Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine Read Free Book Online

wrong.”
    When I got Stroma home from Bee’s, it was cold and all the lights were off, like there was nobody in. Mum was on the sofa in the dark. I hung up our coats and Stroma’s book bag. I rinsed out her lunch box. She sat at the kitchen table drawing while I boiled water for pasta and scraped the moldy fur off the pesto sauce without her noticing. We jumped around when something good came on the radio. Stroma climbed up on the table and put her heart and soul into it. Neither of us mentioned the lack of a parent in the room. Neither of us expected a kiss or a smile or a cup of hot chocolate. Neither of us said this is not what other families do every evening. I guess we were used to it by then.
    There were two messages from Dad on the answering machine. That was about all he got out of Mum, her recorded “We’re not in right now” voice from months and months ago. It was also the closest he got to parenting during the week because he worked long hours and always forgot to call us when we were actually there. He said things like “Don’t forget to brush your teeth, Stroma” and “I hope you’re studying, Rowan” and “I hope my two best girls are behaving,” and werolled our eyes and kept on with whatever we were doing. It was pathetic, really.
    I remember the day Mum and Dad announced they were going to have another baby. That was when they still liked each other. We were having breakfast. I was trying not to think about them having sex.
    Jack said, “Please, I’m eating,” and I sniggered through my cornflakes and we got sent upstairs. Clearly they didn’t see the funny side of getting pregnant at forty.
    Jack said, “Do you think they’re replacing us because we’re not cute anymore?” He was sitting on the floor, almost twelve, filling the place up with his legs. He was so big suddenly, I thought, God, maybe they are.
    When Jack and I were little, Mum and Dad were always doing stuff with us. Mum would be sitting on the sofa waiting when we got home from school. I thought that’s what she did all day, sat and waited for us. Dad built spaceships and palaces out of cereal packets and egg boxes. She made me spiral jam sandwiches by rolling the bread into tubes and then slicing them up. He made curries so hot our eyes streamed and water tasted like fire.
    We felt like the center of the universe, I guess because we were the center of theirs.
    With Stroma they were the same. Everything was always covered in icing or sequins or paint. Dad foundher a bike at the dump and restored it so it looked brand-new. He took her for a ride every evening when he got in, even when he was dead tired, even if it was just around the block. Mum made her a fairy outfit one Christmas and stayed up until two in the morning hand-stitching pink ribbons onto the wings. They created treasure hunts and dance routines and made gingerbread men. They never stopped. Jack and I called them the kids’ TV presenters, and laughed at their sweatpants and the paint in their hair. We said they should have more self-respect and act their age. We were just jealous because we weren’t the center of things anymore. We were just joking. We were just mean.
    The day Stroma was born, when we went in to see her, Mum said it was astonishing how much love there was in the human heart. She said she thought we’d filled it, me and Jack, but here was a whole nother room with Stroma’s name on the door.
    They must have lost the key. Because now I was the one who spent hours picking Play-Doh off the sofa and toys off the floor. It was me who discovered the instant healing powers of a Band-Aid and how many peas Stroma would tolerate at any one meal. I did the hugging and the singing and the bedtime stories. It wasn’t Mum or Dad who skipped down the street yelling “We’re going on a Bear Hunt! We’re going to catcha big one!” anymore. It was me.
    But I