Free Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan Page A

like kind of grandparents.’ Chloe smiled; it was nice to have some good news of Janey, even temporarily.
    ‘Settling.’ Maurice paused in his eating and looked at Chloe. ‘Settling like a dragonfly, maybe.’
    Chloe held up her crossed fingers and said nothing.

    Late the next evening, Chloe opened the door to Janey, who was tremulous and pale, and wearing large dark cotton-knit everything, sleeves to her fingertips, pants like bags, blacksandshoes. She held up a photo of a little dark-haired boy in overalls, pushing a wooden cart full of blocks.
    ‘Oh, Eddie!’ Chloe snatched it, devoured it as Janey edged in, keeping her back towards Joy and Pete at the dining table. ‘Look at him! He’s just a doll. He’s just you through and through!’
    ‘You think? You really think he’s good-looking? I can’t tell!’
    ‘Of course he is. Can I show everyone? Like, Mum and Dad?’
    ‘Ooh, all right.’
    They went through to the dining room. Joy was scowling over her tax at the one end of the table and Pete was reading for school at the other. ‘Ah, the man in your life!’ Joy said, when she saw the photo. ‘Lovely. Lovely eyes—yours, of course—’ She checked. ‘Doesn’t he look—he looks
steadfast
, is what it is,’ she finished, almost to herself.
    Janey hovered, looking worried. ‘He’s walking really well already, they say, and starting to talk.’ She hung over Joy’s shoulder and stared at the photo. Watching her, Chloe suddenly felt the cruelty of this, this contract to salt Janey’s wounds every few months.
Without these photos, she might have a chance
. Chloe looked at the anger-burnished thought, and wondered what a person did with a thought like that, a thought she couldn’t speak.
    Dane came from the kitchen. ‘What’s this? Oh, Janey’s boy!’ He had a good look over Joy’s head, smoothing his beard consideringly. ‘Solid little bloke, eh?’
    Joy handed the photo back to Janey. ‘You should be a very proud mum,’ she said seriously. Chloe felt proud herself—or was it relieved?—that
her
mother always said the right thing.
    ‘Oh, I’m not—I don’t really do anything for him. I just admire him. He looks—he looks so—’ Janey’s face crumpled and she covered it and sobbed.
    Pete looked up in alarm. Chloe put her arms around Janey, who smelled of warm cotton. The photo went over to Pete and back to Joy. Dane fetched a box of tissues from the kitchen bench.
    ‘He looks so
happy
!’ Janey finally got out. ‘And I do
want
him to be happy!’
    ‘Of course you do,’ said Joy, stroking Janey’s black locks. ‘And so he is. You made the right decision, Janey, you know you did.’
    ‘I
don’t
know I did!’ said Janey, and sank to the table, sobbing.
    Catching Chloe’s full eyes, Joy said, ‘She did.’ Dumbly Chloe nodded. ‘Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it,’ Joy went on to Janey, ‘but most of the time you know, for sure, it was the very best thing you could have done for him. Don’t you?’
    Janey nodded and sobbed. Then she struggled up and said, ‘Sometimes I think, if I did what all those counsellors said, and really
tried
—sometimes I think—I would like to, you know—have him with me?’ The last words came out as a whisper.
    ‘And living where? In that little room?’ said Joy gently, through Janey’s gasps and shudderings.
    ‘And you guys—you could help—’
    Joy smiled. ‘You feel like this every time, remember, Janey? And think about it—Maxine and Terry love him too. They’ve made a life for him; they’re a family together. And look at that lovely smile. Look at him. That’s a happy boy. The thing kids want is stability—every day the same pattern so that they can get the hang of things. To switch back to living with you would be really scary for a child that age, hey?’
    Janey nodded and took a fresh handful of tissues, peering over them at the photograph. Chloe dried her own eyes as her mother’s voice began to clear away the