The Covered Glass
The kitchen was the safest room. No mirrors, no glass-fronted cabinets, and the window over the sink faced the back fence where the grevillea had gotten out of hand. Kate filled the kettle from the tap and set it on its base. Morning light came through thin and grey, the way it did in Balgownie in June, like the sun couldn't be bothered committing.
She poured the water and fished the teabag out early — she liked it weak, the colour of river sand. Mark liked his strong. This one was hers. The mug had a chip on the rim she could feel with her thumb, and she drank from the other side.
Behind her, in the hallway, the mirror near the front door wore its blue towel like it had always been that way. Bath-sized. A thumbtack at each corner. She'd done it herself, standing on a dining chair, the week she came home from the hospital. Three months ago.
She heard Mark in the shower. The pipes in this house talked — she could track him from the bedroom to the bathroom by the knocking in the walls. She knew the sounds of his morning the way she knew the layout of every room: which surfaces were safe, which ones she walked past without turning her head.
The shower cut off. A few minutes later he came down the hall in jeans and a t-shirt, hair still damp, smelling like the soap she used to steal from him before all this. He kissed the top of her head on the way to the fridge.
You sleep alright?
Yeah. Went off around eleven.
Good.
He poured his own tea — the bag she'd left in for him, dark as creek water — and leaned against the counter. He kept glancing at her. Quick looks, checking. Like she was a weather system he was trying to read.
Lisa called last night. While you were in the bath.
Kate's hand stilled on the mug.
What'd she want?
Just checking in. Said she might drive down Saturday.
Kate nodded. Lisa was her older sister by three years. Same slightly crooked nose their mother had apologised for, same dark hair going early grey at the temples. Kate could see Lisa's face and feel it click into place — the warmth of recognition, instant and easy, the way it was supposed to work. She could not do this with her own reflection.
Saturday's fine.
He said it and then kissed the top of her head again, the second one in five minutes, which was one more than usual.
He took his tea to the living room. She heard the TV come on — morning news, low volume. Kate stayed at the counter and looked out at the grevillea and the grey sky beyond it. Her phone sat face-down on the bench. She had a reminder set for Tuesday: Dr. Chen, 2pm, the clinic on Crown Street. Mirror work, the appointment notes said. Like it was carpentry.
Kate picked up the phone and turned it over. The lock screen was a photo of the grevillea Mark had taken last spring — safe, no faces. She found Lisa's number and called before she could talk herself into texting instead.
Lisa picked up on the second ring. There was wind on the line and the sound of a car indicator ticking.
Hey. I was literally just thinking about you.
Mark said you called last night.
Yeah, you were in the bath. I didn't want to bother you. Saturday still good? I was thinking I'd leave early, miss the Bulli Pass traffic.
Kate leaned her hip against the counter. The kettle was still warm beside her.
Actually — don't come Saturday.
The indicator on Lisa's end stopped.
Okay.
It's not — I just have the Tuesday appointment. And I don't want a big weekend before that.
It wouldn't be big. I'd just come down, we'd get lunch, I'd drive back.
I know.
She could hear Lisa breathe out through her nose.
Is this about the face thing? Me coming down and — because I can wear a hat. Sunglasses. I'm joking, Kate, I'm joking.
I know you're joking.
Right. Sorry. That was shit.
Kate closed her eyes. Lisa's face was right there — easy, whole, warm as a kitchen light. She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling.
It's not about that. I just need a quiet few days.
Alright. Next weekend then. Or whenever. You tell me when.
Yeah. I'll call you.
Kate.
What.
Lisa paused long enough that Kate could hear the car start moving again.
Love you too.
She hung up and set the phone on the windowsill, screen against the wood. The grevillea filled the glass.
Mark was in the doorway. Of course he'd heard.
He didn't say anything right away. He had his mug in both hands.
You cancelled on Lisa.
Postponed.
She was looking forward to it.
She'll live.
Mark nodded slowly. He lifted his mug, drank, set it down on the counter between them.
Is this because of Tuesday?
Partly.
And the other part?
Kate looked at him. He was easy to look at — not because he was handsome, though he was, in his worn-in way — but because his face did what faces were supposed to do. It arrived, and she knew it.
