‘What was he talking about?’ Peter asked.

‘He was just being an idiot.’

‘If you don’t want to talk about it you can just say so. But don’t treat me like I’m a little kid.’

Sharon didn’t feel like eating now. Didn’t feel like doing anything.

‘Ernie Cahill pays me to keep his business in Newbury to himself.’

Peter looked up. ‘Pays you what?’

‘A couple of hundred extra a week.’

‘Is that how Dad got his new ute? And goes on those fishing trips?’

Sharon nodded. ‘A bit of it, yeah.’

‘And you what? Just don’t arrest him?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So, the weed and all that?’

Sharon was silent for a moment. ‘I thought you didn’t know about that. But yeah. Your dad thought it best to go along with it.’

Peter laughed then. The sound shocked her.

‘Dad has nothing to do with it.’

She went to defend herself, but the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. She knew how wrong they would be. No matter what had prompted her actions they had still been hers.

‘Yeah. Maybe,’ she said.

‘You really don’t care about anything anymore, do you?’ Peter asked.

‘I care about you.’

‘No, you don’t. You don’t even care about yourself. You’re just a sad woman who doesn’t care.’

The words pierced something in her, making her bleed internally, from a place long dormant, that she’d thought immune to wounding.

‘It’s like that exercise you do in front of the TV,’ he said, finishing his cereal. He left the bowl and spoon on the bench. ‘It’s useless. Just makes you sweat a little. But it’s just nothing. It’s not working hard.’

‘Come on, Peter––’

‘You know what? I’ll be glad when I’m out of here. You and Dad . . .’ He stopped, perhaps seeing the hurt in her eyes. Then, ‘You know I tried some?’

‘Some weed?’

‘Yeah. I smoked a bit with Cassie.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘I guess you’re eighteen now, you can do that sort of thing.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Peter said. ‘Shouldn’t you give a shit that I smoked pot, Mum? And not just because it’s illegal? Isn’t that something mums care about? Shouldn’t you say something? Lock me in my room?’

‘What good would that do?’

‘At least then I’d know you care.’

Sharon watched him go to the cupboard and retrieve the cereal, pour himself another bowl. She watched the milk dribble down his chin, burrowing its way through his patchy stubble. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and looked for all the world like his father. His hair longer than she remembered him liking it. It dangled near his eyes.

‘All the money he give you make it worth it?’

Sharon looked down at her slippered feet. ‘Not sure I was doing it for the money.’

‘Then why were you doing it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know why you broke the law?’

She attempted, ‘I thought you’d like it, me working with Ernie. You know, your mum and your future father-in-law working together.’