by Nicole Trope
He gets up and goes to the library because the library is open during lunch and at least there are books and books are the best because he doesn’t have to think about anything when he’s reading them. Some of the kids from his class hang out in the library so it’s okay. It’s warm and quiet in there and Daniel spots Victoria as soon as he walks in. He likes Victoria: she’s kind and she seems to want to be his friend. She smells like strawberry bubble gum even though she’s not allowed gum at school. He grabs a book about the history of computers and goes to sit down next to her, remembering all the things Dad has told him so he doesn’t say the wrong thing: Your name is Daniel Ross. Your mother is dead. You used to live in Melbourne but you can’t remember where. Your name is Daniel Ross. Your mother is dead. Your mother is dead. Your mother is dead.
‘Nerd,’ says Victoria when she sees the book he has, but she smiles when she says it so Daniel knows it’s just a joke.
Victoria is reading the first Harry Potter book again.
‘How many times can you read that?’ he asks.
‘Until I get into Hogwarts.’ She smiles. ‘Anyway, I’m not really reading it, I’m looking at my phone.’
Daniel looks down at her lap, where her fingers scroll through Instagram images. ‘You’re not allowed to have your phone on you at school,’ he says. ‘And you’re too young to have Instagram.’ There is a rule at this school that all children hand in their phones to the office when they arrive for the day.
‘The secretary wasn’t watching this morning, so I acted like I handed it in, but I didn’t,’ she whispers and then she giggles. ‘And everyone has Insta, Daniel.’
He can’t help laughing along with her. The librarian looks up and lifts her eyebrows and they both stifle their laughter.
‘Can I look at it?’ mouths Daniel.
Victoria hands over the phone and he feels the thrill of holding something he’s not allowed to have. Once, before she handed it in to the school secretary, Victoria showed him how her phone works so he knows what to do. He closes down her Instagram as Victoria’s eyes are drawn back to the page she is supposedly reading. He finds her Facebook app and then he looks at Victoria again, but she’s not watching him; instead she is absorbed in her book.
He quickly types ‘Megan Stanthorpe’, and as soon as the results come up, he spots the page that belongs to his mother because the profile picture is of the two of them when Daniel was four or five.
‘What exactly are you doing over there?’ the librarian says, standing up and walking over to where he and Victoria are sitting.
He jumps and the phone lands on the floor.
The librarian looks at it and then she holds out her hand. ‘Yours, I presume,’ she says to Victoria because the phone is covered by a pink case with butterfly decals.
‘Yes, miss,’ says Victoria, her face flushing.
‘I’ll just take it to the office, shall I?’ says the librarian.
Victoria nods.
‘Don’t do it again,’ she says with a small smile. ‘Now off you go, both of you, lunch is nearly over.’
‘Sorry,’ whispers Daniel as they leave the library together.
Victoria shrugs. ‘No big deal. What were you looking up, anyway?’
‘Nothing,’ says Daniel, and he feels a heavy sadness inside his mother still has a picture of him. Maybe she only liked him when he was small? He clenches his fists, building his wall. ‘Nothing,’ he says as the bell rings and lunch is over.
Thirty
One month since Daniel’s return
Megan watches Daniel work his way through eggs and toast. She waits until he’s finished his last mouthful before speaking, hyper-aware that she needs to sound casual.
‘Have you heard of a computer game called League of Legends?’ she asks.
Daniel’s head shoots up. ‘Yeah, everyone has, it’s this like game and all of the characters have this lore behind them and they have power and they fight and…’
You’re still a little boy, just a little boy. How can anyone think you could start a fire that killed someone?
‘Is anyone playing it at school?’
‘Everyone, I mean mainly the boys, but some girls too.’
Megan nods her head. She has heard about the game from Olivia.
At first Megan had assumed that Max would be one of the most important people for Daniel to spend time with, but any time over the past couple of weeks when she has suggested inviting Max over, Daniel has refused. ‘We don’t have anything in common anymore. We don’t go to the same school. What would we say to each other?’
‘You were best friends, you can talk about all the things you used to do together and I’m sure that you’ll have lots of things in common.’
‘We’re not old men. We don’t want to talk about things we remember.’
Megan has let it go but has quizzed Olivia on the games Max is playing, the books he is reading, the television he is watching. She assumed that a computer game would be a good place to start. She hadn’t even heard of the game until Olivia told her about it. She has a lot to catch up on.
‘It sounds like a fun game,’ she says to Daniel.
‘Everyone says it is. I mean, they talk about it…’
‘What is it, Daniel?’
‘I… Nothing. I don’t want to talk to you about it.’
Megan wants to push, to ask why, but she has learned not to do this. There have been times over the weeks since he came home when Daniel has simply talked to her, as though he has always been with her, and then fallen silent when he realises what he’s doing. It’s as though he needs to keep remembering that he must not allow himself to connect with her.
‘How about,’ she says as though the idea has just occurred to her, ‘you download the game and we get one of the gift cards so you can level up or whatever you need to do.’
‘Really?’ asks Daniel, incredulous.
‘Yes, I don’t see a problem with it.’
