The Lost Boy

by S. A. McEwen

  Her eyes linger there, uneasily.

  In her state of agitation, she completely forgets how one ought to break such news to anyone, especially to her teenage daughter.

  Genevieve is still half asleep, and is struggling to make sense of her mother’s words, which are being thrown at her, staccato-like. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. But when her eyes—following Rebecca’s—fall on the shape under the sweater, she falls silently to her knees. She glances up at Rebecca, a question in her eyes, but she doesn’t need a response, and her mouth gapes slightly, tears welling in her eyes, and she doubles over, a silent scream emanating from her open mouth.

  She doesn’t touch the sweater, just keens silently beside the little body on the floor.

  Something about her daughter’s grief shakes Rebecca out of her quest for an explanation. Genevieve is a thoughtful, sensitive, quiet teen, and Rebecca is surprised by the force of her pain.

  No, that’s not right. She’s not surprised by the force of it—she’s surprised that Genevieve is showing it, in public. To her mother.

  Rebecca has her own pain about the dog, but it’s been swallowed up by more important things, like where her husband and other daughter are, and why they left in such a hurry that they didn’t even shut the front door.

  She kneels beside Gen, putting her arms around her shuddering, small frame. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispers, mortified by her insensitivity. She holds Gen tight, keeping her close until her shaking slows and stills.

  “What happened to him?” Gen hiccups, her voice painfully small.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. But something’s wrong. I’m going to call the police. I’ve already called everyone who I can think of who might know where they are.”

  She’d been methodical—Tabby’s friends. Trent Witherall’s parents. Nate. The school.

  Miss Ambrosia, the cafe where Tabby works on Saturdays—only to be told that Tabby hadn’t worked there for over four months.

  Where was Tabby going on Saturdays, then?

  Where was she getting money from?

  Rebecca mentally kicks herself. She’d looked into GPS tracking when she’d bought Tabitha her first smartphone. For a while, she’d obsessively checked her location, but Tabby was always exactly where she said she’d be. Even after that interview with Ms Paisley, when Rebecca was watching her closely, checking her location again daily—well, she’d gotten slack. She thought Ms Paisley had it wrong. Tabby was never over in Richmond, where Trent lived. She was always with her best friend, Freddy, studying, or else at work.

  Rebecca had stopped checking. She really didn’t think Tabby was the type to sneak around.

  Now, though, she wonders what data she’d be able to access. Tabby’s phone was right here. Didn’t Google Maps keep data on everywhere you’d been? Was that true? And if it was, please dear God let Tabby’s passcode be the same as it always was—the day she got Charlie, her twelfth birthday present. But he had arrived a week early, so it wasn’t like she was using her actual birthdate, which Rebecca had told her a hundred times would be foolish, anyone could guess it.

  Now, she grabs the phone off the table, presses the home button. Nothing. The phone is dead, and she scours around for a charger, usually lurking in every second power point, so many phones seemed to populate their home.

  Personal phones. Work phones. Kids’ phones.

  Old, discarded phones.

  Finally, she spies a cord hanging out from under the microwave, and plugs Tabby’s phone in. It takes forever for even the little red battery symbol to blink on. Impatiently, she turns away from it.

  “Did you know Tabby had quit Miss Ambrosia?” she asks Genevieve, trying to be gentle, but it’s hard to keep the urgency, the accusing tone out of her voice.

  The girl has pulled Charlie’s stiff little body on to her lap. So different from Tabby, Genevieve is short and dark-haired, her brown eyes now staring vacantly into the distance. Charlie was Tabby’s dog, but Tabby shared him generously with her little sister. She made sure to give Genevieve turns walking and feeding him, so the dog loved them both eagerly, joyously. Right above her, in fact, is an enlarged photo of the three of them. Charlie is clutched between the two girls, the love on their faces palpable through the camera lens. Tabby is crouched down—she’s easily a foot taller than Gen. Her long, blonde hair is sun-bleached and messy, cascading over a slim, tan shoulder. Her blue eyes sparkle, staring right at you out from the wall.

