The Missing One

by Lucy Atkins

I lift my head and listen for the sound of Susannah and Finn bursting through into the kitchen, the dogs’ claws, Finn’s little voice. Nothing. The house is still empty. I really need to go and look for them – he’ll be hungry. He needs his lunch. And I need him.

  But this journal is unbelievable. Alice has to see this. This is incredible. Susannah has my mother’s diary right here and she didn’t show me – it proves, at least, that she has been telling the truth. But clearly she left out some of the crucial details. I have to take this home – this is evidence. I have to show this to Alice. This is vindication. It was not so mad, after all, to get on a plane and come here. Maybe it was instinct.

  I need to call Alice as soon as I get a phone signal. I was right that my mother resented me for her lost career. When she got pregnant, all of this had to end – Dad probably insisted that she come to England where I would be safe and well-schooled. I basically ruined her life.

  This information is important for Alice, too. It can’t have been easy to grow up with a sister like me. Alice had to witness all our fights and live with the constant tension. She must have felt guilty that she and my mother were so harmonious – being the favourite daughter brings its own pressures. She was always trying to make amends. It isn’t surprising that she grew up to be so focused on rules and laws and making everything fair. But is my sister happy? I don’t think so. Alice, I realize, is as imprisoned by our past as I am. She needs to know the truth about our mother as much as I do. In some way, this could liberate Alice too.

  I flick forwards: a couple of pages describing how they came across a group of orcas that were rubbing their bellies on some stony beach. A description of the guest house:

  Ana, who runs this place, always seems calm, even when her boys are running around like wild things … and those boys really are wild – cute, but wild …

  … lovely clear blue eyes, pale lashes, and fine blonde hair that she pulls into a knot on the back of her head. I like her a lot. She told me she’s from a family of Swedish loggers and Glen is a fisherman, though I guess he leaves so early and is sleeping when we get back. We haven’t seen him, not once. The three of us ate together last night … S silent, brooding … A and I talked …

  … Turns out they’ve known each other since grade school. A went to Victoria for a few years to train to be a high school teacher, but ‘it just didn’t feel right not to be here, with Glen’. So she came home … she said it all so simply, I felt a …

  The rest of the page is smudged so badly I can’t read any more. I turn over and the letter ‘S’ catches my eye again.

  … Woke in the night, last night, maybe 2 a.m. S sitting on the wooden chair by my bed. She was watching me.

  The rain had stopped and it was white moonlight, and with that hair, her nightdress and pale eyes, she looked spooky. I don’t know how long she’d been there – I guess I sensed her and woke up. I sat bolt upright and said something like, ‘What are you doing?’ She said, in this low, catatonic voice, ‘Just watching you sleep.’ I told her to quit it and go lie down. She did. So did I. We both lay there, but I did NOT sleep after that. Even when I heard her breathing slow, I just couldn’t. I was still awake when the ravens started clamouring and cawing in the trees, at 5.30.

  Now – after another day motoring round the coast, finding nowhere remotely suitable – I’m tired like someone’s opened me up and taken my bones out. That’s the real problem here: am so damned tired I can’t think straight. I feel sick again. I guess S is upset by our argument. She’s been monosyllabic today.

  She’s in the bath right now. It’s peaceful in here without her – hiss of the water through pipes, this sleeping angel, the patter of rain on the roof. I never have been any good at friendship, all the intensity women require – the to-ing and fro-ing and unspoken needs and all the little offences. It’s just all so complicated and tiresome. I keep getting this feeling that I’m missing something really obvious, like there’s a big list of rules just beyond my field of vision and I’m breaking every one of them, and that’s why she’s so mad and frustrated. But I don’t know what they are.

  I need to sleep but have to stay awake – don’t want to sleep while she’s still pacing around. If I keep writing, then I’ll stay awake.

  Sometimes, lately, I picture her as a wolf, following at my heels, ready to savage anyone who comes too close – but maybe also ready to turn on me too if the wind shifts and something flicks in her brain. I don’t know. Something isn’t right with her at the moment – if it ever was.