‘But you know it’s an online game?’
‘Yes, and I also know that you’ve had the cyber-safety talk at school so you understand that you don’t give out personal details and you come and get me if someone gets a little weird.’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘But what?’
‘If the game is online anyone can find me.’
‘Who’s looking for you, Daniel?’
Megan watches her son’s face change. The excitement disappears and the wariness returns.
‘No one, but Dad said they could find me if I played online.’
Megan stiffens. ‘They?’
‘The police, you and the people who wanted to take me away.’
‘Darling, you’re with me and no one is looking for you because we’ve found you and it’s okay for you to be online.’
‘He said if the police found me…’
‘If the police had found you, you would have come home, just like you have,’ Megan says, not wanting to hear Greg’s poison again.
Megan can see Daniel fighting to stay distant from her, to maintain his anger even in the face of the wonderful development of being able to download the game.
‘He loved me more than anything, you know. Once, he said that if I left him, he would kill himself. He said he couldn’t live without me and one day when I didn’t answer him when he called because I was out in the bush at the back, he went like… like crazy.’
‘He went crazy,’ Megan repeats, understanding that he is not really speaking to her so much as speaking his thoughts. If she asks a question, he will shut down again.
‘I heard him screaming my name, just screaming over and over again… Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, and then I came running and he was standing by the shack with a knife in his hand, a big kitchen knife. “I thought I’d lost you, I thought they had found you and taken you,” he said and he was crying and then he took the knife and held it to his neck and pushed it against his skin and some blood came out. “If I ever lose you, I’ll kill myself, I will kill mys
elf,” he screamed and then I tried to grab the knife from him and cut my hand.’ Daniel’s voice is low as he attempts to keep emotion out but Megan can hear the panic, the fear, the certainty that he was in the wrong for worrying his father.
Megan picks up a cloth and keeps her hands busy cleaning up drops of spilled milk and toast crumbs. A terrible feeling of déjà vu settles inside her. She had been at the end of Greg’s threats to kill himself many times in the few months leading to their separation.
Daniel watches her, silent for a moment. ‘He just didn’t want to lose me,’ he says quietly. ‘He didn’t mean a lot of the stuff he did.’
‘I… I understand,’ Megan croaks because she does, because she lived it.
How could I have married this man and allowed him to father a child? she thinks, wondering, not for the first time, if Greg had not just been a ‘difficult man’ but rather a man suffering from some form of mental illness.
‘Do you really want me to download the game?’ he asks.
‘I do,’ she says and the spell is broken, the conversation over, and he bounds up the stairs to his computer.
On the way to school Evie listens as Daniel explains the game to Megan, occasionally saying, ‘Gaah,’ seemingly in support of his new and instant obsession.
Daniel laughs. ‘See, Mum, she wants to play too. You’re too little, Evie.’
Megan cannot prevent a bubble of joy rising up inside her. When she stops the car outside school she says, ‘I’m sure Olivia mentioned that Max plays that game as well. Strange that you both like it.’
‘Not strange… everyone is playing it.’
‘Oh, well, maybe…’
‘Maybe Max can help me level up,’ he says excitedly.
‘I guess I could ask them over this afternoon; he may have time to help you get started.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that would be good. Bye, Mum,’ he calls as he climbs out of the car.
Megan watches him slouch into school. She has told him a lie, a small lie. She has already invited Olivia over for this afternoon, but if he had said no or not suggested it himself, she would have cancelled.
‘So far, so good,’ she says to Evie.
While Evie naps Megan stands in her studio, cleaning brushes, hoping that just being in the space will inspire her to begin working again. Her phone is in her pocket but she keeps checking it, ever vigilant for a call from the school about Daniel.
‘He’s doing fine,’ Mr Gordon had told her. ‘He’s a polite and enthusiastic student.’
‘And what about friends?’ she had asked. ‘Does he have any friends?’
‘I believe he spends a lot of time in the library at the moment. I think he’s very comfortable there.’
She is hoping that after a little time he will find his way out of the library and into the playground.
Her phone rings, causing her to panic. Has something happened to Daniel? Her heart rate settles when she sees it’s Michael.
‘Hey,’ says Michael. ‘I wanted to call you right away to tell you that they’ve found Greg’s car.’
‘Where?’ She wipes at the same spot on the paintbrush handle again and again.
‘Melbourne. Someone had set it on fire near a large rubbish dump.’
‘How do they know it was Greg’s car?’
‘It took a bit of work to find out. According to the constable in charge, Greg had never registered the car because, well, obviously he wouldn’t have if he was keeping a low profile, but they managed to trace it back to the previous owner. He told them he’d sold the car to a man named Greg Ross for cash.’
‘So how did they connect Greg with that Greg?’
‘Well, the basics about the car are in the database. The car wasn’t so damaged they couldn’t see that it was blue and that it was a Toyota station wagon. It took them a few days but they finally put it together, and the previous owner identified Greg from a picture we have of him.’
‘But why was it in Melbourne?’
‘No one knows,’ he says, ‘but whoever took the car must have been involved. There’s no other explanation.’
