Emily’s chubby hand sweats in her father’s, her body slipping from his voice as it reaches its sarcastic crescendo.
‘The Sustainable House is open for self-guided tours, your mother said. Take the girls, your mother said. There’ll be food, your mother said. Didn’t tell me it’d be vegan, did she?’
Emily pulls away. Her sister steps forward to cover her.
‘Miss Evangelista says it’s more sustainable.’ Annaliese is quiet and steady.
‘Inedible, more like.’ He sniggers at his own joke and the girls wince at the spittle from his lips. ‘What else does this teacher of yours say?’
‘She says the world would be better off if there weren’t so many humans.’
‘Does she now?’ He sneers and leans.
The air in the dining room grows warm and sour.
‘And what does she propose we do about that?’ he says.
‘We need to live more sustainably.’
‘What does that mean?’ Emily whispers, tugging at Annaliese’s hand.
‘It means you care about what’s left for the future, not taking too much, not leaving a big footprint.’
Emily looks down. She doesn’t see any footprints. But she does see the doorframes sway, the walls beginning to sweat, the floor rush out from underneath as Annaliese sweeps her towards the front door that seems to shrink from their approach.
#
Emily lifts a hand to shade her eyes. She looks across the green lawn to manicured trees, a rosemary hedge in flower. A red-text-on-white sign has been hung by a chain on the pristine picket fence since their entry, its paint fresh and glistening.
‘Closed for feeding,’ Annaliese reads aloud. She breaks a stem of rosemary from under the sign and crushes the leaves to smell them; Emily follows her lead.
Then, hand in hand, they make their way back to mother.
thirtyseven 