  J called earlier – he’s making progress: CDF is interested in the Institute plan – though it has to go through some committees so won’t know for a while. He’ll tell me more when back. D’s gone home now – C, K and R going next week. It’s going to get lonely. I have to work something out. I have to find a home – but maybe that isn’t going to happen up here. It’s possible that all this has been a ridiculous fantasy.

  Right now, I have this intense pain in my head that won’t go away. It’s cold in this room even with the heater on. My hand is aching like hell from writing – have to stop.

  When she gets out of the bathroom, I’m going to tell her we’ll do one more day then go. When she’s back in Victoria I might even miss her.

  Again, the pages stick, but in gentle increments I manage to pry the next couple away from each other and continue to read the faint ink.

  … miraculous! Beautiful day. Warm, calm. Anchored for lunch, watching a black bear on the shore turning over rocks, very patient and slow. I had the headphones on and the hydrophone was picking up all the sounds of the shoreline – the clatter of shingle, even grunting of rock cod, and out to sea, total stillness – no engine sounds at all. Then the sing-song ‘bree-fftt-whirreeep’. I jumped up, scanning the waves with the binoculars, but couldn’t see anything; then wolf-whistles, a surface blast from a blowhole. I started the outboard and took us round the headland. And there was this perfect little bay, sun bouncing off the water, mountains reaching up behind it, and six whales – a couple of adult males, a couple of adolescents and two grown females, just hanging out, meandering through the kelp beds. I didn’t recognize any of them, but no catalogue – so got out the camera, took three rolls of film – though with S and K in the boat, I couldn’t record sounds or make proper notes.

  Afterwards we moored on the beach, and wandered up round the headland. Met an elderly woman who has a little shack – she claims the orcas come year-round – I made her repeat that about three times. Even in winter? Yes. In January? Yes. She told us there’s a very small community on the island including a family in a floathouse round the other side. Their kids to go school on – yup – a school boat! There’s even a seaplane that brings the mail, and there seems to be zero noise pollution – nothing but year-round orcas …

  After this, the rest of the pages – almost half the book – are clumped together in a thick, rigid wedge. I will have to take this back, dry it out, try to pry it apart carefully. Not now. The only page I can make out now is the last one – it has faded to almost nothing. Just a few sentences are legible.

  … Tomorrow we head back to the floathouse, these three days have nearly killed me. Total relief to be heading back. S – regal and prickly, kind of deranged at times. J – hell on earth, furious, barely containing himself. K – heaven, heaven. Just one more day. Forecast good …

  A sound echoes from somewhere in the house. I slam the desk shut, shove the diary down the back of my jeans and hurry to the bedroom door with a mixture of deep relief that my baby is back, and panic that they’ll appear just as I emerge from Susannah’s bedroom.

  ‘Hello?’ I shout. My head is spinning lightly. ‘Is that you? Hey!’

  Silence. Gusts of rain. Creaking timber. No dogs. No voice calling out, ‘Mama!’

  It must have been the wind.

  I’m going to have to get my coat on and go down and get them at the studio. I want Finn, now – urgently. And we’ll need to eat, pack and then get going.
I’m determined to be early for that six o’clock ferry. I don’t need to question Susannah about her past any more because I now have the document. I’m glad, now, that I didn’t force her to relive her unrequited love for my mother. It would have been cruel. I can dry it out, and read everything I need, right there, in my mother’s words.

  I open the hall cupboard to get my coat – Finn’s red suit is gone, so are his wellies, gloves and hat, and so is her wrap. At least she is keeping him warm. I grab my parka, shove the diary into its inside pocket, and walk up to the living room. I would not have liked her to catch me in her room. I imagine, for a second, the rage my mother describes in her diary – those cold eyes – focused on me.

  It’s time to go. Finn’s going to be hungry. I wonder if I should bring his nappy bag down to the studio and a sandwich even. But maybe she’s already thought to give him lunch. She probably has. I just need him. And coffee.

  I get to the living room, the shards on the floor. It still does not seem possible that I could have slept so heavily that a glass bowl could shatter in the same room and not wake me up. The thought is disturbing. How could I not have heard the glass shattering around my baby boy?

