Selfish, Mum had said. Maybe she was right.
I was still thinking about it when my phone beeped. I’d forgotten to put it on silent. Or maybe not forgotten.
Elias.
You awake?
Yep.
Wanna go for a drive? Then another message, straight after. Unless you’re sick of me.
Not yet. Meet you at the top of my driveway?
I’m already there. Come out when you’re ready.
I hadn’t expected that. I’d been imagining him in his bedroom, screen lighting up the darkened room.
That image vanished. I threw back the covers and pushed past my curtain, out into the bedroom, where my clothes were in a puddle on the floor. I dug through, trying to at least find my bra—my pyjamas were shorts and a T-shirt, nothing I couldn’t wear out of the house—but I couldn’t find it in the dark. I gave up, pulled on my thongs and grabbed a clean hoodie.
My heart was pounding as I slipped down the stairs and out through the front door. It was cool outside, a breeze blowing, and I was glad of the hoodie. I hurried up the driveway, wanting to get out of sight of the house, just in case.
He was waiting midway down the driveway, moonlight and shadows playing on his face as the wind blew the gumtree branches above him.
I wasn’t sure what mood he’d be in, but he grinned at me. ‘I see you’re still going for homeless chic.’
‘Yeah, you know I’m a slave to fashion.’ I glanced up the hill, calculating how long we had till the sun came up. ‘We’re not going anywhere public, are we?’
‘Why? Because you’re not wearing a bra?’
I gave him a look and folded my arms across my chest. ‘Serious answer, please.’
‘No. Not if you don’t want to.’
‘Okay.’
He gestured uphill. ‘Ready to go?’
‘I’m all yours.’
The overhead light came on when he opened the car door, and I studied him in its yellow glow.
Dark grey jeans, skinny as usual; same combat boots. No eyeliner, though. He’d washed his hair—no product. It was strange to see it parted neatly and lying flat: like he was partially naked. Incongruous with the missing eyebrows, too. I fought back the urge to reach out and touch it just to check it was for real. In a way, I liked it better—he looked less flamboyant, overall—but in another way it seemed strange and foreign. Not Elias.
He was still wearing his glasses. ‘Those are real, aren’t they?’ I asked suddenly. I gestured.
He looked surprised, then smiled at me. ‘You think I’d wear fake glasses just for a look?’
‘Yes.’
He laughed at that. ‘You’re probably right. But I don’t need to. I actually need them to see. If that makes them any less pretentious.’
‘They’re pretty pretentious.’
‘You’re pretty pretentious.’ He laughed again. ‘No, I can’t even joke about that. You’re the complete opposite end of the spectrum from pretentious.’
He reached across the car, right towards me, which confused me until I realised he was going for the glove box. He pulled out a plain white box with a blue ribbon tied around it.
‘This is for you.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘What is it?’
‘Your fee. I kinda did a rough calculation, so if it’s not enough, let me know.’
I took the box. Shook it gently. The money must have been tied in a bundle—I heard it bump against the sides of the box. I didn’t make an effort to open the lid.
I held the box back out to him. ‘I don’t want you to pay me.’
‘We agreed I was going to pay you even if you didn’t find my mum. And you did in the end, anyway. So I want to pay you. You earned it.’
‘I don’t want it.’ I felt shallow for wanting it in the first place, and little bit sick at the thought of accepting it now. To act as if the last few weeks had been nothing more than a business arrangement…It didn’t feel right.
‘I don’t want the money,’ I said again. ‘Let’s just…call it even.’
He nodded. ‘You realise, though, that I’ve already budgeted this to spend on you.’
‘You budget?’
He gave me a look. ‘What I’m saying is—worst-case scenario—I could shout you a whole lot of brownies with this money.’ He looked down at the box. Then he tugged at one end of the blue ribbon, loosening the bow and undoing the knot. Making a show of hiding the contents from me—he clearly knew the sight of the bundle would be awfully tempting—he fiddled for a moment, then counted out four clean, crisp fifties.
‘For phone credit,’ he said. ‘So when I send you random messages at four in the morning, you can message me back.’
I nodded and took the notes, doubled them over, and slid the bundle into my pocket.
He started the engine. ‘Anywhere?’
‘Anywhere.’
He started to drive. I didn’t really even bother paying attention to where we were going. Somehow I trusted him completely in that regard. I had almost from the beginning.
