from Mark.
She couldnât open it, though. She didnât want to know what was written inside. The previous night sheâd stared at the envelope for hours, starting to tear open the flap, stopping herself, hiding the letter in the remotest parts of overlooked drawers, then finally salvaging it again. Havenât you punished us enough? Claire asked the envelope. Mark was abstract now; she couldnât remember the details of his face or the sound of his voice. Time and space had turned him into a ghost. Everything about Mark had long faded into the background.
Love didnât work like that. It didnât fade. You couldnât turn it off like a tap; its plumbing was impossible to plug. To Claire, love was much more like a bad smell. Like spoiled meatâits rotten stench crawled into every corner and was absorbed by every surface, and youâd forget it was there only to have the bad smell resurrected by a warm breeze.
Claire held the letter over the stove. She turned on the gas, the metronome of the electric ignition clicking until the burner was alight. As she watched the envelope disappear into the blue flame, she thought back to her younger self. The paper burned quickly; white turned wafer black.
Once, sheâd read anything he wrote over and over again until she knew paragraphs by heart. Now the letter was ablaze. She blew out the rising fire before it reached her fingers. Smoke filled the kitchen. Claire opened the windows and wiped the greasy ash off the stovetop.
Quark, Ethanâs pet rabbit, skidded down the hallway. He was a gray lop rabbit with white streaks, Ethanâs seventh birthday present. Particle physics was his obsession then; heâd watched documentary after documentary about it. Claire often worried her son watched more documentaries than he had friends. Ethan had put Quark in the palm of his hand and the little bunny shot off, thudding along the floorboards, an escape artist from his makeshift home in a drawer. The baby rabbit had made Ethan think of a quark. Ethan often spoke to the bunny like he was a dog, saying, âUp, Quark!â or âDown, Quark!â and sometimes he called him Hover Rabbit. Quark liked to eat bok choy, Dutch carrots, andâon very special occasionsâAnzac biscuits.
Claire scooped up Quark to her chest and took him into Ethanâs bedroom.
âTime to get up, sweetheart.â
âMum,â Ethan groaned. âIâm really sick.â
Claire put the rabbit down and touched Ethanâs forehead. His skin was pink, but he wasnât feverish; his eyes looked clear and bright. Definitely not sick. Claire knew she should send him off to school. But she remembered those rushes of anxiety sheâd felt at that age: the stress of whispers, the poisonous stares, the weight-filled gaps in strained conversations.
âYou can stay home.â Claire sat on the edge of his bed and ran her fingers through his hair. âIâll call school.â
Ethan brushed her hand away. âI want to go back to sleep.â
âMaybe we should talk about what happened yesterday at school? With Will.â
âMum, I told you. I donât remember,â Ethan said, rolling onto his side.
âIâm not mad.â She reached out to pat his back before thinking twice of it and retracting her arm, placing both hands neatly in her lap. âI just want to understand what happened. Did Will say something to upset you?â
âHe didnât do anything.â
âWas it about me?â
Ethan shook his head.
She tried not to sound accusatory. âYou can tell me what he said.â
Ethanâs hands were covered in beige Band-Aids and he picked at the dirty, fraying edges. He mumbled something indecipherable.
Claire stared at her sonâs downcast face. âWhat was that?â
âFreak,â Ethan said clearly this time. âWill called me a freak.â
âYouâre not a freak, my