  My stomach grumbles. I haven’t eaten anything today except a bite of the muffin. Maybe that’s why I am so fuzzy-headed and out of it. But I can’t stop now. I need to get Finn and go.

  I’ll write to Susannah when I get home, and tell her I took the diary. I can read the rest tonight when we are tucked up in a Vancouver B & B. It’s not stealing because the journal rightly belongs to my family and not to Susannah. And Alice has to see it. I realize I forgot to take the picture of myself as a baby with my mother. I could go back for it. But no – I need to get Finn more.

  I shove my boots on and open the side door. The air is bitter, wind scatters rain into my face, waking me up a bit – but with Doug’s jumper and the parka I am insulated. I blink and huddle. The sea crashes far below as I pick my way over the slippery deck, tasting salt. I can see my own breath and the tip of my nose is numb already. The trees are crowded in and so unbelievably tall. Their tops swish in the wind high overhead. I try not to think of wild animals, watching from the undergrowth as I pass. They have bears up here, and wolves, and God knows what else.

  I break into a jog. The scent of the pines is overwhelming and I run, faster, as I enter the forest – everything is muffled, the wind high above, the raindrops – something large flickers in my peripheral vision; I speed up and my legs feel stiff, my breath harsh. The sound of the sea is further away, now, and the carpet of pine needles feels spongy under my feet, as if I am running over the surface of a brain.

  I just need to follow the path. It’s not far. Thank God I came because Finn would be worried, coming through these trees with Susannah, who, really, he barely knows. He’ll be wanting me. Then I’m at the clearing. I can see the studio.

  There are no lights on, but although it’s dim out here it’s not dark.

  ‘Hello?’ I stumble up the wooden steps. ‘It’s just me!’ I wrench open the door. ‘You should have woken me—’

  I am in a large peak-roofed space. My breaths echo. It smells of dried clay and pine. It is empty.

  Maybe there’s a room out back. That’s where they are.

  ‘Susannah? Finn? Hello! Where are you?’

  Rain drums on the roof. There are shelves of white ceramics stacked up on each wall. A potter’s wheel, and a big iron kiln in a corner, paint-dribbled stools and a workbench, old sheets and pottery knives and sharp tools – dangerous things for a toddler – a pair of Hunter wellies by a peeling coat stand. An empty wine bottle with a candle stub crumpled in its neck, a low red sofa along one wall, covered in an Indian throw, a CD player layered in dust and paint stains. Clay-smeared overalls, splayed on the floor.

  ‘Where are you?’ My too-high voice echoes back at me. The sound is alarming.

  There are two doors at the end of the room. I push one and peer in – a loo. The dusty floor is slippery. I walk across and open the other door. Darkness. I pat the walls for a light. Squinting. There. I flick it on, and blink.

  It’s a meditation or yoga room. There is a wooden Buddha. Strings of prayer beads. A rolled-up yoga mat, a stack of Mexican blankets, some cork blocks. The floor is clean and polished. There are cushions to one side, an essential oil burner on a three-legged Balinese table. I smell stale jasmine and other perfumed oils. A garland made of tiny white paper flowers is draped around a table lamp on the floor.

  I back out.

  I’m not going allow myself to panic. I’ve missed them, that’s all. Perhaps they’re out front with umbrellas, chasing squirrels. She is only being kind to occupy him. She knows I’m pregnant and exhausted and she didn’t want to wake me. She wanted me to have a break. I have to not be angry. Plus, Finn may have wrecked her priceless Chihuly. She should have woken me up. But it’s OK. Nothing bad is happening here. I just have to find them.

  Suddenly, I want him with my whole body. I want to see his little face and hear about squolls and hold him tight and breathe in his sweet, milky smell. He’ll want me too. He won’t know why he’s with her and not with me. I can control my mind, but I can’t control my body – the anxiety makes my limbs shaky and my head feel light. The pit of my stomach feels ice cold.

  I leave the studio and step back out into the rain, shutting off the lights, slamming the door, and then I launch myself back across the clearing. The trees are layered in shadowy lines, like straight soldiers. It feels better to run.