  Rebecca shivers. Leroy loves that picture. “Bottled joy” he called it, insisting that it was the one they frame, but it’s always made Rebecca uneasy. Tabby looks older than she ought to in it. In a tank top and tiny shorts, she looks worldly, seductive. When she’d snapped at Leroy that perhaps that was why he liked it, he’d looked at her strangely. She still can’t quite fathom the look that he gave her.

  “They look like happy kids,” he’d said, and she wondered if he could sense her jealousy. It wasn’t as simple as the ageing mother envying the blossoming of youthful beauty. Rebecca herself was beautiful, she had no doubt and no insecurity about that. Tabby even looked a lot like her, really. Taller and slimmer, but their features were similar, their striking blue eyes.

  No, it wasn’t that. But it was hard to put her finger on the pang that the picture gave her, every time.

  She wished she’d put her foot down, ordered a different print.

  Now, though, she focuses back on Genevieve, who solemnly shakes her head.

  Rebecca has no reason to doubt her. Gen has always been compliant, cautious, responsible. Tabby is more like her, Rebecca—impulsive, flamboyant. Sure of herself.

  Or at least, she used to be.

  Is she still flamboyant?

  Things have changed, Rebecca knows that. But they’ve changed so slowly, so incrementally, that she hasn’t paid that much attention. Now, though, she realises that the word flamboyant no longer applies to her eldest daughter.

  Genevieve, on the other hand, seems to be plagued by self-doubt. She was never flamboyant, and Rebecca trusts her absolutely.

  Rebecca casts her mind back to the Saturday just gone. Tabby had left on her bike at about 11 a.m. as she always did. She covered the lunch shift, making coffees and toasting fancy baguettes for a little cafe one suburb over from them. Or at least, that was what she was supposed to be doing. Rebecca was sure, in fact, that Tabby had boasted of a promotion not that long ago. Managing that shift. Definitely not more than four months ago.

  So where had she been going every Saturday for four hours?

  “Did you call Freddy?” Gen’s voice is faint. Rebecca thinks that she hasn’t grasped the seriousness of the situation. All she can think about is the damn dog. And the dog definitely needs thinking about, but right now, Rebecca just wants to know where Leroy and Tabitha are.

  “Yes. I spoke to Fred. They haven’t seen her this weekend. Freddy had already left for school by the time I called.”

  Fred and Frederica. For the hundredth time, Rebecca thinks how vain. Silly, even. To choose a name for your kid that’s basically the same as your own. The amount of times there’s been confusion over who is being referred to when you say “Freddy” is ridiculous.

  Tabby and Freddy have been best friends since grade four, and Fred, the father, has promised he’ll get Freddy to call Rebecca when she gets home from school, in case she knows anything. The way he says it makes Rebecca’s stomach churn again.

  In case she knows anything.

  But Rebecca shoves that feeling aside and calls the police.

  * * *

  Monday

  By the time Nate arrives, the police have already been at Rebecca’s house for an hour.

  A bored-looking officer stops him at the door, asking for identification and a reason for being there.

  “My daughter is bloody missing with that man!” He has to stop himself from shouting the last two words, his voice rising unusually high.

  Rebecca looks over at him, disdain written all across her face. E
ven disdainful, she’s still a striking woman, with her aquiline nose and astonishing blue eyes. She’s fitter than when they were together, too—always shapely, she’s now toned as well, and her posture is that of a lioness, queen of her terrain.

  The officer’s ears prick up at Nate’s tone, though. “We don’t have any reason to suspect anything suspicious at this stage, sir,” he says. “But can you tell me why you refer to Mr Giovanni in that manner?”

  Nate can’t though. He’s never gotten along with Leroy, but do you usually get along with your replacement in the husband department? Leroy is too smooth, too handsome, and Nate is sure he’d be a player. The thought of him living with his teenage daughters is a constant thorn in his side. When Leroy had first moved in, he’d had to be very firm with Rebecca about some boundaries.

