"The Leftovers" by Cassandra Parkin

An audio book.

Callie (female) and Josh spend 2 weeks at a time providing live-in care for autistic Fray (male), 24. Flo is his dog. One evening she gets a call saying that Noah (her brother - he needed constant care too) and her father have died in a car accident. She tries to drive to the cliff road scene, but there's a police block. She imagines in detail their last hours - going to get a take-away. When Noah was 12, their mother left the family. Callie and her mum don't get on, but they have to share their grieving. Callie thinks her mum always loved Noah more. Her mother says that she saw the car go over the cliff. The police say that Noah had been driving, though he wasn't allowed to. She re-images thir last moments. Her mother makes an effort to be nice. They go out shopping for clothes, the mother paying. Callie misses Fray.

From Noah's PoV (as "You") we learn about his last few years, how, while in a home, Covid led to greater feelings of isolation. We flashback to Callie's interview to get the job. They'd had a private detective to check her out first. Linea, Fray's sister who lives in Stockholm, supervises. Josh and Fray play Minecraft for hours. She and Fray make bread together. Josh and Callie have been told that there are CCTV cameras. Josh's parents are farmers. He doesn't want to take over the business. We flashback to Josh and Callie's first visit with Fray to a supermarket, to a time when he had a fever and they rushed him to hospital. Callie touches Frey while she thinks he's sleeping. She has fantasies.

Callie recalls how Noah had become ever more disinhibited, taking her on adventures. She recalls being taken by her mother on holiday to a cottage when she was 8, and being left alone there for 5 nights. She distrusts the memory. Later, during a time when he wasn't taking meds, Noah warned Callie about their father.

We get Noah's PoV again, how he's noticed the relationship between he and Callie deepening, how he's been doing what he can to please her, carefully. [It doesn't sound convincing]

Callie's mother tells her that her father had sex with her in her sleep because she'd gone off sex. Callie was the result. Noah wondered whether her father had given Callie sleeping pills and taken advantage of her. Callie re-imagines the moments before the accident - did Noah threaten to expose their father if he didn't let Noah drive? Was it a murder/suicide? She dreams that her father touched her in the night the way she touched Frey, that she let him because she loved him. She wants to marry Frey. [her personality doesn't convince me either]

"like an old married couple" is repeated, I think.

Other reviews

• Chez Maximka (There are just so many dark themes going on: the power games, sexual and emotional abuse, the issue of consent or absence of it, gaslighting, exploitation of vulnerable people.)