  I am out of breath and water is dripping down my neck as I open the French windows. On the countertop, I notice Finn’s new sippy cup.

  With the cup in my hand, I go down the corridor, open the front door and step onto the deck. I peer round, calling them. But they aren’t here, either.

  The rain seems heavier, dripping off the veranda into the undergrowth, falling in dense lines through the pines. From the top of the stone steps that lead down to the drive I can see the hire car but not much else. Pulling up my hood I put my foot on the first stone step and it’s like stepping onto a glacier: my foot shoots out to one side and my body sways dramatically backwards.

  I seize the railing but not soon enough to stop myself from crashing onto the sharp edge of the step. The duck cup rolls and bumps away down the steps. It’s like hot metal rammed against my lower spine. For a second I can’t move. The pain is exquisite. If I move, my vertebrae will crumble. Freezing rain thumps down on my head. I hear the bang of the sea on the rocks behind the house.

  My arm, suspending me half an inch from the step, shakes with the effort of holding my weight off my spine. Slowly, I haul myself back up. I can move. I press both hands against my belly. Everything in my body feels as if it’s shifted somewhere it shouldn’t go.

  I crawl down the rest of the steps and shuffle to pick up the cup – it is covered in dirt and pine needles. I wipe it on my jeans. I can see the rest of the driveway now.

  The Subaru has gone.

  Pain seethes through my coccyx. I think about the tiny baby, floating inside me. I can’t fall apart and panic. I have to look and think and be careful. I wipe the rain out of my eyes, off my face.

  She must have taken Finn into town. Maybe she ran out of ways to entertain him in the freezing rain – after he smashed the Chihuly. Was she angry with him? Why in God’s name didn’t she wake me up? I picture Finn strapped into her Subaru, crying for me. I can’t bear the thought that she might have been angry with him. A fierce wave of protectiveness sweeps through me and my entire body goes hot, then cold. You can’t just take someone’s child into town. It’s an almost a forty-minute drive in this weather. You can’t do that without waking them up to ask.

  But Susannah isn’t the type of woman to ask anyone’s permission for anything. Even a child.

  My spine throbs. The rain stings the crown of my head and I am shivering. Not far off I hear the ocean bang against the frozen rocks. Holding the railings, I haul myself back to the house.r />
  I need to call the gallery, but the number is on the website, and the website is on my phone and my phone has no signal here. I don’t know what the Canadian directory enquiries number is.

  I have to stay calm. She will have left a Post-it somewhere and I just haven’t seen it. My spine pulses as I move through the silent house. Somehow I’ve missed the note where this woman says she has taken my child into town without asking.

  Then I spot a postcard with a ceramic fish on it, stuck on the fridge. I turn it over, it’s blank, but there it is – Susannah Gillespie Gallery, Spring Tide Island. And the phone number. I swipe it from under its magnet and pick up her phone from the countertop.

  The gallery phone rings and rings. Then her voicemail clicks in, her cool, in-control voice.

  I leave a message, trying to sound less angry than I am. ‘Susannah, if you’re there, could you please call me? I woke up and you and Finn weren’t here. I’m going to come and meet you in town.’

  I hang up. I make myself imagine them in the bakery – Susannah and Maggie together cooing over Finn, feeding him more gigantic cookies. He will like that, but he’ll want me too. Some part of him will be worried without me. But there’s only one road. I can’t miss them, even if they’re coming back. I will go. I’ll grab our things, then drive into town. It’s OK. There is only one place they can be and I’m going there.

  The pain in my back is less intense, but the thought of sitting down on a car seat makes me wince. I move, stiffly, towards the kitchen cabinets, unzipping the parka. I need painkillers. In one cupboard there is a shelf, high up, with pill bottles on it.

  I reach up – more prescription bottles – and I don’t recognize any names. She is ill. I should have known. I’ve been around enough sick people, I should have picked up on it. I wonder why she didn’t mention an illness. But why would she? We barely know each other. Someone with all that brown rice and tofu would only have so many prescription drugs if she really needed them.