by S. A. McEwen
He had run to her, cackling with glee, and she’d lifted a hand for a high five, but he’d crashed into her arms for a cuddle instead, the puzzle already forgotten in the delight he found in the attention of his mother.
But without context, Wolfie looks…wrong. Like he is a sad child, left alone, frowning down to the side like he has worries far bigger than a four-year-old should ever have to carry. Like he has to stare at the floor, alone. It shifts the narrative somehow, so subtly that it will take Olivia hours to work out why it enrages and unsettles her, even more than the headline.
Now, though, she moves slowly to the table and sits heavily in the nearest chair. She unfolds the paper slowly and starts reading, her chest tight.
New information in the case of missing four-year-old Wolfie Hitchens suggests all was not well between his parents, Olivia Shorten and Nick Hitchens, sparking new questions about his whereabouts.
An anonymous source claims that Wolfie’s mother, Olivia, has been seen leaving the offices of prominent divorce lawyer Paul O’Brien, in the city’s wealthy Eastern suburbs. O’Brien has declined to comment. Meanwhile, the hunt for Wolfie across the nation is now entering its second week.
Sixth day, Olivia thinks to herself, automatically.
It’s been six days, and Olivia feels every moment of every one of them as needles scratching across the surface of her, cutting fine lines into her skin. She recoils at even the thought of a second week. Two weeks without Wolfie is not possible to fathom.
It wasn’t unreasonable, she supposes. Paul’s offices are one of many in the building, but someone might have recognised her from the press conference. She’s more interested in the photo. How did this trashy newspaper get that photo? She probably posted it to Facebook, sure. But her privacy settings are as private as is possible; only her close friends and family would have access to it. And it was taken months ago. There must have been hundreds of photos posted since then.
Even if someone somehow got access to her profile, and scrolled back and back, looking for something (what? Dirt, of some kind?), why would they choose that one? Why show Wolfie looking unhappy, appearing unloved?
She checks her email. Paul would never call her; he’s too discreet. As expected, there’s a message from him: call me when you can. But she doesn’t have the wherewithal just yet. She tells herself it’s trash journalism—no one reads that paper anyway. But she imagines she can feel the shift in the Australian air, a tiny movement carried on the dust and the heat through the scorching outback, all the way through the sprawling suburbs with their neat green lawns to her front door. A slight hum or crackle. Something troubling and visceral.
People love a good villain.
Frantic parents trying to find their beautiful boy are different from feuding parents going through an ugly divorce.
The truth need not even come into the picture.
17
Saturday
Nick taps his foot impatiently.
He’s been back from walking the streets for hours, and Olivia is not at home. She hasn’t told him where she would be. Usually this would be inconsequential, but today it irks Nick. Their child is missing—he feels more entitled than usual to a minute-by-minute account of her whereabouts.
Especially given the newspaper article lying on their kitchen table.
He doesn’t notice the irony of this sentiment, given he had wanted to leave the house before she was awake, not to mention his visits to Hannah—but even if he did think about these things, he would justify to himself that things were different now.
Bad press doesn’t just feel bad. He knows instinctively that it will be unhelpful for finding Wolfie.
Something churns in his stomach. It’s partly anxiety—surely he would notice if his wife was thinking about leaving him?—but it’s partly just the unsettling sense of the world not turning in the way that it should.
He’s made mistakes, sure. He hasn’t really listened or helped Olivia with her worries about Wolfie—and now, with him missing, he can see how starkly they sit alongside her own history. A missing boy. With some behavioural problems. How did he not put two and two together? He had thought Olivia was making too much of it. He’d let her fears slide off him, barely even registering them, if he was honest. He just really expected that life would tick along and problems would come and go and it was all just part of the ebb and flow of things.
He hadn’t really considered that he would need to sit down and focus on anything with his whole mind and his whole heart. And he certainly didn’t notice that sometimes that “ebb and flow” of things only flowed because someone else was solving problems or taking action to keep things moving in the right direction.
Now, though, he can see how alone Olivia might have felt. And maybe she was being a bit irrational—a bit melodramatic even—and here he winces at the word that he’s allowed himself to use every now and then when he thinks about Olivia’s priorities and predilections—but didn’t she have good reason to be?
He tries to quell his feelings of panic—that he is too late, too blind, that he hasn’t noticed how unhappy Olivia is or isn’t, that perhaps he has become too complacent, too selfish—by scrabbling around in his memories for something more positive to hold on to. Endlessly the optimist, even in his state of distress, his impulses are simplistic. He is soothed by just one memory, and stops searching for others: just last week, having dinner, Olivia had turned to him, her eyes brighter than they’d been for months. She’d leaned over the dinner table to kiss him, really kiss him, and he’d felt his heart flutter like it always did when he felt loved by Olivia.
She wouldn’t have kissed someone she no longer loved, would she?
Her eyes held promises of more kisses, of tender touches, of dinner parties and shared successes. Of children and family and growing old together.
Of a future that held possibilities beyond measure.
He continues to sit, foot tapping. He doesn’t notice Charlie come into the room, and he doesn’t notice him pick up the offending paper and leave again. His thoughts are turned so far inward, making bargains and promises and deals with himself.
