Free The Convent by Maureen McCarthy Page B

miss.’
    â€˜Hang on!’ Dad laughed.
    My parents are both doctors, specialists in different fields. Mum is in women’s health and Dad is a surgeon, with a speciality in oncology. Although he’s short for a man, Dad has a lovely, warm open face, dark skin and a long straight nose. He is one of those guys who shaves twice a day. He’s got patches of hair on his back and shoulders and his legs and arms are thick with it. When Stella and I were really little, we’d sit on the mat of curly black hair covering his chest and belly and he’d tell us that he’d grown it especially for us to and we believed him.
    Stella used to say quite seriously that she’d never go out with a guy who wasn’t covered in hair like Dad, because she’d be afraid he wasn’t the real deal. I secretly agreed of course. Dad is the best.
    Mum is two inches taller than Dad, quieter, gentler, with beautiful fair skin. She is the most honest person I know, and the kindest. It’s not just me who thinks so. Everyone who meets my parents loves them.
    They were both looking at me, waiting for me to say something or ask something, but all I was thinking about was the lines of tiredness and stress I saw around their eyes and the fact that whatever happened I wasn’t going to call them back early. They really needed a break.
    Of course, we’d all been away together heaps of times, but this would be their first proper holiday together, just the two of them, since I came along. First they were off to Paris, where Mum had gone to university and still had friends, and then over to England to see Dad’s very old mother. It was all arranged that as soon as school finished Stella was going to do an intensive music summer school and I was going to get a cafe job and save for an overseas trip with my mates.
    Then two weeks before they left, Stella declared that she wasn’t going to do the summer school because she wanted to spend more time ‘with friends’. We all knew that was bullshit because she didn’t have friends any more.
    They’d fallen by the wayside like most other things in her life. She was just piking out on the thing that she was best at, and it didn’t make sense. But none of us knew what to do about it.
    â€˜Just make sure you come home safely,’ I said stiffly. I couldn’t seem to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. What if something happens to you? Just looking at them was freaking me out. I’d never thought of them as old before. Maybe it was just because they’d spent such long hours at work recently. I wished Mum hadn’t cut her hair so short and let it go grey. I wished she cared about her clothes; I wished she would laugh more, too, the way she used to.
    â€˜Of course we will, darling.’
    I wanted to get nasty, tell her bluntly that if she wanted me to look after Stella, then at least she could start caring for herself again. I would shame her into it. Nana was nearly eighty when she died, but she looked good to the end. You never saw her without her hair coloured and styled, or without her lipstick. We all adored Nana. I wanted to tell Mum that her mother would absolutely hate to see her in an unironed fawn shirt, boring old thongs and a daggy haircut. I opened my mouth to say it all, but nothing came out. I just … couldn’t.
    â€˜Tell us what you’re thinking, Peach,’ Dad said slowly. ‘Come on, sweetheart.’
    â€˜Just come home safely,’ I mumbled again.
    â€˜Of course we will, darling,’ they said again in unison.‘We’ll be home before you know it.’
    Watching them walk out of the room talking about what we’d have for dinner, I was overtaken with an unnerving feeling that my life was about to be shaken loose from its foundations. I desperately wanted to call them back again, make them sit down and tell me again that they’d be back and that everything would be