Picture Me Gone (13 page)

We’re not out very long but the temperature in the car has dropped. We settle down in the back with my blanket. Gil says he’s getting cold too, so I unzip the plastic protector bag and hand him the second one. I can see my breath now but feel cozy enough. We find the local news, in which a government official’s arrest for misdeeds gets equal billing with the storm. In London, this would be the biggest news for a century.

I text Jake.

We’re stuck on the motorway in the snow. Hope we survive. x Mila

The snow collects on the windows and it’s impossible to see out. An hour passes, an hour and a half.

At last Jake texts back.
We call it a highway. Don’t freeze to death before I get a chance to visit.

This makes me smile.

We wait. I doze. Gil listens to the radio.

After what seems a very long time, a policeman with a huge orange jacket looms out of the dark, knocking on the window of every car to make sure we’re OK, that we’re not elderly and freezing to death, or about to give birth. Sorry, folks, he says, we’ll have you moving just as soon as we can. In the meantime, stay warm and don’t run your battery down. Well done, he says to us when he sees our blankets. And when Gil answers with a question about the accident, the cop just says, Figures it’s a bunch of Brits who come prepared.

His radio crackles and he talks into it. Good, he says. Roger. And signs off.

Dad looks at him inquiringly and he says, We’re moving. Got two lanes clear. Start your engine, let it warm up. See you folks later, enjoy your stay in the great state of New York.

I hear him banging on the window of the van behind us.

I wish I could have asked what the accident was, but I didn’t dare and he probably wouldn’t have told me anyway. I hope it wasn’t a whole family killed.

The brake lights of the cars ahead light up and clouds of steam rise from cold engines. I feel a little rush of excitement that we’ll be on the move again. A flashing blue strobe light appears inside the car. I look out of the back window and see another police car.

Gil starts the wipers. What a predicament, eh? It’s nonstop adventure here in the New World.

There’s no arguing with that.

We’re moving now, slowly, with a bit of slippage at first but picking up speed, and as we approach the accident we can see a big gray people mover and a smaller car completely scrunched up beside it. There are a few officials standing huddled around, and some cops directing traffic and shouting at everyone to Keep Moving, Keep Moving! The ambulances have gone.

Gil blinks.

What?

Nothing. I was just thinking about Owen. A highway, a winter’s night. Gil shakes his head. Icy roads, a bit like this maybe.

I close my eyes and imagine how it must have been that night. For the child who died on the road. For the father who survived.

Rubbernecking delays, says Gil. He nods at the cars just ahead of us, passing the accident.
Now
I get it.

Get what?

People craning their necks to see what’s happened, in case there’s some awful scene of carnage. Rubber. Necking.

I feel ashamed of not wanting to miss it either.

How many years since Owen died?

Gil thinks. Three years, he says, and as he says it, something occurs to him. He must have been just the age you are now.

For some reason this information makes my stomach lurch. I remember the phone call late at night, the news that Matthew’s son had died. It didn’t mean much to me at the time. People I hardly knew.

Meeting Jake makes Owen seem more real. Also, someone exactly my age being dead makes me think about dying more than someone younger or older. The ghost of Owen will always be the same age as Jake. How could Matthew ever stop thinking about that?

I tap Gil on the shoulder. Why did you and Matthew stop seeing each other?

He glances at me in the mirror, even though it means taking his eyes off the road. We didn’t exactly stop seeing each other, he says. When he and Suzanne moved upstate, it just wasn’t so easy anymore. Not like dropping in when I was in New York City. And I got busy too; I didn’t travel to New York so much. Gil frowns. I don’t know, sweetheart. Time passes, relationships drift.

And Lynda?

I didn’t know anything about that part of his life. It’s not the sort of thing Matt would have told me in any case.

Because you fancied her too?

He rolls his eyes. A very long time ago, he says. He wouldn’t have told me because it’s not the sort of mess you want to talk about.

Even to your oldest friend?

Especially to your oldest friend.

Why not?

People don’t like talking about the bits of life that don’t add up. The bad stuff. The mistakes.

Do you think he felt guilty?

I don’t know. Probably.

Have you done things you can’t talk about?

I suppose I have, Gil says. But not lately. And no other children that I know about. You can stop worrying about that at least.

I’m not, I say. But maybe I am. How am I supposed to know what adults are capable of?

Gil doesn’t like Suzanne much, which is understandable, because in my opinion, she’s not very likable. But the more I hear about Matthew, the more I think it’s not so simple. Maybe Suzanne was fine before she hooked up with him.

We’ve left the police and the truck and the rubbernecking behind, and are moving at a good pace again. It feels really late, though it’s only nine forty. Look for a place to stop, Gil says.

I need the toilet so we stop at the next service area. The lights seem unnaturally bright after all our time in the car. Gil takes Honey for a walk.

You’re right about her stomach, he says. Suzanne will have to wean her off highway food.