I don't have to explain every decision I make, Mark.
He crossed the kitchen and kissed the top of her head. She let him. Her shoulders didn't move.
He went back to the living room. The news went on. Kate stayed where she was, her back to the hallway and its blue towel, looking out at the yard.
She didn't decide to do it. She was just standing in the hallway, and the blue towel was right there, and her hands were already reaching for the bottom corner before the rest of her caught up.
The first thumbtack came out clean. The second one fought her, bent sideways, and she broke a nail getting it free. The towel sagged like a curtain in a cheap motel. She pulled the last two tacks out together and it dropped to the floor.
A woman stood in the hallway. Dark hair, grey coming through at the left temple. She was holding a thumbtack in each hand.
Kate turned her head to the right. The woman turned hers at the same time — but Kate felt her own neck move a half-second after she watched it happen. Her breath caught.
And she was no one.
Kate stood there. The thumbtacks bit into her palms. The woman in the mirror had the same tight grip, the same knuckles going white, but it was like watching someone else hurt themselves with something small.
He was in the doorway behind her. She could see him in the mirror — Mark, immediate, whole — standing just past the woman's shoulder.
No.
She picked the towel up off the floor. Her hands were shaking — she saw it in the mirror first, the stranger's fingers trembling around blue terry cloth, and then felt her own. She pressed the towel back over the glass and held it there with both palms flat.
Mark didn't move from the doorway.
Top drawer. Kitchen.
He went. She stood with her hands against the towel, holding it in place, feeling the cool of the glass through the fabric. When he came back he had the thumbtacks and he pinned each corner without saying anything. His arm brushed hers on the last one.
She let go. The towel held.
Mark kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes and leaned into it, just slightly, and felt his chin rest there for a moment before he stepped back.
I need to call Dr. Chen. Move the Tuesday appointment up.
He nodded. He was still holding the little tin of thumbtacks.
Kate picked up the phone from the windowsill. She unlocked it and found Lisa's number.
Lisa picked up on the fourth ring this time. No wind, no indicator. Just the particular quiet of a house.
Twice in one morning. Should I be worried?
Saturday's fine. Come down.
A pause. Kate heard a chair scrape on Lisa's end.
Yeah?
Yeah.
What changed?
Kate looked at the hallway. The blue towel was back up, all four corners pinned tight. Mark had used extra tacks this time — six instead of four.
She could hear Lisa smiling.
Kate. That's —
Don't.
I wasn't going to say anything.
You were going to say something.
Fine. I was going to say that's brave, and you would've hated it, and I would've deserved whatever you said back. So. Saturday.
Saturday. Don't leave too early, the pass'll be fog.
I've driven Bulli Pass in worse than fog, Katherine.
Don't call me Katherine.
Lisa laughed. It was a good sound. Kate held it for a second after it faded.
Kate hung up and set the phone on the counter, screen up.
Mark was at the kitchen table, sitting with his tea gone cold in front of him. He hadn't turned the page of the paper he'd opened.
Lisa?
Saturday's back on.
He nodded. Then he stood and took his mug to the sink. He ran the tap and rinsed it out with his back to her.
That's good. That'll be good.
Kate watched his shoulders. They were tight across the back.
You can ask.
He turned off the tap. Didn't turn around.
Ask what.
About the mirror. What it was like.
He turned then. She could see him wanting to know and not wanting to push, his face settling on neutral a moment too late.
What was it like.
Kate sat down at the table. She put her hands flat on the wood, fingers spread, and looked at them. Her hands she knew. The scar across the left knuckle from the oyster knife. The nail she'd broken on the thumbtack, still ragged.
You know when you see someone wave and you wave back, and then you realise they were waving at someone behind you?
Mark sat down across from her.
It's like that. Except the person behind me is also me. And neither of us recognises the other one.
Mark's hand moved across the table and covered hers. She let it stay.
I don't know what to do with that, Kate.
I know.
I don't either.
Outside, a currawong landed on the back fence, heavy and black. It sat there cleaning its beak on the wood. Kate watched it. Mark watched Kate. The morning went on around them, and neither of them moved to fill the silence with anything better.
