Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  “You know nothing of the man,” I said quietly.

  Elias slammed his book shut with a flourish, and stared into me. He was angry, or not — his face gave away so little. Suddenly, I felt very small.

  “He’s only the most dishonest, selfish, ruthless man in your entire nation. And don’t try to deny it. His disgrace is the reason you’re here.”

  I had wriggled free from many scrapes during the course of my adventures; I had only to be quick and clever. But Truth is inescapable.

  “How do you know this?”

  “You’re not the first one he’s sent. There was Kayla and Tessa. Both tried to seduce me with their words and discover what I know.” He paused. “I never thought Rupert would risk his own daughter in this cover-up.”

  Rupert? Dad’s name was Sean. Okay, Window Boy was certifiably deranged. But he had also come close, too close. I’d matched wits with blokes all over the world, and been jolted by a lad who belonged in a mad house.

  Time soon took its toll, and Elias gave in to sleep. He clutched his sketchbook, clearly as dear to him as my diary was to me, against his chest. With a sudden and large slump, he melted against the window, arms limp at his sides, his holy book slipping to his lap.

  I stared at his prize. Certifiable or not, Elias had pricked me, as nobody in eight months had. He had no business poking into my family, or dredging up pain from the deep. I decided to poke back.

  Gently, I lifted the sketchbook from his thighs, took one peek at Elias, and opened to the first page.

  “Not possible.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Miss, you really need to exit the aircraft.”

  Fifteen minutes had passed since I eased the sketchbook back onto Elias’s lap, since Elias woke and grabbed his bag and pushed his way off the plane.

  My gaze roamed the face of the stewardess, but it was the pictures from the sketchbook that remained, impressed in my memory.

  Page one: A factory. Not maybe a factory, positively a factory, drawn from the inside, from the floor, where huge looms pumped and pumped the cloth. Workers bent, weary looks on their faces. They worked too hard, too long. Just like Mum.

  Page four: A prison. Drawn from inside the cell. Through the eyes of a prisoner. To the right, a cell wall, scratched and worn by a million hopeless moments. And at the bottom, hands — guilty hands — upturned. As a younger man, these palms gloried in strength and promise. Now, weathered and wrinkled, they’d taken too much. A murderer’s hands? A rapist’s hands? A fighter’s?

  Dad’s?

  Page seven: Me. Not resembling me, or me from a distance. Me, up close and peeking around a corner. Hesitant. Running from something. Elias reflected my gaze, my vacant mirror gaze. He captured my longing.

  These were no abstract drawings. Elias drew with firm, perfect strokes. More telling than a photo. More, just more.

  “Miss, are you all right?” The stewardess laid her hand on my shoulder. I stared at her fingers.

  “No.”

  I rose, squeezed into the aisle, and reached for my bag. It felt heavy slung over my shoulder. For the first time in months I felt weak and crumpled against a seat.

  “How did that bloke know my life? In his sketchbook, how could he know it?” I asked, and glanced at the stewardess. “Did you tell him? Wait, how would you know?”

  “Do I need to call someone for you?” She stepped out of the aisle to let me pass. “I was supposed to keep a watchful eye on Elias throughout the flight, but maybe you need —”

  “A bit of sleep and I’ll — I’ll be fine.”

  I wandered off the plane and into a vacant airport.

  He’s gone. My chest loosened. A random meeting with a paranoid mentalist. Disturbing, but random nonetheless.

  “All right, Clara. Gather yourself.”

  Money. It would be good to check on where I stood with that. I threw my bag onto a blue plastic seat, tugged on the zip, and took a deep breath.

  My bag was not my bag.

  “Stop!” I screamed, and raced back down the tunnel. I burst back into the plane and grabbed my stewardess mate. “My dad’s journal!” Every caution and tip and all his contacts! Not to mention my own diary. Eight months of everything. Every thought. And photos, of Teeter and Marna and Mum. “This isn’t happening!” Together, we executed a frantic search.

