The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain by Cath Crowley

wasn’t there. I imagine kicking the ball from the centre mark and watching it sail into the goal. The afternoon is slipping into darkness when I see Martin walking towards me.
    â€˜Thought I might find you here. Want to have a kick?’
    â€˜Nah. I’m just here to look.’
    â€˜Faltrain, it’s time you got back on the soccer field. Coach says there’s still a place for you in the team.’
    I stop dead. Feel sick. Soccer is the most important part of my life. I can’t come back to the team. And if I can’t play then I don’t want it to exist.
    â€˜I’m no good anymore. And anyway, the guys don’t want me.’
    â€˜Giving up are you? You’re acting just like my dad.’
    I know by Martin’s voice, cut and bleeding and hovering, that he wants me to ask about his dad. He needs me to. For a second I remember the feel of the cold window on my cheek. I see the driveway without Dad’s car. Somehow I know that if I ask Martin that question then the day will splinter around me like glass. The pieces will be too fine and sharp to put back together. Just leave, I want to tell Martin.
    â€˜What’s your dad got to do with me ?’
    He walks away. And the day splinters anyway.
    Â 
MARTIN
    Everything, Faltrain. He’s got everything to do with you. I want to shout at the both of you, stop feeling sorry for yourselves. Why don’t you ask how I am, once in a while?
    Sometimes I just want to say, get up and get off the couch, Dad. I’m too tired to come home and cook dinner. I’m tired of looking after Karen when it’s not my job. I want to punch the wall next to his head. I want to cover the walls with fist marks so he can see how sick I am of this place. How sick I am of him and the lounge room where we used to watch telly with Mum. It used to smell like home. Now it smells like old runners and I hate it.
    I remember a talk we had when I was about nine. She was in the garden, watering the plants with an old bucket we kept in the shed. She’d splashed some water on her shoes and some had hit her dress. She started crying and I remember saying to her, ‘Don’t cry,’ and trying to wipe her shoes. I kept thinking she’d be all right when the sun dried her off.
    Now I wonder what she was really crying about. Was she so sick of it all that she wanted to run out the gate and never come back? I remember holding her hand and pulling her back inside the house. Did she stay a bit longer just for me?
    I want to read that letter so I know how she explained it. He should have read it to us. She should have told us something when she said that last goodbye. I think about what was in it all the time. Did it explain how she had time to wash our socks before she left but no time to write me a letter? I remember opening my drawer the morning after she’d gone and all the socks were rolled together. All the underwear was clean too. She’d put the washing on just like always. She’d hung it out and waited for it to dry. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I try towork out how long it would have taken for her to do all that stuff. So then I’ll know exactly when she locked the door. Was she walking to the tram when Karen and me were on our way home? And the question that makes me feel sicker than anything, had she booked her ticket weeks ago, and was just biding her time with us? All her smiles fake. Every kiss goodnight a lie.
    Â 
GRACIE
    I notice things on the way home tonight that I’ve never seen before. The old man next door to us has shoulders that slope downwards. The guttering around the roof of our house is full of leaves. There are weeds all along our front fence.
    I wish more than anything that Dad would come home. I imagine him making me dinner. The house is cold when I get there. Before I flick on the light I see the red blinking of the answering machine. That little red light makes the whole room look