For the first time I realize that we’ll have to leave Honey alone with Suzanne when we go back to London. If Matthew doesn’t show up, that is. What a depressing thought. The nagging feeling has returned but my brain is too tired to think.

• • •

It’s after ten by the time we find a motel. The car park has been plowed but the man at the desk apologizes for not having shoveled snow off all the walkways. In the short distance between car and room, we get covered with snow. I use the biggest towel from the bathroom to dry Honey while Gil shuffles back to the car for the rest of our stuff. After a long drink, Honey curls up on her bed in the usual waiting position while Gil props himself up on his bed and pours a large whisky.

The room is warm and although the bedspread is a hideous mix of purple, red and blue, the beds are big and comfortable. After all those hours in the car, it feels luxurious to change into pajamas and stretch out. Tomorrow we’ll be back at Suzanne’s and after that, home.

I try Catlin again.
What’s happening? How are you? What’s the news?
But no answer comes. Gil opens his laptop and I hear the ping of mail. I’m almost asleep; too tired to care who Gil’s e-mailing at this hour.

The last thing I hear is his voice, speaking very quietly into my phone. She’s asleep, he’s saying, though it won’t be true for another thirty seconds or so. See you soon, is the last thing I hear.

See
who
soon? Marieka? Suzanne? At this hour?

The question rumbles through my dreams.

I
n the night I dream about Matthew and Gil. They’re the age they are now, but they’re acting like kids, sitting up in a tree and throwing stones in a pool of water. In my dream, Matthew loses his balance and slips off the branch and Gil doesn’t even reach out to him. He watches his friend fall into the pond, watches the bubbles come up from the place he fell. I stare and stare, more and more panicked, but his head doesn’t emerge from the pond, and when I grab Gil’s arm and scream that we have to save him, Gil merely frowns and says, There’s nothing to worry about, he’ll be fine.

But he can’t swim! I shout, and Gil answers calmly: It doesn’t matter. He can breathe underwater.

I wake up terrified with my heart pounding; relieved to be conscious. Gil has just come in with coffee, a bag of bagels and a carton of orange juice. We’re not having Wagon Wheels for breakfast, he says, smiling. Come and have a look outside, it’s beautiful.

I had the worst dream, I tell him, trying to shake it out of my head.

Poor you, he says, and sits down on the bed beside me, waiting for me to tell him what it was. But as I go over the dream, the picture that’s been trying to take shape in my head for days now stutters into focus and all of a sudden I wonder why it’s taken so long.

The thing is, Gil doesn’t seem all that worried about his friend. Not once on this whole trip has he seemed genuinely anxious or depressed. Not once. Thoughtful, yes. Puzzled, yes. But genuinely, seriously worried? No. And I know him. I know he worries about Marieka when she doesn’t phone after a concert or her plane takes off in a storm. He worries about me when I’m late home from school even when I told him in the morning I was staying late or going to someone’s house. He doesn’t sleep when he’s worried, and he’s slept fine this week. He’s even done a bit of work.

Is it that he doesn’t care that his friend is drowning? Or perhaps Matthew
can
breathe underwater. Perhaps he’s not in danger after all.

I sit very still on the edge of the bed, and luckily Gil is leafing through his papers now, waiting for me to calm down, not noticing.

All of a sudden I’m the one who can’t breathe. Gil knows where Matthew is. He knows. I am like Clever Hans. For all my powers of perception I have been unable to add up two and two. I’ve been so busy reading every other situation around us and drawing flow charts that I didn’t pay attention to my own father. It took a message in a dream as clear as a typed letter to tell me that something’s going on here that isn’t right.

I look at Gil and he looks back at me and his expression flickers. He looks away.

We know each other very well.

So, I say.

So?

So. Let me tell you about my dream.

My father is not remotely as tuned in to the world as I am. But even he can tell that the wind has changed.

OK, he says.

In my dream, I start, you and Matthew are sitting on the branch of a tree, over a swimming pond.

Gil stays very very still.

You’re grown-ups, but children at the same time. You know how it is in dreams?

He nods.

And suddenly Matthew falls off the branch, or maybe he jumps in. And I’m there now, and screaming at you, I’m all panicky, shouting, Do something! Do Something! Matthew’s drowning! And guess what?

What? says Gil. He looks down.

You do nothing. You tell me he can breathe underwater.

There is a pause. Neither of us says a word.

So, I say. How do you interpret that dream?

Gil still says nothing.

You’re not actually worried, are you?

I am, in fact, quite worried, he says.

But not about whether he’s dead or not. Not about whether he’s killed himself or is missing or anything like that. I stop talking and glare at him.

He sighs. No.

You know where he is.

My statement hangs in the air.

Yes, says Gil. I do.

You’ve talked to him?

E-mail, he says. Mostly.

I cannot believe it. Fury overtakes me and, for the first time in my life, I’m actually shouting at my father. What kind of
fake trip
has this been?
It’s all just a bunch of lies.

He rubs his forehead with one hand and reaches out to me with the other but I shove his hand away and move across the bed so he can’t touch me.

