The Boy in the Photo

by Nicole Trope

  ‘There, there, baby,’ whispers Megan as she rubs his back in circles the way she did when he was a newborn. ‘There, there.’ Megan lets go of the breath she has been holding and feels a lightness enter her body, as though she has not just let go of the breath she was holding in this moment but the breath she has been holding for the last six years. Six years, one month and four days.

  They stand together as night falls. Megan does not let go until Daniel pulls away a little.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ she says, encapsulating six agonising years into three simple words.

  ‘I’ve… missed you too.’

  Megan cannot remember exactly what he sounded like at six years old. She has some videos on her phone but she has not watched them in a year or two. Pictures are easier to bear.

  ‘You’re so tall.’

  ‘You’re not,’ he says and then he smiles. His even, white teeth remind her that on the day Greg took him, Daniel had looked at her and proudly shoved his tongue through the gap where his four front teeth had been.

  ‘I can feel the new ones, Mum.’

  ‘Better make sure you brush them every night so they’ll be strong forever,’ she had replied. Did Greg make him brush his teeth twice a day? Did he stand next to him and say, ‘Make sure you get the back ones?’ Oh, how I missed watching you brush your teeth.

  Daniel looks at Michael, who is standing a little behind Megan.

  ‘Hey, Daniel, I’m Michael. I’m your—’

  ‘He’s my husband,’ Megan jumps in, hearing the awkwardness in his voice.

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you finally.’

  Daniel stares at Michael’s large, outstretched hand for a moment until Michael drops it back down to his side. His eyes narrow and his face flushes a little.

  ‘You’re bigger than I thought you’d be,’ Daniel says to him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Megan.

  ‘I mean, I thought if you got married again it would be to someone like Dad. Someone tall and thin but he’s… he’s bigger than Dad.’

  ‘He’s not like Dad,’ Megan says, four words filled with so much meaning.

  ‘No, not Dad at all,’ agrees Daniel, and his lips curl a little as though he finds this idea disgusting.

  Megan is struck by his behaviour and she finds herself realising with a thud that although the past six years have been difficult, often intolerable, things will not be much easier now. The skinny adolescent before her may be nothing like the six-year-old she lost. He is nearly a teenager. He has been living in the bush with his father and no one has any idea for how long. She cannot fathom the things he may have seen or the experiences he has had. Who is he now? And will he still love the person she is today, the way he did when he was six years old?

  ‘I think we should get home before it gets too late,’ she says brightly.

  ‘I’ll sort out the paperwork,’ says Michael, leaving Megan and Daniel to stare at each other.

  ‘Your hair is really long,’ she comments.

  He touches his hair as though this is something he didn’t know.

  ‘Do you want to sit down for a bit while Michael finishes the paperwork?’

  He nods and they move back to the couch. ‘What game were you playing on the phone?’ Megan asks. All her prepared questions seem to have vanished. She cannot think of a single thing to ask him.

  ‘Snake Xenzia.’

  ‘Is it… is it a game you’ve played before?’

  ‘Yeah. I only have a couple of games on this.’ He starts another round of the game.

  ‘Oh, that’s your phone. How long have you had it?’

  ‘A while. It was only in case of emergencies so I could call… Dad. I thought I broke it when I was running. I dropped it on the ground but that other policeman, his name is Gary, see that one with the beard? He put it back together, except I lost the SIM card. I don’t know where it is.’ He hangs his head and Megan watches him play the game for a few minutes until she sees ‘game over’ flash on the screen. She would like him to look at her but can sense his discomfort. It is easier to stare at the small screen. She holds her hands clenched in her lap, preventing herself from touching him in case he doesn’t want to be touched. She lifts one hand a little – Maybe I should put my arm around him. – but then drops it. What will I do if he pulls away?

  ‘Why were you running, Daniel?’ she asks softly, noticing a light grey streak of soot under his chin and the acrid smell of smoke on him.

  He shrugs his shoulders, his gaze focused on the screen, as he starts a new game.

