No Way Home

by Tyler Wetherall

  Without ceremony, the detective said: “You’re going to tell me where your youngest daughter is. We know she’s with her father on her birthday and we know you sent her there.”

  Mom reiterated her right to a lawyer, and the detective said she’d given up her rights when she sided with criminals who sold drugs to children. He detailed a number of accusations against Dad, which Mom knew to be untrue.

  Mom asked for a cigarette. He nodded, and Mom stood, explaining they were in the kitchen. The female detective chaperoned her to the other room. The kitchen counter was covered in newspapers and plates from breakfast, as well as a lighter for the stove. Mom could see the phone on the opposite counter. She eyed the clutter and came up with a plan.

  “They’re up there,” Mom said, indicating at the top of the kitchen cabinets, “so the kids don’t find them.”

  The detective looked up, suspicious, and Mom took the opportunity to scoop up the papers and plates in a heap from the counter and dump them on top of the phone on the other side with a clatter. This drew the woman’s attention back to her, but the detective didn’t notice that she had covered up a cell phone.

  Mom climbed onto the now-clear part of the counter, hauling herself onto her knees so she could stand up and reach the cigarettes on top of the cabinet. She waved them in the air to prove they were nothing illicit and then jumped off the counter with a thud. She then picked up the pile of papers and plates again to put them back on the original counter, and as she did, she managed to scoop up the phone at the bottom of the pile. Angling her armload away from the detective, the phone was hidden.

  Now all she had to do was get the phone into her pocket. Her heart was pounding heavily, and she steadied her breath with difficulty. She dumped the pile back where it had started, letting a plate drop to the floor and smash. The woman jumped at the sound, instinctively looking down, which gave Mom the chance to slip the phone and the cigarettes into her pocket.

  The other detective appeared in the door, beckoned by the crash. Mom carefully picked up three neatly cracked pieces of crockery, as the detectives exchanged a look.

  Mom turned for the living room.

  “Wait!” the woman called after her.

  Mom froze.

  The pounding grew more intense.

  She turned back round.

  “Here, you forgot your lighter.”

  Mom tried to take it casually, but her whole body was reeling.

  Back on the sofa, Mom lit a cigarette to recover.

  The woman resumed her place in the doorway.

  The man returned to his seat.

  He picked up his questioning.

  “I’ll ask again, where are your children? They’re not at school, because we looked there, and they’re clearly not home, so where are they?”

  “He doesn’t tell me,” she said, feeling strengthened by the phone, now in her possession.

  “He doesn’t tell you?” the detective asked.

  Mom shook her head.

  “Do you know what sort of mother that makes you?”

  He asked her if she used drugs. He threatened to have social services look into our family, to have us taken away from her. Mom tried to feel nothing but the inhalation and exhalation of smoke from her lungs, as she waited for an opening. Her next move was to slip the phone from her pocket down the back of the sofa without him seeing.

  “Listen,” he said, leaning forward confidentially, “I know this hasn’t been easy, I can see that. But he’s the one who put you in this position, and yet you’re still protecting him. What is it? Are you scared? Because we can make this all go away right now if you just talk to us.”

  He held her gaze, waiting for his words to sink in, and she remained silent. She might have looked like she was grappling with her loyalties, but really her mind was focused on the weight of the phone in her pocket.

  He stood up, frustrated, and at that moment the female detective took him aside to talk, and Mom used the opportunity to shove the phone as deep down the back of the sofa as her arm could reach. The detective turned to her just as she returned her hand to its former position; she took a deep drag on her cigarette, nearly choking with fear.

  He continued to ask her questions, which she answered, offering a surfeit of information that she knew would be of no use to them.

  One of the young officers appeared in the doorway.

  “Can I start in here?” he asked.

  The detective indicated for Mom to get up, as one officer searched her desk and the other moved toward the sofa. Mom watched in horror as he unzipped the cushion covers and felt inside, squeezing them to check for anything hidden within. He then ran his hands around the crevices of the sofa. Mom lit another cigarette, saying a prayer in her head to a god she did not believe in.

  With the other officer’s help, they picked up the sofa, one on either side, and turned it over. They gave it a good shake and a few coins fell onto the floor. Each flicker of silver caught her eye and made her wince.

  She turned away, waiting to hear them shout when they found the phone. They would know she had put it there. They would arrest her. They would take her away in handcuffs. They would find him, and us. The man was right, she thought, she was a terrible mother.

  Then she heard them walk toward her. Her shoulders tensed.

  “Sit down.”

  She turned and saw it was over.

  She breathed.

  She sat.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  She nearly smiled.

  Somehow, the phone had been wedged so deep they didn’t find it.

  The detective resumed his line of questions, and Mom tried to explain that Dad insisted she was unaware of where we went, because it was safer for him that way. The detective was incredulous.

  “Do you think I want to let them go? If it was up to me they would never see him again, but he’s their father. What am I meant to do?” she was saying.