He’ll end things with Hannah.
He’ll be more helpful with Wolfie.
He’ll listen to Olivia’s worries more.
He’ll be better, dammit.
If Olivia will stay with him, and Wolfie is returned to him, he will be so much, so much better.
As he waits, Nick’s thoughts shift uncomfortably around his last conversation with Detective Rolands. Was it yesterday? The day before?
The days are all blurring into each other. Nick’s tight focus on attending to things in a linear manner is starting to fray around the edges. He no longer does any work from home. The notion of keeping himself busy till his son is returned to him is laughable, now. He does not do much of anything but walk the streets and stare blankly at walls.
“Tell me a bit about Charlie and Patricia.”
He’d been evasive, he knows. False cheer. The memory makes him cringe a little.
“Charlie’s great!” he’d said. “He’s so mature. He’s really coped so well considering everything he’s lost. And he’s trying to help out at the moment, with everything so…hard.”
“Why did you and Patricia separate?”
Nick had paused for a long moment. “Why is that relevant?” he’d said.
“I’m just trying to get a picture of the family. I don’t know what might be relevant, yet,” Rolands had replied. She sounded so reasonable, so patient. And Nick didn’t want to come across as difficult. But he had trouble managing his irritation.
He didn’t want to talk about Patricia.
“Who knows,” he’d said, short, almost snappish. “Turns out I wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t care to elaborate. And I didn’t press for a blow-by-blow of why I wasn’t good enough, funnily enough.”
There was silence for a moment down the line, and Nick regretted his tone.
It also wasn’t entirely true, but
he didn’t want to think about that, and he certainly didn’t want to share it with the detective who was supposed to be out looking for his child.
Rolands didn’t press for further details. “How are things between you and Olivia?” she’d asked.
But Nick didn’t really want to talk about that, either.
Instead, his mind drifted to better days. His heart still tumbled to his abdomen every time he remembered the day he met Olivia.
She was beautiful, sure—but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been with beautiful women before.
That night, she was wearing an understated green dress, small pearls at her ears; and she had tried to slap enthusiasm on her pale, perfect face when he’d approached her. It struck him as both polite, and unnecessarily tedious. She was expecting him to bore her. He imagined she’d been approached by many men, at many parties. The look on her face suggested she would humour him for five minutes, ten if he was lucky—then she’d make an excuse and slip away.
He’d wondered why you’d bother coming to a party if you didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but then he’d seen the way her face changed when Marjorie from Accounting walked past; the unadulterated joy. She had looked, for a moment, childlike in her eagerness, and Nick had wanted to make her face light up like that. He’d accosted Marjorie, drew her into conversation, asked her about her sick kid and how his recovery was going. It wasn’t artifice—Nick was well-loved around the office. He remembered the details of people’s lives. He always asked about them.
“What about you, Olivia?” he’d continued, after Marjorie had given him a detailed and hilarious account of the most recent hospital stay. Her son suffered from chronic asthma, and was hospitalised at least once a year. Marjorie was warm and gregarious; she made friends everywhere, and could turn even a hospital stay into a good story. Sometimes, Nick wondered if she felt she couldn’t talk about the pain or the fear of it, or if she simply didn’t want to. Everyone loved Marjorie; the role of entertainer looked like it could be a burden, sometimes, though.
“I haven’t seen you in the office before. How long have you been with us?”
“Just a couple of weeks,” Olivia had replied, but she’d turned back to Marjorie, concern in her eyes. “That must have been scary for you, though, Marj,” she’d said. “Was anyone with you? Do you have enough support?” And Marjorie had faltered, just for a moment, and Olivia had caught it with ease: “It might not be the best time to talk about it. But let’s have a cuppa tomorrow, okay?”
It summed up everything Nick had come to know and love about his wife—her kindness, her perceptiveness, her willingness to help. She was hard to get to know, but once he was allowed in, he couldn’t believe it was actually possible to love someone so much. He kept expecting some flaw to show itself, but as the months, then years, went by, she seemed to become more and more perfect.
Until now.
“Nick?” Detective Rolands prompted him, and he wondered how long he had been silent. How that silence could be interpreted.
He tried to bring his mind back to the question, but it stubbornly jumped instead to Patricia. Why she left him.
He wished Rolands hadn’t asked those questions.
Nick has successfully not thought about the answers for years and years and years.
18
Saturday
“Is it true?”
Rolands is restrained, but Olivia thinks she hears an edge to her voice.
So many people wanting to talk to her.
It was easier than she would have thought to ignore them all. Except this one.
She’s walking home, and she lets her pace slow to a dawdle. She’s not really in a hurry to see Nick, anyway. Or the journalists who have set up camp on their street outside their house.
She wonders how much information the police are allowed access to in a kidnapping investigation. She supposes their powers extend a long way.
“He’s not a divorce lawyer,” she hedges down the phone. “He’s an all-sorts-of-things lawyer.”
Thinking about lying feels different to actually forming the words and having them come out of her mouth.