I watched as he shifted gears. He seemed in a better mind frame than before, like he’d had some time to process it all. Less emotional. Back to normal, if such a thing was possible.
‘Did you sleep at all?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Nope. I lay in bed for a bit, tossed and turned…It all feels like a bit of a dream, really. I guess I’ll get used to it, but for now…’
I thought about the moments etched in my memory. In the bush, ignoring her as she called my name. The panic that filled my insides, my stomach plunging and my chest constricting and my heart racing madly. Thinking the whole time that this couldn’t actually be real, couldn’t actually be happening to me.
‘Some things will always seem a bit like that.’
We rode in silence for another minute or two. Eventually, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. ‘The whole Yvonne thing…’
I saw his shoulders stiffen. ‘Do you want to know? Because it involves talking about feelings…’
‘Just tell me.’
A quick smile. The shoulders relaxed a bit. ‘To be honest, I’m just kinda confused by the whole thing. I mean, I had it in my head that Sephora was my mum. I still feel like somehow she was part of it all…even though she never was.’
I knew exactly what he meant.
‘I do like Yvonne,’ I said finally.
‘Me too.’
‘And you’re still related to Aurora and Benjamin. That’s good, right?’ For him, anyway.
He nodded. ‘It’s not the same. But yeah.’
He pulled up to Pennant Hills Road and we waited at the red light. There was something about driving at night that always felt a little other-worldly to me. I wriggled and pulled my feet up under me. Adjusted my seatbelt so I was curled up sideways, watching Elias. The seat was familiar now, and I was tired enough to want to lose myself in it.
When the light turned green he drove for a hundred metres or so, then joined the turning lane for the M2 motorway. ‘The city?’ I asked, a little surprised.
‘Might as well. I like it at night, all the buildings lit up.’ He glanced across at me. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll stay in the car.’
I should let Mum know I was gone—before she went to my room and found out for herself. I had a couple of hours yet. Maybe we’d be home in time, but anyway, I’d make sure she knew.
I watched as he drove. That same assured, fluid confidence that I’d seen while he was at work. Totally unselfconscious. The complete opposite of me, aware of every face I pulled, the tone of my voice in everything that I said. I was ridiculously, stupidly envious of him.
Still nestled into my seat, lulled by the motion and feeling like it was all a bit of a dream anyway, I reached out to touch his hair. Soft, fluffy; still damp.
‘I didn’t style it,’ he said, unnecessarily. ‘I kinda get the impression you don’t really like the way I do it.’
I cocked an eyebrow. ‘Are you really suggesti
ng I should give you fashion advice? Me?’
He smiled. ‘Okay, so if you put it like that…’
‘You shouldn’t change who you are.’ Elias’ look—the clothes, the hair, the eyebrows or lack thereof—it was him. His creativity and colour on show. I thought it was absurd, but so what? I didn’t want to take it away from him.
‘I change who I am all the time.’
‘But it’s still always you.’
For the next ten minutes or so we drove in silence. It was still dark, other cars’ headlights white streaks that passed us on the road. Elias wasn’t in a hurry. I could feel myself start to drift off.
‘You should sleep, Linds.’
I roused myself and sat up straighter. ‘No. I’ll stay awake.’ Had to make sure I got home before Mum missed me.
‘You were all right? This evening?’
‘With my parents, you mean?’ I shrugged. ‘It was okay.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Are you going to tell your parents?’ ‘I don’t know. I haven’t worked it out yet. There’s my blog, too…People are expecting answers.’
The open motorway stretched out ahead of us. I stared at Elias, his silhouette strobing in the passing streetlights, wondering when this comfortableness had become so familiar to me.
‘What?’ he said.
‘What what?’
‘You just did that head-shake thing. What’s going on?’
I redirected the conversation. ‘I guess you can tell people it’s Yvonne you were looking for after all, instead of Sephora. You can tell the story of how we found out. If she’s okay with it, I guess.’
‘I have to talk to her, don’t I?’
‘I can understand that you don’t really want to. But yeah, probably.’
He thought about it for a minute. ‘She gave me my name, you know. Yvonne—she chose the name Elias. My parents kept it. They always said it was important, that they not try to erase my start in life.’
‘Did she tell you why she chose it?’
‘She said she just…liked it.’ He spoke softly, almost with wonderment. Seeing his name, I guess, in a whole different light.
‘That seems like a pretty good reason to choose a name,’ I pointed out. ‘Better than some of the other reasons, anyway.’
