The Five Saga
Tetepare
Chapter One
Indy
I glanced over to my left. Dad was sitting there with his paper, rearranging the pages in the order that he wanted to read them. It always annoyed me when he did that, but especially now. I mean, we were on a flight, couldn't he just behave normally for once considering we were in public.
He was also blocking my view.
I loved watching the plane take off and I'd been far too tired to ask him for the window seat, but he should have remembered. From my seat I had a great view of the left wing.
"Dad can you stop doing that?" I hiss. "Doing what?" he replies, completely oblivious to how loud he's being. "Forget it,' I slump backwards into my seat. The couple across the aisle from us glance over and the woman smiles at me, but I can tell it's strained. He's been rustling solidly for the past five minutes.
An air hostess steps into the middle aisle. She starts demonstrating the safety procedures, which I've seen way too many times by now. I know the safety leaflet off by heart. My aunt and grandparents live in Italy and we've been visiting them every summer for my whole life. Safe to say I had to get over my fear of flying.
Australia's a bit different though, much longer flight. Despite myself I feel nervous. I reach for the safety leaflet and read it twice.
When we're in the air I settle down and read my magazine for a while, feeling bad for snapping at dad. He's like a teddy bear; we rarely fight unless I'm hangry. Which I am right now, not to mention sleep deprived.
"Dad," I nudge his arm. "Yes, Indy?" he eyes me warily over the top of his glasses. "Want to learn to surf?" I grin at him. He rolls his eyes, "I'll think about it." We both smile at each other, I've been bugging him for months to do it with me, but it's the last thing he'd ever want to do. He's the kind of guy who wears cardigans, likes doing crosswords and watching the news. "Fine, guess I'll just have to go it alone." I go back to my magazine; he goes back to his paper.
Dad's over fifty; he's got mostly black hair but I can see the grey in it now. You can tell that he was handsome when he was younger.
He has a cardigan in every colour, which makes me and Luca laugh. He loves art and owns his own art studio, I spent my childhood there. His eyes crinkle up at the corners when he laughs. He's my best friend in the entire world.
Well him and my younger brother, Luca. But he got himself a summer apprenticeship and couldn't make this trip. Normally we'd be teasing dad together, like a tag team. The three of us are super close. Dad calls us the three muscateers.
Mum took off when I was three, Luca was one and dad raised us as a single parent. He was never mad about it. Never said a bad word about her.
In fact he made us a whole scrapbook full of photos of her. Her when she was younger, her and him before they married, her pregnant. Her with us. He always said she was a free spirit, a restless soul and that she did love us but that her soul burned too brightly to stay in one place for too long. That she needed to travel, just to find herself.
Luca hates her, hates to even talk about her.
To me, she's a familiar stranger. I wear her perfume and her jewellery. I know her voice from home videos and her face from photos. I have her eyes.
But I don't know what I'd say to her, I don't know where I'd start.
She chose my name, which makes sense. Indigo could only ever come from someone as 'free spirited' as her. Dad chose Luca's. I never go by Indigo, only ever Indy.
It's about an hour into the flight now and I look out the window. Storm clouds are gathering outside, the sky's a dark grey. I can't help it, a chill washes over me. I like to think I'm tough but I do have anxiety and the slightest thing can set me off. I also get a lot of gut feelings and over the course of my life I've come to the conclusion that 9/10 times they're right. Not that anyone believes me when I say that.
I get one now and it's awful. I feel hollow inside. I close my eyes and wait for the feeling to pass, like my therapist told me to do.
My therapist, Karen, has a lot of other helpful advice like "floss. It's more important than you think," and my personal favourite "liquor before beer, never fear, don't do heroin." Fair to say Karen isn't your average therapist.
She's my dad's old friend from college. She wears her black hair, streaked with grey, in a long braid every single time I see her. She even wears variations of the same clothes every time (long sleeved shirt and floaty skirt with a long chain necklace), which she once told me was to create a sense of consistency and stability for me whenever I enter her office. Her office is small and always smells of patchouli and incense.
As I'm thinking about Karen a voice comes over the tannoy, "we're experiencing some slight turbulence so if you could just bear with us..."
That's the last thing I hear before I blackout.