honey, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just saying hello.”
Meredith gave me an exasperated look and I stormed out of the room, not bothering to defend myself, going downstairs and slamming both baby gates behind me. My phone buzzed. I took it out and looked at it. The dating app was back. “Jesus Christ!” I shouted and dragged it up to the trash with a vicious swipe of the finger. I shut my eyes and took a breath, before continuing on to the spare room. Just as I was about to open the door, it swung open of its own accord and I found myself facing a tall, well-tanned man with a bleached goatee. “Ho! Gave me a jump there! How you going, Felix?” The man chuckled, then looked concerned. “Say, are you all right, mate?”
Judging from his accent and the open suitcase on the bed, I assumed this could only be my sister’s husband, a man I’d never met. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m sorry. Is Eileen here?”
“She’s upstairs with the boys, isn’t she?”
“Right. I just came down to… check on something.”
“Oh, all right.” He gave me an affable smile.
I turned back to the stairs and banged my shin on the open baby gate. “Fuck!” I shouted, aware that Eileen’s husband was watching me. My phone buzzed and I looked at it. Once again, the dating app was back, with another text from Jazz.
family still there?
With mounting panic, I swept the app into the garbage and resumed climbing. Upstairs, the blinds were wide open, sunlight flooding the house. Meredith was in the kitchen, wearing the same dress she’d worn on our first date. “Did you find the camera?” she asked, her face shining, as if she’d had a couple of drinks.
“I… No.”
“Well, I’ll have a look for it later.” She held out a glass of red wine. “Can you bring this to your sister?”
Christine’s high-pitched laughter rang out deeper in the house. I took the glass and rounded the corner to find my sister—older and thinner than I remembered her—in an armchair in the TV room. Across from her, two boys in their early teens sat on the couch, flanking Christine, who was standing unsteadily on the middle cushion.
She rocked forwards.
“No!” I lunged to catch her, but she made a small correction and plopped down in the taller boy’s lap. I’d spilled Eileen’s wine all over the floor. “Sorry,” I said, battered by all these new faces. “She was about to—”
Christine took two big moon steps across the couch. “Hey!” I shouted, intercepting her. “The couch is for sitting! Not bouncing!”
The boys exchanged a wary look. They looked like gangly, pimpled versions of the Kiwi in the basement.
“Why don’t you do something quiet,” I said, carrying Christine over to a spot on the floor, aware that I was making a spectacle of myself. “Like colouring.”
Christine arched her back. “Lemme go!”
“Honey…” I said, desperately.
“She’s fine,” Eileen assured me. “The boys won’t let her fall.”
I ignored her, looking for crayons as Christine shrieked and pounded her heels on the hardwood.
“Everything all right?” Meredith asked, coming out of the kitchen.
“What does it look like?” I snapped.
I didn’t care if they were family, I wanted these people out of my house. Eileen cleared her throat. “Do you have any paper towels, Meredith?”
“I’ll get them,” I muttered, unable to stop Christine from racing back over to the couch.