There must have been something in my tone. He glanced over. ‘Spill.’
I sighed. ‘My parents had the novel idea to name us after our grandfathers.’
‘Grandmothers, you mean.’
I gave him a look. Realisation dawned on his face. ‘Oh.’
‘I guess they thought it would be cute, all matchymatchy for twins…I was named Lindsay after Mum’s dad, and Frankie was Francesca, after Dad’s dad, Frank… Francis.’ I shook my head. ‘Seriously. I was named after a man. It’s like I was doomed from the start.’
‘I’m still happy to call you Li-Li if it helps,’ Elias offered generously.
I swatted him on the arm. ‘Shut up.’
More silence. Headlights and buildings flashed by the car windows.
‘So your parents kinda changed their whole naming style after you guys,’ Elias observed. ‘After what happened with Frankie…’
He was veering into dangerous territory, and he knew it. I could tell from his voice. Like Grace’s, it was quieter, more cautious than usual. Was this the effect I had on people?
‘It hardly takes a genius to see why she called Grace what she did,’ I agreed, staring out the window. ‘She went back to church, pretty full on, when it happened. Micah, Elijah, Eve, Josiah…It’s like by giving them biblical names she thinks she’s giving them some sort of…’ I trailed off.
‘Holy protection,’ Elias finished for me.
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ I thought about the conversation I’d had with Mum.
‘What happened?’ said Elias. ‘You’ve got that look on your face.’
‘Mum…said some stuff before. Said I was selfish for wanting the kids to know about Frankie.’
‘She’s sensitive about it. She just lashed out, right?’
He was trying to reassure me, I knew. ‘She was right, I don’t know what it’s like for her. I guess I have thought of it as being my loss, more than anybody else’s. But for Mum… It’s like it’s been killing her. Every day, for nine years.’
Elias was silent. What could he suggest? What did people like her do? They went to therapy and took sleeping pills and drank too much. They went out to try to save the rest of the world, in whatever way they could, or else they hid from it and tried to lose themselves. A thousand different ways of trying to cope with something horrific happening that they hadn’t been able to stop. Coping, but not fixing, because the only thing that would actually fix it…
‘I need to find my sister,’ I said. The resolution I had made, alone in an empty house in the dark. ‘For real. You said I haven’t really been looking for her, and you’re right. I’ve just been stuck in this one spot, saying I’m doing something, but not actually doing it. But if she’s out there…What if she’s waiting for us to find her? If it was me instead—and it could have been—wouldn’t I have been waiting all this time for my family to come and find me?’ The thought made my blood run cold.
Elias nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly, seriously. ‘We’ll look for her. For real.’
We.
But the uncertain path ahead…it was overwhelming. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know what we’d find, and whether I was prepared to find it.
We drove. Elias’ eyes were fixed on the road ahead. Traffic was light and we reached the Gore Hill Freeway quickly, then we were approaching the north side of the Harbour Bridge. The sky was still dark, the skyline twinkling with night lights. I drew a deep breath, calmed by the sleeping city. ‘This is really beautiful.’
‘We’ll do it again some time.’
‘Just give me more than thirty seconds’ notice?’
‘Why? I like the bed-hair look.’
‘I prefer wearing a bra in public.’
‘You’re really hung up about that, aren’t you?’
I swung at him half-heartedly. ‘Shut up.’
We crossed the bridge, then he did a loop around and we crossed back. I must have dozed off, because before I knew it we were just about home and the first cracks of light were starting to appear on the horizon. Nearly five-thirty.
We’d been driving for over an hour, and it felt like minutes. He pulled up outside my house. ‘What time do your parents get up?’
‘About six.’
‘So you should probably go in.’
‘Probably.’ I yawned and reached for the doorhandle. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Yes, you will.’
I believed him. And, knowing that I had at least one person in the universe who would voluntarily spend time with me—someone who would help me find my sister—I closed the door again, gave Elias a little wave through it, and headed down the driveway without turning back.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to the team at Text Publishing, especially editor Mandy Brett who has once again worked her particular brand of magic on my manuscript.
Thanks also to Ian, who often thinks I’m crazy but supports me anyway.
Kate Hendrick lives in Sydney with her husband and their two children. Her first novel, The Accident, was shortlisted for the 2014 Queensland Literary Awards.
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Copyright © Kate Hendrick, 2018
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Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2018
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Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro 11.5/15 by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781925603811 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925626780 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
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