  ‘We can get you a new SIM card,’ she says.

  ‘I only had one number on it,’ he says, starting another round. ‘It was only to call Dad. I won’t need to call him now.’

  ‘Oh, baby,’ whispers Megan.

  He doesn’t look up from his game. ‘It’s an old phone,’ he says as his fingers press the keys, making the snake move as it chases apples around the screen. ‘I’ve seen lots of much nicer ones on the computer. Some people have hundreds of games on their phones but I was only allowed two. I wasn’t allowed any games on the computer either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Rots your brain, turns you into a mindless zombie. Our computer got burned. It was old but it still worked. It got burned though.’

  Megan studies her son. He is obviously repeating something that has been said to him again and again over the years. Greg’s thoughts have become his thoughts. She knows how that feels, how easy it is to just train yourself to think and say what Greg needs you to think and say. She wonders if Daniel fought against that as hard as she did, but then she realises that he is a child. He wouldn’t have been able to fight at all.

  How will she navigate the minefield that is his return? Because she knows it will be a minefield. There is so much she doesn’t know, so many questions she wants to ask but probably shouldn’t. She doesn’t want to say the wrong thing to him but she has no idea what the right thing to say would be. There’s a lot of information on the internet about how to survive your child being taken from you but very little on what to do if he comes back. Don’t think about that, just breathe him in. See him. Here he is. She cannot stop her eyes from roaming up and down his body. He has a wart on his thumb and a cut on his hand. He has two pimples on his chin and freckles over his nose and cheeks. His skin is darker than it was, as though he has spent a lot of time in the sun. His feet are filthy and covered in Band-Aids.

  ‘Are your feet sore?’

  He stretches his legs out and stares at his feet as though he is seeing them for the first time. ‘I have blisters and some cuts. A stone went into this heel but I got it out,’ he says, pointing.

  ‘I’ll take a look when we get… home, put some cream on for you.’

  ‘My feet are tough. I don’t like wearing shoes.’

  Megan remembers buying him his first pair of school shoes, remembers him running up and down inside the shop. ‘They make me feel big and strong, Mum.’ Why would he not like wearing shoes? What kind of life has he been living?

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ she says, and finding herself unable to resist touching him, she leans forward to hug him again but he flinches and moves back.

  She tries not to feel hurt by the rebuttal. ‘This must feel really weird.’

  ‘It is. You look… you look older, not how I remember you. You’re thin.’

  She smiles, nodding, and wills herself not to cry. He remembers me. ‘I run a lot.’

  ‘You never used to like running.’

  ‘I like it now. Do you like… running?’ Megan feels like she is on an awkward first date. The language she and Daniel had, the easy way they spoke to each other, their mutual understanding is no longer there.

  ‘Off to bed, little monster.’

  ‘Raah, monsters don’t need to sleep.’

  ‘Monsters who like Nana’s chocolate cake do.’

  ‘Okay, only after story time in your bed.’

  She searches her mind for another que
stion to ask him as he starts another game.

  ‘I don’t like sport,’ he says to her.

  ‘No, you never did. Do you still like to draw?’

  ‘I haven’t done that much. Paper is expensive and so are proper pencils.’ His face clouds and his eyes dull. At two he had stood next to her at a small easel and copied her as she painted a simple cat, a house, a tree. An old T-shirt of hers had hung from his neck to his toes, covered in paint because he kept touching the colours and then wiping his hands on the shirt. ‘I do a cat,’ he had said seriously, and she had watched as he’d drawn a circle but placed the triangle ears floating somewhere above the head. He had loved creating from the very beginning. She feels an ache inside her that he has lost this passion.

  ‘I have lots of stuff you can use.’

  ‘I don’t care about it that much anymore,’ he mumbles, and Megan’s stomach sinks.

  ‘All done,’ interrupts Michael. ‘You just need to sign some stuff and then we can go.’ He is standing at the door with Constable Mara.

  ‘I won’t be long and then we can go home,’ Megan says to Daniel.

