A Madness of Sunshine

by Singh, Nalini

  He went back to the first entry. It was a short one:

  Hello, new journal. We’re going to have some wonderful adventures together. I feel it in my bones. Love, Miriama.

  She hadn’t made another entry for a week. That entry was a chatty one that talked about working in Josie’s café and her application for the internship.

  … I know I probably won’t get it. Kyle’s also applying, and everyone loves him. Sometimes I wonder why they can’t see through him. Is it just that beautiful face? Are people really so taken in by looks? Why can’t they see that he manipulates everyone around him? Anyway, I’m going to try. I hope it doesn’t mess everything up.

  The next three entries were all about the internship and how difficult it was to get through to the interview stage. After that began a week of entries one after the other.

  He gave me a watch today. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned in my entire life. I couldn’t believe it when he opened the box and showed it to ­me—­it sparkled in the sunlight, rainbows coming off it. When I stared at him and said, “Are those diamonds?” he just smiled and slipped it onto my wrist.

  “Only diamonds for a diamond,” he said in that sweet way he has of talking. “Do you think you’ll be able to wear it?”

  Of course I’m going to wear it, but I knew what he was asking. “No one will think it’s real,” I told him. “I’ll tell them I picked it up at a flea market while I was in Christchurch.”

  I keep on admiring that watch. It’s so pretty. He makes me feel so pretty, so loved and wanted. I asked him if I could get an engraving on the back of the watch with our initials, but he told me I shouldn’t, that there was too much risk the wrong person would see it. I know he’s right, that I shouldn’t ask for things I can’t have, but I love him so much.

  Will made a note of the date of that entry on the notepad. It would make it easier to ask the watchmakers and jewelers to search their sales records if he at least knew the date by which the watch had already been sold.

  That done, he read through until he found the next entry of interest.

  We had the most amazing day yesterday, spent it all with each other. The only bad thing was that we couldn’t go out because he might’ve been recognized. It’s a big city, but it’s still not such a big city when you compare it to all the other cities in the world.

  Even I might’ve seen someone I knew.

  He says one day, he’ll take me to faraway places like London and New York and Paris. He says no one will know who we are there, that we can laugh and hold hands on the street and dance under the stars.

  I have this knot in my belly when I imagine that, all hot and needing and wanting. I know this is wrong. I know Auntie would be so disappointed in me for coveting another woman’s husband, but how can I help it when he’s so wonderful? Surely, God wouldn’t have put him in my path if I was meant to stay away from him?

  Each time we’re together, I’m torn. I love him like he’s another part of me, but I also go to church with Auntie and I promise not to commit a sin. And yet I sin with him with every kiss, every touch.

  The next time she’d written about her lover, it was in a fast flowing hand, as if she’d been jotting things down quickly:

  I told him today that I wouldn’t see him anymore. Last night, I had a dream and I dreamed that God was so angry with me. Surely, it’s a sign. God himself is talking to me.

  There was a smudge on the last line, a droplet of liquid having fallen onto the page and melted the ink.

  The next relevant entry was only a week later and longer, more detailed:

  I have no willpower around him.

  He came to see me as soon as he could, and he held me and he said, “You know I can’t breathe without you. You’re my air.”

  I tried to tell him about sin and about following God’s commandments, but he said, “How can this be a sin? We love each other. Our love is honest. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Then he pressed his forehead to my own and he cupped my face and he said, “I’m the one who’s the sinner, Miriama, not you. I fully accept that. I’m the liar. But I’ve never lied to you.”

  I believe him.

  I love him.

  And this sin is what we have.

  The next two months of sporadic entries were mundane, technical jottings about her photography, funny comments that made Will want to smile, and only the occasional note that she was seeing “him” that weekend, or that “he’d” messaged her “the sweetest thing.”

  But the next entry that focused specifically on her ­relationship—­dated six months ­ago—­had a bleaker tone:

  I love him too much to walk away, but I’m starting to think about where this will lead. He tells me I’m young, that I have the time to wait, and for him, I won’t be selfish. I can wait. But today Auntie was talking about a girl she knew who’d been taken in by an older man. He never married her, not like he promised.

  And I wonder if that’s going to happen to me.

  But then I look at the watch that he gave me, a watch that’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars, and how can I not believe him? He picked this out personally, risked everyone finding out about us.

  Surely that means something, surely that means he’s committed to me.

  But I still worry. And I’m sad. Especially when I see Josie and her husband walking down the street, their hands linked and their little boy walking between them. I can never walk like that with him. Not for a long, long time.

  Will turned the page to read the final entry for that week.

  He’s asked me to meet him again. I will, of course I will. When I’m with him, nothing else matters. I think I need to trust him a while longer and see where this goes. After all, we’ve made it this long.

  If anyone had known, they’d have said we wouldn’t even make it a month. But we’ve made it for ten now, and we’ll make it another month and another and another and another. We’ll make it until he’s free, until he can be mine.