  “I’m so sorry.” She glanced at her watch. “You can fill out a report, and if your backpack turns up . . .”

  I would not fill out a report. Not when every moment spent with pen and paper was another moment farther from my bag. No, there would be no report. No paper trail. I would find the idiot who lifted my bag and make the criminal pay.

  I hurried back into the terminal and spread the contents of not-my-bag out on the floor.

  Men’s clothing, bundled and balled on top. This, I expected. I was the only female thief I’d encountered thus far. Beneath the clothing, some personal effects and two medications.

  Risperidone and Melatonin. Thieves are always blasted.

  I set the drugs aside, and peered into the bottom of the bag.

  Paper. Reams of it. Paper laying loose; paper gathered into tablets.

  Paper in sketchbooks.

  “Oh no,” I groaned.

  And crumpled among the pages of drawings I dared not examine was a small slip, worn and creased.

  Contents of this backpack belong to Elias Phinn.

  If found, please contact Guinevere Phinn at:

  Phinn’s Bed and Breakfast

  1 Loring Parkway

  Minneapolis, Minnesota

  (612) 555 – 0177

  Guinevere. So be it. I will not deal with Window Boy. I will sort this out with Guinevere and retrieve my diary and forget this flight.

  My stewardess shut down the gate area and joined me.

  “Find what you need?”

  I held up the address. “Loring Parkway. Is that near?”

  She nodded. “Twenty minutes. None too far. It’s in the heart of downtown.” She started to walk away, and then turned. “Nice thing you’re doing, returning it yourself. It might even be fate you wound up with that bag. My dad, he took the wrong bus somewhere in England after the war, and my mom was on it. That’s how they met. It turned out that there was a reason for hopping on that wrong bus.”

  “Thanks, but every bus in England is the wrong bus.” I slowly reached for Elias’s shirt, flattened it and folded it. Then another, and another. My heartbeat slowed. Left sock, right sock. I lined up the seams of denims, set the folded clothes aside, and gently stacked the papers. Finally, I lifted the items back into the bag.

  My mind clear, I hoisted the bag over my shoulder. I would locate Loring Parkway, but now, with my blasted laptop in Elias’s possession, I had a greater need . . .

  Help Support Children of Incarcerated Parents

  500 Days of Wandering, 500 Days of Hope

  I hated blogging from my phone, and I hated being rushed. But tucked inside my diary, £3,000 in bills found its way into Window Boy’s hands, and his bag didn’t return the favor.

  Bottom line: I needed money, and for that, my site needed attention.

  Compose. Click.

  Day 240

  I realise, now that I am well into this adventure, just how I long for home, for my precious England. But the need is great, and so is my resolve. (Here, I paused to cough, and continued.) Presently, I find myself in . . .

  I stepped onto the people mover, glanced about, and shrugged. I’d only posted a handful of fictional entries, but I needed money, and I’d learned elegance was key.

  New Zealand, a beautiful country; in Christchurch, a lovely city. Surrounded by mountains and waterfalls, stretches of plains, and deep-cut valley. These are the views that children of incarcerated parents will never glimpse. This is the air that the incarcerated long to breathe. These hardened ones at least remember freedom. But their unfortunate children languish like downed kites. They are abandoned, unless you, dear reader, act.

&n
bsp; Will you lift the wings of a poor child today?

  Will you donate to the Children of Incarcerated Parents Fund?

  Friends, together we have reached thirty percent of our £500,000 goal.

  One hundred percent of your gift goes toward the support of one of these children, a child who has just lost everything.

  “At least that line’s the truth,” I said, and finished my entry:

  Give generously. Give now.

  I posted the blog and waited. They would give. Incredible that over ten thousand people, a small cult following, discovered and subscribed to my blog. More incredible still that a tenth of them financially supported my global trek. Yes, they believed they were giving to needy children. That occasionally — like today — I fabricated even my location, always gave me pause. But there was no other way. Their charity alone kept me traveling, and by the time I reached ticketing, £400 had been given.