  She hadn’t noticed the woman leave the room, but then she came back in with a piece of paper in her hands.

  “It was in the pocket of one of the coats under the stairs,” she said.

  The detective scanned it, and they exchanged looks.

  We don’t know what piece of paper they found; we think it was our flight details in one of our school jackets.

  She understood now why they had come in this way, without badges or warrants. They didn’t have time for badges or warrants. Someone had tipped off Scotland Yard that Dad and I would be together on my birthday, and they had a small window of opportunity to find him, and once that window closed it might never open again.

  They led Mom back out to the car swiftly, and the detective made a phone call. “Saint Lucia,” he was saying. “No, it doesn’t say where. No, she’s not. I’m taking her to the station now.”

  She was put in a holding cell with one small window, which looked out at pavement level. There was a single toilet in the middle with no seat. She wanted to use it, but the officer on watch never turned his back, and she refused to be humiliated. The man in the cell opposite goaded her with obscenities, assuming she was a prostitute. She was left there for an hour, maybe more; it was hard to tell. She was grateful for the time to think. She tried to calculate how long flights to Saint Lucia were and how much time she had to warn us.

  They wanted to ask her more questions. They wanted to know where on the island to start looking for Dad, which was information she didn’t have. They had provided her with an attorney, who advised her strongly against saying anything. But she knew that if she stayed silent, they wouldn’t let her go. She also felt confident that she could handle their questions; she felt smarter than them. In some ways, she had been preparing for this moment for the past decade. Against her attorney’s counsel, she agreed to talk.

  It wasn’t the unnamed detective any longer, but Andrew Sloane again. He had a rugby player’s build and a soft Welsh accent. He was on Scotland Yard’s Organized Crime Group, the extradition squad that worked
directly with the FBI. He had spent twenty years on homicide previously and was considered an expert fugitive tracker.

  He kept asking her questions, occasionally returning to Saint Lucia, but also about her finances, looking to implicate her in Dad’s bigger crimes, to find something they could use as leverage against her. She played the dumb blond former-model trophy wife who believed everything her husband had told her and left the paperwork to him. She had nothing to do with their property or bank accounts, she said. That was his domain. Ben had told her they were moving to Portugal to investigate development opportunities for his venture capital business, she said. She had only discovered his fugitive status upon moving to France, when he changed his name, but he had downplayed it, something to do with tax evasion, he assured her. It would blow over in a matter of time. Mom said she didn’t realize how serious Dad’s legal situation was until Sloane had turned up on her doorstep two years previously.

  Occasionally Sloane would leave the room to take a call, growing increasingly aggravated. She guessed this was part of a coordinated mission with the FBI. They often use the children to find fugitives.

  Mom took her time with the questions, backtracking and correcting herself as she talked, until Sloane snapped. “You’re going to have to answer faster than that, and quit wasting my time,” he said.

  “You’re asking me about things that happened a very long time ago,” she countered earnestly, “and it’s important I get it right, because this is very serious. Forgive me if I take as much time as I need. I’m trying to be honest.”

  Sloane stood up abruptly and left the room.

  She waited, her attorney sat next to her shaking his head, like she was making a terrible mistake, until eventually Sloane returned.

  “Get her out of here,” he said, and walked back out.

  She found herself outside the police station in a state of shock. Saint Lucia was four hours behind. A flight to the island would take at least twelve hours. If Scotland Yard was en route already, she had enough time to warn us. Just.

  She was sure they would come back for her, and next time armed with an arrest warrant. She wasn’t going to think about that just yet.

  When she got home it was nearly dark. She shut the curtains and retrieved the phone from inside the sofa. She put Poppy on a lead and left the house. She expected an officer to be keeping watch, but if there was one, she couldn’t see him. She turned right, away from the city, down a grungy road where some men were gathered drinking cheap cider. At the end of the road was a flight of stairs that led onto a bridge over the railway, then upward toward the canal path. At the top she looked back to see if she was being followed. There was one lamppost next to the bridge, and it illuminated the stairs and part of the way up the street. There were some shady figures loitering, but a cloud of marijuana smoke hung over their heads.

  Mom walked briskly onward. Once she was on the canal path, it would be hard for anyone to spot her. Just in case she was being followed, after five minutes, she ducked down into the woods, which opened out on another path running parallel.

  It was incredibly dark until she emerged in a field and the moon cast a little light. Apart from the stuff of nightmares, she was alone. She walked through the grass and mud into the middle.

  There was one number saved in the address book. She called it. A distant ring. So quiet. So very far away. That morning she had called to wish me happy birthday, singing to the voice mail. It rang again. Her thoughts focused, willing Dad’s hand to answer. As she waited, gripped by anxiety, she made a promise to herself, that if she managed to get us back this time, she would never let us go again.

  No one answered.