  Leroy can’t shower the girls.

  He can’t be in the bathroom with them.

  At the time, they’d been ten and twelve, and Rebecca had just nodded and smiled sarcastically at him, but he could see how close she was to rolling her eyes. The girls didn’t need any help in the shower, and Rebecca was clearly humouring him. But she didn’t know men the way that he, Nate, knew men. Tabitha was a knockout. Even at twelve, men did double takes on the street. She looked like she was a model, with those long, lean, tanned legs and waist-length beach-blonde hair. She didn’t look away, either. She’d fix those smouldering eyes on whoever stared, her face deadpan, neither shy nor embarrassed nor egotistical.

  He often wondered what went on behind her eyes, but he never asked.

  She was going to break hearts, though, and Nate would be damned if he’d let a grown man spend any time with her naked.

  Now, though, he’s forced to backtrack. Because what could he say?

  The man would have to be blind to not ogle her, to not notice her in a sexual manner?

  No. He was being ridiculous. He knew that. He was just paranoid. You hear so many terrible things these days. It was a terrible time to have a daughter.

  To be a woman, he corrects himself. It was a terrible time to be a woman. Or had it always been a terrible time, and now they were just starting to shout about it? #MeToo had shaken him. And then there was the “incident” on Messenger. Here he cringes slightly, the police officer watching him curiously. It was all too difficult to think about, and he’s whittled it down to a simple concept, one which was, however, impossible to enforce: he did not want men thinking about his daughter in a sexual manner at all.

  Ever.

  For the rest of her life.

  Did all fathers feel like this? It was a constant mild panic, a sense of tension he could never quite shake. How dangerous the world might be for someone so beautiful.

  He shakes his head at the police officer. “Nothing, sorry,” he says. “I don’t trust my ex’s new husband, that’s all.”

  “But it’s just a gut feeling, isn’t that right, Nate?” Rebecca interjects, her voice jeering at him ever so slightly. Nate ignores her.

  “Is there any news?”

  “Well, no one has been able to locate Mr Giovanni or Tabitha, but given there was no sign of forced entry, and Mr Giovanni’s car is gone, it does suggest that he and Tabitha have gone somewhere together. We do understand that Mrs Giovanni feels that that is extremely unlikely, but at this stage, I’d suggest waiting until tomorrow to see if this all sorts itself out. These things usually do. Alternatively, if you want to file a missing person’s report, we need you to come down to the station.” The officer snaps his notebook closed with an air of finality, nodding to his colleague, a silent agreement that it was time for them to go.

  “What about the dog?” Rebecca asks, her voice high. She has one arm wrapped around Gen, and Nate moves forward to give his youngest daughter a hug. He strokes her hair and pulls her head onto his chest, murmuring gentle words to her. Gen starts crying quietly again, but Nate can’t tell if she’s worried about Tabby or if she’s crying for Charlie.

  “Yes, the dog is concerning.” The officer consults his notebook, as though that will help him clarify what has happened here, what the solution might be. But he doesn’t add anything else, and Nate grits his teeth.

  “What happened last night?” Nate turns to Rebecca, his voice tight. “Did you have a fight? With Tabby? With Leroy? How was she yesterday? Did she seem okay?”

  Rebecca’s face closes. “She was fine. Wasn’t she, Gen? Except.” Here she glances at the officers uneasily. “Apparently she quit her job months ago. But she’s been pretending to go every Saturday like usual. Did you know that?” Her tone is accusatory, as though Nate being privy to something she wasn’t privy to was the worst thing about that piece of information. She sounds defensive, and so she should be, thinks Nate. Saturday is Rebecca’s day to look after the kids. What else was she not keeping track of?

  Nate shakes his head slowly. “So where was she going?” he asks, his eyes conveying the challenge he would never dare to say aloud: Why weren’t you looking after her properly? Why weren’t you paying more attention?