Kate started in the spare room. She stripped the sheets, shook the pillows out of their cases, and bundled everything into the hallway without looking at the blue towel on her way past. The room smelled like dust and closed windows. She cranked the sash open and the cold came in off the escarpment, sharp and wet.
She worked her way through the house — spare room, bathroom, living room, kitchen last. The bathroom was quick. She scrubbed the basin, wiped the tap, left the towel over the cabinet mirror without adjusting it. In the living room she ran a cloth across the TV screen at an angle, eyes on the power light, and moved on.
Mark came in from the yard with dirt on his knees. He'd been at the garden bed along the fence, pulling oxalis, which he only did when he didn't know what else to do with himself.
He stood at the sink washing his hands, watching her wipe down the counter she'd already wiped.
I know.
I could do the floors.
She handed him the mop without looking up. He took it and went down the hall. She heard the wet drag of it on the boards. He mopped past the hallway mirror without comment.
At quarter to eleven a car pulled into the drive. Lisa drove a white Corolla with a dent in the rear quarter panel that she'd never gotten fixed. The engine cut. A door. Then Lisa was at the front step holding a Tupperware container with both hands, her bag over one shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into her hair.
Kate opened the door. Lisa's face arrived the way it always did — whole, instant, familiar.
Kate stepped back to let her in. Lisa's eyes went to the hallway — the blue towel, the thumbtacks — and then she looked away again, quick and careful, like someone stepping around a puddle.
Lisa held up the Tupperware.
Mark appeared from the kitchen and Lisa hugged him with one arm, the Tupperware held wide in the other. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed — brief, firm — and took the container from her.
Tea?
God, yes. That drive.
Kate caught it. Lisa had said the pass was fine ten seconds ago.
They settled in the kitchen. Mark made three cups and cut the lemon slice and they sat around the table like it was any Saturday. Lisa talked about work — a new manager who sent emails at midnight and expected replies — and Mark asked the right questions and Kate ate her lemon slice and let the talk move around her. There was a magnet on the fridge shaped like a cockatoo that had been there when they moved in. Kate had never noticed it was missing a wing.
Lisa licked sugar off her thumb.
The kitchen got quieter.
Monday now. I moved it up.
Right, Mark said. How are you feeling about it?
Kate turned her mug on the table.
That's not an answer.
It's the one I've got.
Lisa looked at Mark. Mark looked at his hands. The lemon slice sat between them on the board, two pieces left.
Lisa leaned forward.
Kate met her sister's eyes.
So?
So I'm not where you want me to be. Either of you.
Mark's chair shifted. He didn't speak.
Lisa reached across and put her hand flat on the table near Kate's, not touching. Close enough.
Kate looked at her sister's hand. The same broad knuckles. She looked at her own. The oyster-knife scar. The ragged nail.
I want to stop being everyone's project.
It landed hard. Lisa pulled her hand back. Mark stood and took his mug to the sink, and the sound of the tap was very loud.
Lisa spoke first.
Then stop tracking my progress.
Mark turned the tap off. He stayed at the sink, his back to them.
You're here differently. Both of you. You watch me like I'm going to do something. Like pulling the towel down was step one and now you're waiting for step two.
Nobody said anything for a moment. Outside, the wind moved through the grevillea and something scraped against the fence.
Mark turned around. He was gripping the edge of the counter behind him.
I'm scared, Kate. Alright? I'm scared.
Kate looked at him. His face was open in a way she hadn't seen in weeks — not the careful neutral, not the quick check-ins.
Scared of what.
He let go of the counter.
That this is it. That the towels stay up. That you stop trying.
Lisa looked at the table.
You haven't said it. Not once. You just kiss my head and make tea and act like if you're gentle enough I won't notice you're waiting.
It is about you. Some of it. That's allowed too.
The kitchen held still. Lisa ran her thumbnail along the Tupperware lid. Mark stayed at the sink. Kate stayed at the table with her hands around her mug, the chip under her thumb.
I should go for a walk or something.
Sit down, Lisa.
Lisa sat.
Kate looked at both of them.