  32

  Will put down the journal and thought about what he’d just read, making a few more notes on his notepad. Miriama’s married lover had been wealthy and, for some reason, couldn’t divorce his wife to be with Miriama. Maybe he’d been stringing Miriama along, as she’d feared, or maybe it had been because he had ambitions that wouldn’t allow for a scandal, especially one that called his image as a family man into question.

  Again, he told himself not to focus on Vincent. The other man’s crush had probably been exactly ­that—­because Vincent would have to be one hell of a liar to have pulled off an illicit affair under the town’s nose.

  And Daniel still fit all of the parameters; throw in his history with Keira and he fit them even better. Then there was the fact that nothing Miriama had written so far told him whether or not her lover had been an outsider or a local.

  He refreshed his coffee before he turned the page into the world of a girl so beautiful and so full of life that she’d glowed like sunshine. As the entries ­continued—­closer together ­now—­she never once mentioned the name of her lover, as if keeping their secret was so ingrained that she didn’t dare utter the truth even in her private journal. Though the secrecy seemed to weigh increasingly heavily on her.

  I wanted to shout his name to the heavens today. It was such a sunny, clear, ­blue-­sky day and I wanted to swing myself around and around in a circle and shout out how much I loved him, but even though I was alone on the beach, under the old cabin where Ana used to live with her ma before she went away to London, I didn’t do it.

  I’m so used to keeping his name secret that I sometimes wonder if I remember it. And then I wonder if he remembers mine. Or do I only exist for him behind the closed doors of hotel suites where no one knows us, and I check in under my own name and he just comes up to my room, no record of his presence.

  When I use my credit card to pay for the room, I always think about the money he gives me to make sure I can clear the payment. Always
cash. No trail. I don’t exist anywhere in his actual life. He only exists in mine in the pages of this ­journal—­and even here, he doesn’t have a name.

  Can a relationship survive without names? Without an identity?

  Will frowned, realizing he’d made certain unconscious judgments about Miriama. He’d thought her pretty and talented and sweet. But he’d never realized she thought so deeply, saw so ­clearly—­for one, she’d seen Kyle’s real face when the young man had fooled everyone else.

  Eyes gritty, he glanced at the time that glowed on his microwave and knew he should go to bed. But he couldn’t put down the journal. It might not give him a name, but Miriama may well have dropped other clues. And he wanted to know two things in particular. Deciding there was no way he could read through the entire journal tonight, he flipped forward.

  There. Three months and two weeks ago.

  I’ve ended it. This time, forever. I have a life to live and that life needs to be out in the open, under the sunlight. I need a partner by my side, not a ghost no one knows, no one sees.

  Two weeks after that came the second entry Will was hunting.

  Dominic asked me out again today. This time, I said yes. He’s gorgeous in that nerdy, cute way, and he looks at me like I’m a goddess. He also has ambitions just like I do.

  He told me he knows I don’t want to be stuck in Golden Cove forever. He doesn’t, either. He has a ­three-­year plan. After he completes his contract here, he’ll have enough experience to get work in a larger town, from which he’ll eventually move to a city practice.

  And after that, he says he’ll look for international opportunities.

  I’m going to try.

  Dominic is perfect.

  Something about that entry struck Will as “off,” but maybe it was just the idea of Miriama making a list and ticking boxes. She’d called Dominic gorgeous, but the words she’d written about the doctor had been without passion, holding none of the terrified joy that infused her entries about her previous lover. Maybe that was a good ­thing—­the girl was smart enough to know she was on the rebound.

  Will flipped to the very last entry in the journal. Along the way, he caught sight of an entry that had his shoulders bunching.

  I’ve become so good at keeping secrets. Until I can’t even write some things here, in a place no one else will ever look. It scares me sometimes, who I’ve become because of him.

  The final entry was dated four days before her disappearance.

  I think Dominic’s getting ready to ask me to marry him. Auntie keeps smiling at me in a secretive way and he went out of town the other day, then blushed bright red when I asked him where he’d been. He never lies to me, so I didn’t push it, but I think he went to pick up a ring.

  I don’t love him like he loves me and I feel guilty about that sometimes, but I do love him. He’s so happy when he’s with ­me—­what I can give him, it’s enough. And what he can give me, it’s what I need. I don’t want to be alone. I’ve never really liked being alone. Marriage will be a good thing. It’s what I want. I’ll say yes.

  Closing the journal, Will stared at the wall across from him. Covered by yellowed wallpaper dotted with tiny brown flowers, it was honestly the ugliest wall he’d ever seen, and that included the one in his grandmother’s house that featured giant blue roses. He’d loved his gran, missed her when she passed, but that ­wallpaper…

  Will glanced back down at the final entry. Tight timeline or not, he’d been chewing over Dominic de Souza as a possible suspect in the back of his ­mind—­lovers were always at the top of the list. But if Miriama had decided to say yes to his proposal, then rejection as a motive was off the table. Dominic clearly knew he was punching above his weight when it came to ­Miriama—­she was the kind of woman who’d inspire envy in other men, and Will had the sense Dominic enjoyed that.

  He could see no reason for the doctor to have harmed Miriama when she was about to give him everything he ever wanted.

  Which took Will back to the lover Miriama had rejected.