She presses on, though. “Nick’s ex left Wolfie some money in her will. I’d kind of forgotten about it. Then I just thought, money can motivate people, can’t it? I just wanted Paul to sort that out. See if there was anything that might be useful for you. For the investigation.”
“How much money?” Rolands asks.
“A few thousand, I think. Paul is following it up.” Olivia swallows. “It’s weird, right? Patricia leaving money to her ex’s child with someone else?”
Rolands make a noise that Olivia can’t interpret. She waits.
“Are you and Nick in trouble?” she asks next.
Olivia hesitates. “I don’t think so,” she ventures. “Things have been hard. With Wolfie. Before. Parenting is hard, you know.” She repeats Rolands’ words back to her carefully. Calculatedly, she thinks, and pauses abruptly.
If it was Charlie saying this, what would she think?
Then she goes on: “It’s hard now, of course. We’re not coping…in the same way. I can’t do anything else, think of anything else. It’s consuming me. Nick…he just carries on. That’s how he copes, how he protects himself. I know it’s not fair, but I can’t bear it. It looks, from the outside, like he hasn’t even noticed Wolfie’s gone.”
After she hangs up, Olivia meanders past the playground where she usually takes Wolfie when she needs to get out of the house. It’s deserted—parents are keeping their children at home under tight wraps.
Doing a better job than she had done at keeping them safe. Or trying to.
She hesitates, then goes on and sits on the swing, lets it gently move. One hinge squeaks on the forward movement, a grating noise that seems fitting to Olivia. She lets her mind wander.
What started all this? Was it the camping trip?
Wolfie was two and a half years old. And Charlie was coming from London to visit.
Now, Olivia tries to remember. Charlie must have visited before then. She was sure they hadn’t gone for two-and-a-half years without seeing him. Nick would never have allowed it. But the camping trip is all she remembers when she thinks about Charlie’s visits.
Nick had booked a campsite out in the country. He was as excited as a little boy: his whole family all together, going fishing, doing bushwalks. He planned menus and bought equipment and bounced around in anticipation for a full month before Charlie arrived.
Even Olivia was looking forward to it. Surely Charlie wasn’t as difficult as she remembered? Still glowing in the joys of motherhood—Wolfie’s anxiety hadn’t arrived yet—she couldn’t imagine that anything could be that hard. Perhaps she hadn’t tried hard enough.
Perhaps she hadn’t shown him enough love.
Bing’s words come back to her at that moment, though, and she digs her toes into the sawdust. The swing screeches to a halt. The light seems to dim a little, and Olivia shivers. When she thinks of Bing, it’s like a perpetual cloud materialises and blots out the sun.
It wasn’t always like this; at one time, Bing had been the sun, the light and warmth that Olivia had orbited like a hapless moth. Now, though, she turns her mind away from all that dark.
Not that the camping trip is much of an improvement.
When the time finally arrived, Olivia had baked slices and packed toys and made all sorts of resolutions in her head about how much effort and love she would inject into her relationship with Charlie.
He was just a kid, after all.
She was the adult in this relationship.
What could possibly go wrong?
Slowly Olivia starts swinging again, tiny small movements. The hinge grates and screeches.
She still wonders if she imagined it. She still has moments of doubt. She knows she is too controlling. But who gets to draw the line over which “good enough” parenting occurs and the child thrives? What is good enough to someone else is not good enough f
or Olivia. She worries and frets over so many things.
Someone once told her that you only need to be attuned to your child thirty percent of the time to reach that magic line. Thirty percent. She doesn’t believe this statistic, and means to look it up, but never does; in itself a strange anomaly, for someone who strives so resolutely toward perfection. Perhaps its confirmation would have soothed her.
Perhaps she would have done things differently.
But she doesn’t look it up, and she frets when Nick sips his coffee and reads his paper and doesn’t respond to Wolfie’s bids for his attention. It feels like something physical inside her: a rising up of a scratchy lump from her abdomen, pushing upwards, relentless. She can’t quell her agitation; she has to let it out.
Don’t make it shit, she thinks: and then she goes ahead and makes it shit, with snarky comments, rigid posture, heavy sighs. The relief of it like taking her feet off the pedals and roaring downhill, too fast, on a bicycle. Knowing you’re going to crash and burn but being soothed by that brief window of surrender anyway.
She always goes to Wolfie.
Nick never even notices, unless she snaps.
Which she does sometimes.
Nick remembers it differently. He remembers Olivia rigid and inflexible, pandering to Wolfie’s every holler.
He remembers her ruining his holiday, his special time with Charlie, his first long visit since he moved overseas.
He remembers for the first time not loving Olivia quite so much anymore.
Now, though, Nick’s sitting at the kitchen table. He’s still there when Olivia comes home.
“Where have you been?” he asks, his voice hard.
“Walking,” she replies. Irked by his belief that he has something to be angry about.
“What’s with the lawyer?”
Olivia glances at Charlie, who is loitering at the fridge. Was that the hint of a smile, before he turned away? He takes a seat on the lounge, and Olivia hates that he doesn’t take his cue to leave them to a private conversation.