Broken Read Online Free PDF

the car passed, the sound fading as it continued on down the driveway towards the two rear units.
    Mattie relaxed again, rolling her eyes at her reaction. But she’d beenlike that all afternoon, with her stomach tensing every time she heard a car slow down. Twice, when the car hadn’t moved on quickly, she’d rushed to the lounge-room windows to draw the sheet-curtains back just enough to see that it was only other unit-dwellers stopping at the mailboxes to retrieve their weekend junk mail. And she couldn’t understand why she felt so nervous. Why, when she was only expecting her own family, was she feeling all the adrenalin-charged expectation of a first date? She’d even dressed carefully, trying to balance nonchalant casualness with something flattering, and finally settled on jeans she hadn’t worn in years that were now a bit tight around the buttocks, and a clingy shell-pink long-sleeved shirt. Now all she needed was her family.
    Mattie washed her hands briskly and then went into the loungeroom to sit on the couch armrest and peer behind the sheets. She played a game in which she counted cars, with the tenth car bound to be them. Then the twentieth. Thirtieth. Maybe the fiftieth. She became aware that her forehead had beaded with perspiration so she ran into the bathroom to reapply her make-up. Then back into the lounge-room, one, two, three, convincing herself that Murphy’s law had kicked in and they’d arrived while she was gone. But they hadn’t. In fact they didn’t arrive until nearly seven, when the potatoes had long boiled, and the casserole had been turned down to a thickened simmer.
    Courtney exited the car first, pausing on the pathway to gaze at the unit blankly. Mattie repressed the urge to fling open the door and envelop the child in her arms. Instead she stayed where she was, a voyeuristic witness to her daughter’s first impressions. Courtney was six, a small dark-haired girl whose baby plumpness was still evident in her sturdy legs and rounded belly. She was a child to whom openness came naturally, who disliked subterfuge, and artifice, and secrets. Unless she was the instigator.
    Apart from his dark hair and eyes, her brother was very different. Although not a devious child in the sense of being deceitful, he nevertheless displayed an instinctive wariness that sometimes made him seem that way. But Mattie knew this was more because he just seemed to
feel
things more profoundly than most other children. It was likehis soul had no protection and the only defence he could muster was avoidance.
    Mattie watched, a lead weight pressing against her gut, as Max finally scrambled from the front passenger seat and joined his sister on the path. They’d obviously dressed themselves – Max in a pair of patterned board shorts and a black windcheater with orange lining, and Courtney in her favourite pink tutu topped by a red cardigan. Her long hair was caught up in a rather crooked ponytail that was barely secured by an extravagant pink and gold hair-tie. Both children looked back towards the car, unsure of what was expected of them next. By now their father had also emerged and was removing their schoolbags from the boot. Mattie stared at him, trying to reconcile her pleasure at seeing him with the fact that she was here in the first place. Nothing made sense.
    Even in terms of looks, they were a matched set. Like Mattie, Jake had olive skin and dark brown hair, a virtual guarantee that both their children would inherit the same colouring. The only difference was that Mattie, Max and Courtney all had brown eyes, while Jake’s were an unusual shade of bluish pewter-grey that shone when he was amused and dulled flatly when he was annoyed. He was a tall, almost thin man with large hands and feet and distinct grooves either side of his mouth that deepened when he smiled. At thirty-three his hair had the beginnings of a prematurely receding hairline, a family trait