  12

  The room was bright when I woke up. The curtains caught in the breeze and cast flickering shadows across my face. Caitlin was sitting out on the balcony, sunbathing. She must have swum already because her long hair hung wet and tangled down her back, creating a small pool of water on the tiles. The morning was so bright that past Caitlin I could see nothing at all, just a shining white abyss.

  “Morning! You’re up early,” I called out to her.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I had terrible dreams.”

  Her voice was quiet and strange. As she climbed back into bed, I could see tears dried like sea salt against her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve been crying.”

  “It’s silly.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, nothing really.”

  “Is it Dad?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  We had been happy this week. Our little apartment made us feel like grown-ups with our own place. Dad was at work all day so we were free to roam wild. Occasionally Caitlin disappeared with Thomas, leaving me grumpy and neglected, but we spent most of our time together. We were officially buddies under water, and we took that responsibility seriously, practicing our scuba hand signals cross-legged in front of each other. She had run out of air on one dive when I didn’t close the valve on her tank properly, and we had the chance to put our lessons into practice, sharing air up to the surface.

  There was no reason to be sad, and if there had been, Caitlin wasn’t the one who cried.

  She wiped a tear away and looked at me, a sad closed-mouth smile, the smile she shares with Dad.

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments. The sheets were tangled from the hot night, and the fan was clattering round and round.

  She rolled onto her back.

  “I had a bad dream last night about Mom,” she said. “She was wrapping up our old childhood toys from the attic as Christmas presents for us and hoping we wouldn’t notice. We were too old for them, but she couldn’t afford new things. We went along with it, because we didn’t want her to feel bad even though we all knew.” She paused. “Anyway, I couldn’t get back to sleep after that so I went for a swim—really early, maybe six—and it was so quiet. No people or noise. Just the sound of the water. It’s so beautiful here.”

  Another tear or two.

  “I want this to work out for Dad, I do…”

  “Maybe it will,” I offered.

  “But even if it does, it isn’t real, is it? I want him to admit he screwed up and tell us what’s going on, but he hasn’t, and he won’t, will he, not as long as he can get away with it, and he expects us to play along, as if everything’s fine.”

  She turned to me. I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t ready to be angry at Dad.

  “I just feel like something’s wrong and I can’t…” Her voice trailed away. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m like this,” she said, sighing.

  Caity sometimes had these moments, premonitions and dreams, which we would have dismissed as woo woo, except when she said bad things were coming, she was usually right. We joked that in another era, she would have been banished to the outskirts of the village as a witch.

  I wanted to make her feel better.

  “Okay, do you need a good hug or a good smack?” I asked. As a family we generally agreed that when you were upset, it was far more productive to be smacked than hugged; affection only made you cry harder. Hugs were reserved for those moments when circumstances were sufficiently dire that crying was acceptable.

  “Hmmm … smack, I reckon.”

  “All right then.” I gave her four hard little slaps on her upper arm.

  “Cow!” she shouted, and hit me back, until we both laughed, and then fell back on the bed.

  “It’s my birthday, Caity.”

  She rolled over swiftly toward me. “I’m sorry. What a totally crap way to start the day. Happy birthday!”

  She gripped my face and planted a kiss aggressively on my forehead.

  “Oi!”

  “Right, enough of this: let’s go jump in the sea!”

  We raced down to the water and bombed off the pier, coming up laughing and spluttering, wiping the salt out of our stinging eyes and letti
ng her foreboding sink to the bottom, lost amid the coral and sea fishes where we hoped it would stay, rusty and barnacle-ridden, never to be needed again.

  We went to find Dad in his office. Our skin dried immediately in the heat, and we relished the cool drips down our back from our wet hair.

  “The birthday girl is up! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Tyler, happy birthday to you,” he sang double speed, as if it were a test run for the real song to come later. “Your mom called to wish you happy birthday a couple hours ago. I’m sure she’ll call back later,” he said before locking up and joining us outside. “Right, you girls better go get your stuff together for the day. The boat leaves in fifteen. It’s going to be hot out on the water, so bring sunscreen. You’ll need a towel, your dive logs—”

  “We know!” we called behind us as we walked away shaking our heads affectionately, because no matter how many times we told him we were old enough to pack our own bags, he still tried to organize us. “I can’t help but be a dad,” he would say in response.

  He had taken the day off work to take us on an excursion, hiring a speedboat and a driver. In the morning we dove a wreck together. It loomed in the water below us, tremulous and somber, a place sharks went to hide and the ghosts of fisherman took refuge. Entering into the hull through a porthole, every surface was encrusted with reef, bubbling and shimmying with a life of its own, eels slithering between the masts eyeing us with suspicion. We surfaced slowly, the three of us together, eagerly taking off our masks to talk about what we had seen as we bobbed in the open water waiting for the boat.

  We stopped on an empty beach accessible only by sea. The driver had caught some fish while we were diving, which he cooked up on an open fire in an overturned barrel. We ate the fish hungrily with our fingers, the white flesh crumbling away from the bones. We washed our sticky fish fingers in the sea afterward and then lay in the sun to digest.