When You Know

27 - Christmas doom and gloom.

When we pulled into Jet's parents' driveway, it reminded me of a lot of the houses I would see on the news whenever something goes wrong or when people have been in huge fights on the inside. Their garden was overgrown like it had never once been mowed, and there were random pieces of old furniture and hard rubbish things in odd places, stacked on top of each other. There looked to be a crack in one of the front windows which was taped over with electrical tape and boarded up with an old cardboard carton from a slab of VB beer, which I found incredibly strange. The front door looked like it had been kicked a few times and now hosted a large, footprint-shaped dent in it, and there were envelopes dangling out of the letterbox like no one had checked their mail for weeks.

I didn't want to be, but looking at all this made me feel scared, and I really didn't feel comfortable going anywhere near it. I knew that Jet's life before Ruben was a lot different, but I had no idea that it would have looked like this. "Jet really used to live here?"

"Yeah, bud. It's a bit of a shithole, isn't it?" said Ruben, putting the car in park and shutting off the engine. He looked at the house with as much disgust as I felt, and I agreed with his very accurate description. "I know it looks bad, and I really don't want to go in there either because I can't stand his family, but we should probably make an effort considering it's Christmas and Sadie gave me a plate of cookies to give them. I figured we'd kill two birds with one stone: butter them up with cookies and ask them to sign his passport while we're here. What do you think?" He pulled Jet's incomplete passport application out of the glovebox of his truck and waited for my answer.

"I really don't want to go in there, but I'll do it for Jet, I guess," I said.

Ruben said I was a good kid, and proceeded to tell me the worst case scenario of what to expect of Jet's parents and brothers based on the interactions he had had with them in the past. He said to be prepared to see four very unhealthy-looking, skinny humans whose eyes probably wouldn't stay focussed for long. He said that his brothers never really talked much at all, and that everyone smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. He thought it would be really hot and stuffy in their house as they didn't have any air conditioning, that it was usually very messy but that I shouldn't stare at it because it might upset them.

At that point, I told him to stop telling me any more because it was just making me want to stay in the car, and I really wanted to make the effort for Jet. Ruben nodded like he understood why I said what I said, took a deep breath and opened the car door. "Just be careful where you're walking, bud. And do not, under any circumstances, touch anything, okay?"

Way to scare the crap out of me, Rubes.

I was carrying the plate of sweets from Mum, complete with little fake holly and mistletoe to emphasize the Christmas theme, when Ruben knocked on the door, carefully avoiding the wooden splinters that stuck out from where it must have been hit before. My hands were shaking so much that I thought I was going to drop the plate right there on their front steps, making me worry about what they would say to me if I made even more of a mess in front of their house. Ruben put a comforting hand on my shoulder to ground me just as a very, very skinny woman with dark hair like Jet's opened the door.

"Oh, hey, Ruben. I didn't realise how late it must be if you're here already. Come in," she said, already backing into the house, tripping over a shoe lying on the floor near the front door and swearing at someone for 'not putting their damn shoes away.'

"Thanks, Kora," said Ruben, following her inside and dragging me reluctantly with him. Jet's mum was about a thousand times skinnier than I had imagined, with old, tattered clothes that were at least four sizes too big hanging off her. She had dark circles around her eyes, like the ones Mum used to have when she was trying to juggle work and studying and my school and footy. She also smelled just like Ruben said she would—like a million cigarettes and more alcohol than could be found in a bottle shop. That, coupled with the fact that she was slurring her words and stumbling down the hallway made me believe she must be drunk, and I wondered if the rest of them would be drunk, too.