  Reading between the lines, that man had been very possessive of ­Miriama—­he was also wealthy and likely not used to being told no.

  Thunder rumbled again, a massive boom of sound.

  It didn’t look like it now, but according to the weather report, this storm would clear by morning. If that held true, he’d make the trip to Christchurch and get started on the jewelers and watchmakers; first, however, he’d run a wide patrol through Golden Cove and surrounding areas, make sure everyone had come through the storm okay. The volunteer search teams would no doubt go out again, but Will was grimly certain that if Miriama had been anywhere where she could be found, she would’ve already been found.

  Setting aside the journal for now, he decided to look quickly through the rest of the items in the tin. He found mostly what he’d expected: ticket stubs from a show in Auckland, a curling photograph of a stunning woman who might’ve been Miriama with twenty more years on her, a Valentine’s Day card that had the words To my love and Always, I’m yours written within and was signed only with xoxo.

  The flotsam of Miriama’s ­life—­flotsam she’d kept as reminders of moments that had meant something to her. He’d have been disappointed not to find a photograph of her lover if he hadn’t already read her journal and known how carefully she kept that secret. If she did have an image of the man, it was most probably on her phone.

  Or, he realized, it could be out in the open in a way that’d raise no ­eyebrows—­one of her photographic portraits. He’d seen images of Vincent, Daniel, other men both known and unknown in her files. He’d look at those portraits again, but with Miriama skilled at bringing out emotion in all her subjects, he wasn’t expecting a sudden epiphany.

  The Valentine’s Day card might be useful in providing a handwriting sample to compare against the lover’s, but that would come after he’d tracked down a solid suspect.

  Will picked up and looked at the snapshot of the woman again. This had to be Miriama’s ­mother—­the resemblance was striking except for one thing: the older woman’s face displayed none of Miriama’s sunny joy in life. Her eyes were jaded despite the smile that curved her lips, her face set in lines that hinted at petulance.

  When he flipped the photograph over to look at the back, he found a note in the same large and generously looped handwriting as in the journal:

  Ma just before she found out she was pregnant.

  It struck him as an odd thing for Miriama to have put on the back of the picture; most people would’ve used another marker for their mother’s life. Will had the bleak feeling Miriama had grown up knowing her existence had forever changed her mother’s. Matilda would never say a hurtful thing to a little girl. Which meant the ­message—­and the ­rejection—­had come directly from Miriama’s mother.

  What did that do to a child?

  Did it leave holes in the soul?

  A hunger to be wanted, to be loved?

  Just the kind of vulnerability a smart, selfish man might exploit.

  Putting down the photograph, Will finished looking through the other items in the tin box. Nothing that immediately jumped out, though the two ticket stubs from an exclusive stage show were ­interesting—­dated months before Miriama began seeing Dominic, they must’ve cost in the hundreds.

  He’d follow up, but he knew the chances of tracing Miriama’s lover through the tickets was unlikely. If the unknown male had stuck true to form, the tickets had been purchased either in cash or in person ­or—­more ­probably—­by Miriama after her lover gave her the cash to cover the credit card repayment.

  Will’s hand fisted.

  An affair was one thing, but for this man to protect himself with such caution, even using Miriama as a shield, it spoke of an intense and manipulative ­self-­interest. Miriama had been right to fear that her lover would never fulfill his promises to her. And she’d been smart to break away.

  But had she stayed smart?

  Love cou
ld make people do stupid things.

  Sometimes, that stupidity led to death. And to screams Will had never heard, but that haunted him each time he closed his eyes. As long as he lived, he wouldn’t understand why a loving mother would pick up the phone and invite a monster to visit. Daniella Hart had been safe. Her little boy had been safe.

  But she’d picked up the phone.

  So no, Will didn’t trust that Miriama had stayed smart.

  33

  Anahera walked into Josie’s café just after nine thirty the next morning, the world sunlit around her, knowing she’d see this through to the bitter end. Something bad had happened and was continuing to happen in Golden Cove and Anahera wasn’t about to ignore it. People did that too often. Just ignored things because those things were uncomfortable or awkward, and in the end, all they had left were broken pieces and blood.

  She forced a smile onto her face as Josie bustled around the side of the counter. “Shouldn’t you be sitting down?”

  White lines bracketing her mouth, Josie used both hands to cradle her bump. “I can’t sit still,” she said. “I’m so worried about Miri. Working in the café, making sure the fire station is supplied with tea bags and milk and sugar and whatever else they need, it gives me a way to be in the thick of things, get any news as it comes in. The idea of sitting at home and just ­waiting…”

  Anahera nodded. “I’m sorry, Josie. I know you two are close.”

  Her best friend smiled tightly before walking over to fuss with a table ­centerpiece—­a tiny glass bottle that held a couple of freshly picked daisies. “We’re too far apart in age and interests to be friends like me and you,” she said. “I like to think of myself as her older sister, someone she can come to for advice.”

  Not particularly liking herself for pumping her friend for information, Anahera nonetheless knew she had to take advantage of this opportunity. If Miriama had confided in her, Josie could well know things no one else did. “Did she tell you anything that could explain her disappearance?”