  “Well, all right then.” I pocketed my phone and grimaced. “We live to lie another day.”

  CHAPTER 3

  What took you so long?”

  The beautiful girl slammed her car door and slowly walked toward the curb where I stood. She offered her infectious smirk and we embraced.

  “There was trouble on the flight. Trouble with a boy.” I pulled free and shook my head. “But you, Kira, you haven’t changed a bit.”

  Again, she smirked.

  It was that knowing look that first intrigued me years ago. Her father had moved their family into a neighbouring flat for a six-month stint in London. He was a traveling contractor, and Kira’s mum an excessive shopper, which left the two of us with time to make plans in secret. Our most ambitious scheme: One day I would visit America.

  “Looks are deceiving.” Kira unlatched her car’s boot and hoisted my bag inside. She pounded the lid down with a flourish and threw back her hair. “For me, there is no more mom, no more dad. I haven’t seen them in a year. Oh . . . I’m really sorry about your mom. She didn’t look too bad when we were there. What was it?”

  “Cirrhosis.”

  “What is that?”

  “Drink ate her insides.”

  Kira nodded. “Wow. Well, like I was saying, I live with three roommates on the university campus.” She paused. “You’ve been all over the world, but I bet you’ve never experienced the kind of craziness I’m about to show you.”

  From anyone else, an insensitive ignorance of Mum’s fate. But Kira’s shallowness was more than her greatest weakness, it was an enviable strength.

  She never had to feel.

  “Not so fast,” I said. “I need to collect an item first. Can you take me to this addy?”

  I handed her the slip.

  “Who do you know in Loring Park?”

  “Elias.”

  “You two hooked up on the plane?”

  “He lifted my bag from the plane.”

  Again, the smirk. “Sounds promising. Hop in.”

  I suppose it might have been the evening’s flight, or a fret about my bag, but listening to Kira spout on about her exploits, both wild and domestic, held no fascination. Her excitable voice faded into white noise, and I rested my head against the window, forcing smiles and nods but hearing little.

  No, I decided, Kira had not changed. But I had. In London, I was her little disciple, following the whims of an older, bellicose American. She had been my first exposure to an untamed world beyond Marbury Street, and what a thrilling picture she’d painted.

  Now my eyes had seen that world. They’d seen brilliant northern lights over Iceland, washing the night sky in pinks and greens. They’d seen those same colours alive and vibrant in the fish and corral of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

  But they’d also seen death, from dysentery and dengue fever. Dad’s journal had taken me on lonely dirt paths in West Africa and through jungles of Nicaragua, where I’d wished like anything that I could hear my sibs argue again.

  Family. You should not so flippantly toss them aside. Like Kira had.

  I pinched my forehead between thumb and forefinger.

  Like I had.

  “. . . the partying each night is insane, and my parents would never forgive me if they knew . . .”

  But I had no choice. The shame of our family’s Greatest Undoing was mine alone to bear. For years, the event’s bubbling panic would not ease. I had needed to stay in London, to give up my childhood and become parent. I owed Dad that much. But just as I’d needed to stay, I’d also needed to flee, to keep moving, to keep traveling. I could not face him upon his release.

  I balled my fists. Little Thomas, he hadn’t needed to die. These hands could have prevented it. My capable hands. My competent hands. Dad and Mum trusted me, and I failed and fled and watched my precious brother bleed. I bowed my head.

  There was no forgiveness for that.

  “. . . Elias.”

  The name jarred me aright.

  “I’m sorry, it’s late and I drifted. What did you say?”

  Kira eased onto a windy lane and pointed toward a sign.

  Phinn’s Bed and Breakfast

  Est. 1914

  “We’re at the address. Let’s see this, Elias!”

  “No, Kira, let me sort it on my own. Wait here.”

  Kira accelerated, her tires squealing around each corner. “I did not drive this far only to be denied a peek at your criminal. It’s important to know what type you like.”