I’m too angry to speak. Two deep breaths. Four. How long have you known?

Mila, he says. I’ve been in touch with Matthew since he phoned me in London. He told me he’d left home, but didn’t say why. Or where he’d gone. I said I’d come anyway, as planned, and talk to him when he was ready. He said it was important, that he needed time on his own to think. I don’t approve of him leaving home, but he didn’t ask my opinion. What else could I do? He pauses and looks at me. He’s my best friend.

I’m your
daughter.

You are. And I’m so sorry I involved you in all of this, really I am, my sweetheart. I didn’t know what we were getting into. But, Mila, don’t you see? I couldn’t tell you I was in touch with him because then you’d have had to lie to Suzanne, and that would have been worse. And in any case, marital problems are . . .

I wait, trembling.

Well. They happen. It’s not the end of the world. Especially after all they’ve been through. He falls silent for a moment. I always regret that I didn’t fly over when Owen died. I let him down. Of course I offered, but . . . it was such a complicated time. And later, when I heard Suzanne was pregnant, I thought maybe things would be better, that they were putting their lives back to—

Something occurs to me.
And Marieka?

He sighs. Mum knows.

I think of the texts she sent me about being good detectives when she knew the whole thing was a fraud. I feel like smashing something.

So it’s a great big
bloody
conspiracy, then. Including everyone but me. Do you actually know where he is?

I didn’t until last night, says Gil, very quietly. He e-mailed and I phoned him. He wants to see me. Finally.

I stare at him, aghast. How can you
ever
expect me to trust you again?

Very gently, he takes hold of my hands and pulls me toward him. He looks at me, his eyes hard and soft at the same time. He takes a deep breath and says, I’m sorry I had to lie to you. I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been important. But this isn’t about you, my darling.

Why not? I grab my hands back. Why can’t it just be a
little bit
about me and the rest about Matthew? Why does it
all
have to be about him?

Gil doesn’t answer and for some reason this makes me angrier.

What was your plan? To tell me eventually? Or just to arrive at Matthew’s door one day and say, What a coincidence, why, look who’s here!

He looks miserable. I didn’t exactly lie to you. I didn’t know where he was. I actually thought he might have been at the camp; it seemed worth a shot, anyway. And of course I was going to tell you.

But if you were in touch with Matthew . . . he
knew
we were going to the camp?

Gil nods.

So you knew he wasn’t there?

I didn’t know for sure, Gil says, looking away.

But he
knew
what we’d find there?

Gil sighs. I suppose he wanted me to know everything.

He could have sent you
a bloody postcard.
He’s a
control freak.
Joy is right about him. He’s a
monster.

Mila . . . Gil reaches out to me again but I slide further away from him. I’m much too upset to acknowledge that there was no way for me to know the truth without being complicit in the lie. I leave the room, slamming the door behind me, and then just walk around in the snow for ten minutes. I make a snowball and eat some of it. The snow tastes wet and concentrated, like chewy water. I hurl the rest of it against the window of our room as hard as I can and it hits with a crash. Fake! I shout, throwing another and another and another. Fake fake fake! Gil doesn’t come to the window.

It’s cold out here and all I can do is cry. My tears come out hot but are slush by the time they hit my chin.

How did it come to this? This furious me hurling snowballs at a motel window? The me despising my father?

It’s freezing cold. I pound on the door and when he opens it, I stand rigid. When he hugs me, I don’t hug him back. Tears stream from my eyes.

What is it? I ask, looking up at him at last. Why did he run away? Are he and Suzanne getting divorced?

I don’t know, Perguntador. Honestly, I don’t. He kisses the top of my head, strokes my hair.

I pull back.

I keep asking myself, Gil says, and I still don’t know. It must be a whole combination of things. Us arriving. Guilt over Owen. And Jake. Being a father again. I don’t know how I would survive if anything happened to you, Mila. Maybe he doesn’t know how to survive either. I guess he’ll tell us when we see him.

But what if it’s something else? I’m thinking about the gesture Jake made, with the glass.

Something more? Gil frowns. Don’t you think enough has happened to him? There doesn’t have to be some huge drama, you know, people sometimes just reach a sort of tipping point and . . .

And run away? They
run away
?

I don’t know, Mila. I—

But it could be, couldn’t it? It could be something else?

I suppose. It could be. He looks at me carefully. What are you thinking?

Jake says he drinks.

When did he say that? Gil appears shocked. What else did he say?

Nothing. He barely even said that. He just did this. I repeat the gesture, a hand tipping a glass.

Oh my god, Gil says. My god. Could he have been drunk that night? Is that what Jake meant?

I feel like saying, how should I know? Something happened, that’s for sure. Something made Matthew unable to face Gil. Something made him leave his wife and baby. I had trouble leaving Gabriel and I only knew him for ten seconds.

Something Gil said a minute ago hits my brain at last. Did you say
when
we see him? When are we going to see him?

This morning, says Gil.

Oh.