  ‘My home burned down,’ he states as he stands up. ‘It burned to the ground. There’s nothing left… nothing at all.’

  ‘There’s always something left,’ says Constable Mara.

  ‘What could be left? My dad burned up in that fire!’ says Daniel, his voice rising.

  ‘Well… there will be bones,’ she replies, forgetting who she is speaking to. ‘Oh, no.’ Her hand flies to her mouth and her eyes widen as she hears her own shocking words. ‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have…’

  Megan stares at the constable, unable to believe what she’s just said.

  ‘You won’t find anything, nothing at all,’ Daniel says.

  ‘It’s true that they can always find something, Daniel, but it’s not something you need to think about. It’s going to be okay, it really is,’ says Michael quietly.

  ‘No, no,’ repeats Daniel, shaking his head.

  ‘We don’t need to discuss this, not now. Now we’re going home,’ Megan says, watching his face crumple as though he is suddenly feeling the enormity of his father’s death. She knows that this terrible realisation will strike him over and over again for years and she wishes she could steal away his pain.

  ‘No, no,’ he mutters, sniffing and wiping his eyes.

  ‘I know, baby, I’m so sorry. I know how hard this must be for you.’

  ‘But not for you because you hated him anyway. I bet you’re glad he’s… dead.’ As he whispers the last word, there is no anger in his voice, no acrimony behind his words. It’s as if he is making a casual observation. The tears are gone.

  Megan flinches and she looks at Michael and Constable Mara, who cannot hide the dismay from their faces.

  ‘I think you need a good rest tonight, Daniel, maybe talk about all of this tomorrow,’ the constable says brightly. A deep red suffuses her face.

  Megan wants to feel sorry for her but her horrifying words were unacceptable. How could she say such a thing? How could she have been so reckless?

  ‘Yeah, tomorrow,’ agrees Daniel. His eyes return to the screen and he lowers himself back onto the couch.

  Megan follows Constable Mara and Michael over to a desk where the officer Daniel has referred to as Gary is sitting. He hands her a pen and wordlessly points out where she needs to sign.

  ‘Did you ever meet his father?’ asks Michael.

  ‘I didn’t meet him but now that I’ve seen pictures, I realise I saw him around. You met him a couple of times, didn’t you, Gary?’ says Constable Mara.

  ‘Yeah, I think they’ve only lived here for six months or so. He came into the pub and put a sign up for his handyman services on the corkboard a few months ago. We started talking and he asked me if there was any work around. I told him I’d put the word out. Saw him in the pub once or twice after that, shared a beer, but he wasn’t a big talker.’

  Michael nods. ‘Did he ever mention Daniel?’

  ‘Nah, mate, he told me he was staying out in the bush in that cabin owned by some guy who lives overseas. He’s never here, but I didn’t put two and two together until the kid told us where it was. The owner is gonna be pissed. We’re bloody lucky that the volunteer fire guys had done some back burning and that it rained pretty soon after the fire started, otherwise we would have had a massive bush fire on our hands.’

  ‘He never said he had a child?’ asks Megan. ‘Never mentioned his son?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Gary lifts his hands up. ‘I’ve called the local school as well. He never went. No one knew your son existed. I thought the bloke was a loner, you know, like one of those guys who drifts from place to place, doing not much at all. We get a lot of drifters through here and lots of backpackers – we’re looking for one right now… Steven Hindley. Stupid buggers think they’re ready for the Australian bush but they never are. They have no idea.’

  ‘Thanks, that’s all done,’ says Constable Mara, taking the pen from Megan, and they walk back over to the little room where Daniel is sitting, still playing the game. Megan thinks about all the games her niece, Lucy, has on her iPhone. Greg was obsessed with technology. When they were married, he always had to be the first person to have the latest phone or television. She remembers him waiting in line for hours for the latest iPhone more than once. He also managed to while away hours on his Xbox. Megan can’t imagine him giving up all the games that he claimed helped him relax. He obviously purposefully kept Daniel away from a smartphone and a computer so he could keep him isolated, in the dark, separate from the outside world and any chance he may have had of finding his mother. He would have looked. She is sure he would have looked for her if he could have.