  “We aren’t a pair. The bloke’s a most unsettling thief. I simply need my bag.”

  “And you and your proper English shall get it.”

  Kira’s Fiat screeched into the roundabout and came to a halt in front of the porch. From somewhere in the night, a siren blared, and several upstairs windows filled with light.

  “Oh, well done.” I pushed out of the car. “Open the latch.”

  I retrieved the bag and paused. It was a beautiful B & B. Several stories high, and constructed from white clapboard, it looked a place that belonged in a quaint coastal town. The inn stood unique among neighbouring apartment buildings, with its lawns that stretched out in manicured green, and two fountains that graced the yard.

  The dog stopped barking.

  “Onward,” I said.

  I approached the door, and raised my hand to knock.

  Kira honked her horn, and I startled, spun, and frowned. She smiled and waved, and when next I turned toward the inn, the door stood open, and Elias stood in it.

  His blond hair was disheveled, which was irritatingly pleasant, but otherwise he seemed the same lad I’d met on the plane. Save for the eyes. They were calmer, a cool brown peering out in place of his earlier paranoid gaze. His hands were busy clicking a pen, a pen that looked suspiciously like mine.

  Neither of us spoke for several moments.

  Another honk.

  Elias glanced over my shoulder, and then quickly back to me.

  “You took my bag.” I slipped out of the shoulder strap and let his thud to the ground.

  “When did I take your bag?” He appeared genuinely befuddled.

  “On the flight.” I eyed my pen. “Have you not noticed the contents are not your own?”

  He licked his lips, stepped out, and stroked the returned. “We have the same pack.”

  “Yes, and I came to recover mine.”

  Elias stood, and backed into the inn. “Don’t worry. I won’t take it.”

  “You already took it!” I pushed my hand through my hair. “Elias Phinn, do you recall nothing of the flight? You accused me of secrets. You spoke of my fath — You drew me. I’m on page seven. You took the wrong bag when you left the plane, which I will not hold against you, as long as you return mine to me . . .” I snatched the pen from his hands and raised it in front of his nose. “With all contents intact.” I grabbed a quick breath. “And kindly explain those sketches. If you think I’m leaving before you clear up how you were able to draw certain . . . elements of my past, you’re mistaken. Was that just a series of fortunate guesses or .
. .”

  He stared at the pen. “I’m sorry, but the B & B is full.”

  The door slammed in my face.

  I did not travel this far for a pen!

  I pounded with both fists, and again the door swung open. This time, the tired body of a woman filled its frame. Elias’s mum, I was certain of it.

  I opened my mouth and waited for words to spill out, angry words. I expected to spew a list of ways that Elias had slowed my progress. The entire Minneapolis trip was already a personal detour from Dad’s path.

  But angry words did not come. This woman reminded me too much of Mum.

  She smiled and stepped out, slowly unzipping the bag and offering a long sigh. “My name is Guinevere Phinn, and my guess is that my son took the wrong bag off the plane and you, being very kind, came to return it.”

  “Yes, to the botched bag deduction. Perhaps not so much to the kindness.”

  “Come in.”

  I grabbed Elias’s bag and stepped into the foyer, a beautiful space lit by a dim chandelier. I was surrounded by framed drawings I recognized immediately to be Elias’s handiwork. I peeked to make certain neither I nor any other member of my family hung on the walls, and quickly relaxed. The majority were landscapes. Mountains and seas, seagulls and ships, harbours and islands. Hanging between were sketches of Orion, its position tilted and stretched in twenty different angles.

  Spiral stairs with ornate handrails rose on either side of the foyer. I turned from them in time to see Elias disappear into a room down the hall.

  “I don’t mean to trouble you further,” I said. “I just want what’s mine.”

  “Yes, I imagine you do.” Guinevere glanced toward the closed door and winced. “Here is my dilemma. Not knowing that Elias had your backpack, I allowed him to bring it into his room.”