Here's what I need. I need you to stop being careful. I need you to be normal and weird and annoying. I need Saturday to be Saturday.
Mark crossed the kitchen and sat back down at the table. He didn't touch her. He just sat, close, his knee against the table leg.
Okay.
Okay.
Kate pulled the lemon slice toward her and cut another piece.
Told you.
Mark reached for a piece. Lisa poured herself more tea. The afternoon came in through the kitchen window, low and pale, and Kate sat at her own table in her own house with the two people who loved her most, and for a while that was enough, and nobody needed it to be anything else.
She didn't announce it. Lisa was showing Mark something on her phone — a pelican she'd nearly hit on the bridge at Windang — and Kate pushed her chair back and said she was going to the loo. Neither of them looked up.
The hallway was dim. Late afternoon came through the front door's glass panel in a narrow wedge that didn't reach the mirror. The blue towel hung flat and tight across the frame — Mark's work, all four corners even, no sag.
Kate stood in front of it.
She didn't reach for the tacks. She didn't want to see. That wasn't why she was here. She just wanted to stand where the mirror was and not leave.
She put her hand flat against the towel. The fabric was cool. Behind it, the glass was cooler. She could feel a slight give where it bunched between the frame's edge and the wall.
The woman was behind there. Standing exactly where Kate was standing, palm up against the other side of the same blue terry cloth. Kate didn't need to see her to know.
From the kitchen, Lisa laughed at something Mark said. The kettle clicked off. Ordinary sounds from an ordinary Saturday.
Kate pressed harder. Her palm against fabric against glass against palm. She stood there and breathed and didn't flinch.
She dropped her hand. The towel held. She went to the bathroom, ran the tap so they'd hear it, and came back out.
Mark was leaning back in his chair, Lisa's phone angled toward him. Lisa was cutting another piece of lemon slice, the knife rocking through the base where the butter had set too hard.
Mark glanced at her. She held his eyes and nodded, once, small.
Show me the pelican.
Lisa turned the phone. The pelican was enormous and stupid-looking, standing in the middle of the road like it paid rates. Kate laughed — a real one, short and surprised — and Lisa grinned and swiped to the next photo, which was worse, the pelican mid-waddle with its pouch swinging, and Mark said something about council and Lisa said something about wingspan and the kitchen filled up with noise that didn't need to mean anything.
Kate sat back down in her chair. Her palm was still cool from the glass.
The light was going. Lisa's Corolla had pulled out twenty minutes ago, the indicator ticking left toward Balgownie Road, and Kate had stood at the front door until the sound of the engine was just the sound of the street again.
She found the Tupperware in the fridge with a piece of masking tape on the lid. LISA, in Lisa's handwriting, as if Kate might forget who'd brought it. Two pieces of lemon slice left inside.
Mark was in the kitchen doing the dishes. She could hear the particular rhythm of the drying rack from the hallway — glass, plate, plate, pause.
Kate went out the back door and sat on the step. The concrete was cold through her jeans. The yard was almost dark, just the fence line visible and the escarpment beyond it as a deeper black against the sky.
She could hear the sea. Not always — only when the wind came from the right direction and the street was quiet enough. Tonight it was there. A long, slow sound that didn't start or stop.
Her hands were in her lap. She turned them over, palms up. The left one still held the cold from the mirror glass, hours later — or she imagined it did.
The back door opened. Mark came out with the wool blanket from the couch and put it over her shoulders without asking. He sat down beside her on the step.
He was close enough that she could feel the warmth off his arm. She pulled the blanket across so it covered them both.
They sat. She felt his breath change, and then it settled again.
Kate said it to the yard, not to him.
Monday.
Monday.
The dark came the rest of the way in. Somewhere up the street a dog barked twice and stopped, and the escarpment settled into the sky until there was no line between them.
Kate leaned into Mark's shoulder. He leaned back. The blanket smelled like their couch, like their house, like the particular life they'd made in it — the one that was still here, even if it had changed shape.
She closed her eyes. The woman in the mirror would be there Monday. She'd be there every day after that, behind every towel and every turned-away glance, waiting with the same face Kate couldn't claim. But that was Monday.