  ‘Are we going now?’ Daniel asks when he sees them.

  ‘We are. Got everything?’

  He nods.

  ‘Don’t forget the charger,’ says Constable Mara.

  Daniel bends down and unplugs the charger from the wall.

  ‘It was all he was carrying,’ whispers the constable to Megan. ‘The phone was broken because he said he dropped it. Thankfully Gary managed to put it back together again but he’s lost the SIM. We did try and look out for it when we went to find the house, but we didn’t see anything. He showed me some stuff on the phone. There are lots of pictures of him and his dad.’

  Megan bites down on her lip, thinking about all the years of pictures she’s missed.

  ‘Let’s get going,’ says Michael. ‘Ready to go home, Daniel?’

  ‘I need the bathroom.’

  ‘You know where it is,’ says Constable Mara.

  Megan watches her son slouch off.

  ‘Greg never told anyone he had a son,’ Megan murmurs.

  ‘He was hiding,’ says Michael.

  ‘There are people I know now who don’t know that I have a son, and Greg never told anyone he existed. It’s like we both just wiped him out.’

  ‘That’s not what happened; you didn’t do that at all, Megs. You never stopped looking for him and neither did I – that’s why we were contacted so quickly. The case has stayed open,’ says Michael.

  ‘But that’s what it feels like.’ Megan runs her hands through her hair. How have I let this happen? What kind of a mother am I?

  ‘He hasn’t exactly been talkative,’ Constable Mara says. ‘Someone will need to come out to you at some point and talk to him about what happened, but so far all he’s told us is where he lived and his name and a few other basic things. He doesn’t seem to want to answer any other questions. He may be in shock – I wanted to get the local GP to look him over but he’s been out at one of the remote properties all day. Maybe get your own doctor to see him. We also need to get a DNA sample in case we find… something, which we haven’t managed to do because we’re waiting for kits to be sent from Newcastle. It’s important that you do that as soon as you can at one of the local hospitals when you get back to Sydney. The coroner will need that information. I’ve giv
en Detective Kade the details, but of course he knows the procedure so I think it’s okay for you to take him home.’

  ‘We’ll sort it out,’ Michael says.

  Daniel ambles back over to where they are standing. He is holding his phone and his charger in his hand but something has been stuffed into the pocket of his pants.

  Michael says, ‘What have you got there, mate?’

  Daniel looks down at where Michael is pointing. ‘Nothing.’

  Michael doesn’t say anything; he just keeps looking at the bulging pocket.

  Daniel sighs and puts his hand in the pocket. He pulls out what can only be described as a crude knife.

  ‘What’s that?’ Megan asks sharply, stepping back, away from him.

  ‘Daniel!’ says Constable Mara, and she also takes a step back.

  He looks at the knife in his hand as though he was unaware of its existence. ‘It’s my knife, I made it. It’s my knife.’

  ‘You need to put that down, Daniel,’ says Michael quietly.

  Daniel is not holding the knife in a threatening manner but the fact that he has it, that he has had it all along, frightens Megan. He looks around at the assembled adults. The knife looks like it was carved out of a piece of wood with a blade inserted in the middle.

  ‘Why do you have a knife?’ asks Michael. He seems very calm, very controlled, and for a moment Megan wonders why he’s not panicking, but then she realises that he needs to remain calm so that Daniel stays calm. Her son seems bewildered by the reaction of the adults around him.

  ‘Can I see it?’ asks Michael, and slowly, Daniel lifts his arm and hands him the knife. It has an intricate pattern of criss-crossed black lines covering the handle. The blade looks like it’s been forced in and has probably come from a box cutter.

  ‘It’s very interesting – how did you make the design?’ asks Michael. He holds onto the knife tightly and Megan watches her son, watches his body language to see if he will try to get the knife back, but his shoulders slump and he makes no attempt to reclaim it.