‘So, they don’t think Daniel lit the fire anymore?’
‘They are not ruling anything out, Megs, but they are looking for someone else. It is starting to look like the more likely scenario.’
Megan breathes a sigh of relief, feeling her heart lighten.
‘Steven Hindley?’ she asks.
‘It seems to fit with his history of arson, but nothing is being ruled out as yet.’
Her muscles relax. She comforts herself with the fact that the car was found in Melbourne. The person who set the fire, who possibly killed Greg and forced Daniel to flee, is far away from them. Until she is told otherwise, she has decided to presume that this is exactly what has happened. This theory brings with it a whole host of new concerns. What did Daniel witness? How does a child recover from seeing his father possibly killed? Why had Steven been allowed into their home if Greg was trying to keep a low profile?
‘It does bring up a lot of other questions if it is the case,’ says Michael as though he has read her mind.
‘I know but at least…’
‘At least?’
‘At least we can be sure that it wasn’t Daniel, that he’s not responsible for hurting anyone.’
She cannot, will not, believe he could be responsible. She keeps forcing herself to remember Daniel as a baby and a toddler and a young child, to remember his innate kindness and his deep sensitivity. Daniel could never hurt anyone, which is exactly what Eliza has said: ‘Deliberately lighting a fire is the behaviour of a psychopath. Your son is not a psychopath. I am absolutely certain of that.’
‘I hope that’s the case, Megs,’ says Michael, ‘I really do. I’ll see you later.’
Megan picks up another paintbrush and rubs at it with her rag.
Detective Wardell will be back in a couple of weeks to try and interview Daniel again. Megan hasn’t told him yet as she doesn’t want him to panic.
She hopes that finding a way to lose herself in her painting will help her deal with everything, but so far, it’s not working at all. If Steven Hindley set the fire, why did he allow Daniel to get out of the house? Was the fire an accident? What is Daniel holding inside? What secrets is he keeping?’
‘Enough,’ she tells herself as Evie’s babble comes over the monitor. ‘It’s enough. I’m not going to think about this anymore.’
By the time she needs to fetch Daniel from school she’s worried she made a mistake asking Olivia to bring Max over. She has no idea how the interaction will go. She’s nervous about Olivia seeing Daniel for the first time, wary of any judgement, although she knows Olivia isn’t like that.
When she fetches Daniel from school, he’s quiet.
‘If you don’t feel ready to see Max,’ she says, ‘I can cancel.’
‘No, it’s fine, it’s just…’
‘It’s just?’
‘What if he doesn’t like me anymore?’
‘I guess he may be feeling the same way, and the two of you will kind of figure it out together. If you don’t get on anymore, you don’t get on, no big deal.’
‘Okay,’ he says and then he looks out of the window and nods as though assuring himself. ‘Okay,’ he whispers.
Olivia, Max and Gemma arrive ten minutes after they get home. Four-year-old Gemma loves playing with Evie, treating her like her own personal doll. Megan and Olivia sip cups of tea in the kitchen, watching but not watching the boys, who are sitting next to each other on the couch, staring at the television as they share a bowl of popcorn and some cookies.
‘Should I say something?’ whispers Olivia.
Megan shrugs her shoulders. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Max,’ she calls, and Max drags his eyes from the television. ‘What character are you playing on League right now?’
‘I’ve told you a million times, Mum – Katarina.’
‘She’s, like, one of the strongest, isn’t she?’ asks Da
niel.
‘Yeah, but I also play Lee Sin, the Blind Monk,’ says Max.
‘Amit at school plays him. I haven’t even started really.’
‘I can show you some stuff,’ drawls Max, and Megan wants to cheer when they both get up, leaving their dirty plates and the television on, and disappear into Daniel’s bedroom until Olivia announces it’s time to go.
‘It felt exactly like a normal afternoon,’ Megan tells Michael at the end of the day, beaming. ‘It felt like it was how it was always meant to be.’
‘That’s so great, love, I told you all he needed was some time.’
‘Baby steps and patience,’ Megan has begun repeating to herself, making it her own personal mantra. ‘Baby steps and patience.’
Thirty-One
Five weeks since Daniel’s return
‘What about a picnic?’ says Megan to her husband and son.
It’s Sunday morning, and the winter sunshine floods in through the large glass sliding doors that lead from the kitchen and living area onto the garden. Evie is crawling around her toy kitchen, occasionally pulling herself up to stand on the plastic stove and then falling back down onto the floor.
Megan feels what she believes is almost an absurd sense of well-being. She is trying to out-think her negative thoughts, to let go of her expectations and to practise patience. She has been trying, for the past few days, to compliment Daniel whenever she catches him doing something positive.
She is managing to irritate herself as she strives to consistently sound bright and cheerful, but she is following Eliza’s advice. Megan has congratulated him for making his bed, for handing Evie a toy and even for laughing at a joke Michael told at dinner, although he had looked guilty afterwards. To her own ears she sounds brittle and desperate but she has found that there are moments in the day when Daniel looks almost relaxed, when he seems to forget that there is some script he should be reading from; and when the child she remembers peeks through, her heart soars.