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Perhaps this is how it all began…
One day, Peta, at that time a girl of twelve, came home from school to find her mother gone. Usually her mother would look up, say, “Hi darl”, give her a hug, perhaps suggest a snack, then go back to her cooking, cleaning, gardening, texting or whatever. But, this particular day, nothing at all like that happened. She simply wasn’t there.
Of course Peta looked thoroughly in every room – she was, even then, a careful, conscientious person - but there was no sign. When her two younger brothers were dropped from school a little later, Peta (not without a struggle) invented some story about their mum coming back later, she’d just gone down to the supermarket or something. What she was really doing was stalling, until Dad arrived home.
Which he soon did. Peta drew him aside and told him. His expression, well, she never forgot that, did she? In a little while he said, “Peta, sweetheart, can you organize something to eat? The boys’ll be hungry”. Not mentioning himself. Or Peta. Turning around to use his phone, he went out the back, and Peta went to work. The meal was cooked, presented, eaten and enjoyed.
Some months later it was clear to Peta, clear to everybody, that her mum would not be coming back. By then it was also quietly established that, as well as attending the local school, it was now her job, as both the eldest child and the only female, to accompany her dad and do the big shop in the district centre each Saturday, sort and put away the numerous purchases on their return, make sandwiches for lunch every day (weekdays, anyway), and cook every night. Sometimes one of her brothers helped her clean and clear up, and sometimes he didn’t.
Gradually the new roles began to mark her. One Sunday her father, returning from a beer or two at the pub, looked in on her as she lay, slightly sprawled out, on the sofa, housework all done, watching a cooking program on the television, constantly on nowadays. For a minute or two he watched the show with her, some fancy foreign program featuring mountainous cakes topped by several broad strata of cream and butter icing, then sprinkled with large, extremely sweet cherries.