  But the police officer interrupts them. “We’ll be off now. But do keep in touch and get back to us if they haven’t turned up by tomorrow.” He goes to hand Nate a card but Rebecca snatches it out of his hand, her eyes flashing. “Great,” she snaps. “Just great. I’m telling you that things were tense between them.”

  This is news to Nate, and he looks up sharply.

  “I am one hundred percent sure they wouldn’t go off sightseeing together. Something is wrong, and isn’t it your job to find out what?”

  “Whoa, whoa, back up a minute,” Nate interjects, nodding to the officers who are heading for the door, despite Rebecca’s wrath. “Thank you, officers. We’ll be in touch.” He turns back to Rebecca. “What’s this tension between Leroy and Tab? How long has it been like that? Did something happen?” He knows his suspicions are written all over his face, that Rebecca can see through him, can even probably anticipate the self-satisfied “I told you so” on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t want it to be true. He wouldn’t mind being right for once, in this particular relationship, but not about this. Despite his eager jumping on this news, he really does just want to find Tabby and check she’s okay.

  That she’s not fooling around with Leroy, who even Nate has to admit is shockingly good-looking.

  Sexy. Alluring.

  “It’s nothing.” Rebecca stares back at him coldly. “He’s just been really onboard with parenting her, and she resists it, you know? Says he’s not her dad. Yada yada yada. Exactly what you’d expect from a sixteen-year-old toward her stepfather setting boundaries.”

  Nate studies his ex-wife carefully. There’s something she’s not telling him, but he can’t guess what it is. Is it a subtle dig, that he’s not pulling his weight in the parenting department? That Leroy has had to take up the slack?

  “Where is Leroy on Saturdays when Tabby does her vanishing act?” he shoots back, and for a moment he sees a flash of doubt on Rebecca’s face. She composes herself instantly though, looking at him pityingly. “My husband is not looking for any extracurricular entertainment, Nathan,” she says archly. “We are extremely happy. If you want to know so much about what our daughter gets up to, perhaps you should do a little more with her yourself,” and Nate winces, because it’s true, he used to have the girls more, he used to have Tabby on Saturdays in fact, but things had come up, life had gotten in the way, and Tabby wasn’t even home on Saturdays anyway, so what did it matter if they were at Rebecca’s house just one extra day a week? He still had them two days a week, and for most of the holidays.

  His thoughts are interrupted though, by a small sob from Genevieve, and Nate realises with a guilty start that he had forgotten she was even there, listening, and maybe Rebecca was right, maybe he was a shit dad.

  Who would focus on making accusations rather than comforting their daughter?

  “Hey, hey,” he says, his face softening, and he reaches for Gen again, pulling her small, compact littl
e frame into his arms. “Let’s think about a funeral for Charlie, hey? We’ll have it when Tabby’s back. But we could make some plans, now. Maybe choose a tree to plant?” Nate’s mind is working overtime. He’s never been a fan of dogs, but he knows Genevieve is going to need a lot of support over this.

  And also, he wouldn’t mind taking her out of Rebecca’s house and asking a few more questions about what she saw last night.

  Not least because he might have been parked outside her house for a good portion of it.

  If you’d like to read more, Good Girl Bad is available for pre-order on all platforms now. Visit www.samcewen.com to find your preferred store. And enjoy!

  Author’s note

  When writing this book, I happened upon the media coverage of Sia’s movie Music and the use of prone restraint in it. The scene was later removed, after protests from the autistic community, including a letter from a woman named Stacia Langley, which led me to the story of her son, Max Benson. Max was a thirteen-year-old autistic boy, who died in 2018 after being held in prone restraint at his school for an extended period of time.

  Which led me to despair.

  I work with vulnerable people. Sometimes I work with adults who were once vulnerable children. Show me a troubled adult, in fact, and I would stake my life on finding a thread back to trauma, in some form or another, as a child.

  Children deserve our protection, our compassion, our respect.

  If we want a compassionate world to live in, we have to start with children. Every. Single. One.

  The majority of children who are restrained are disabled, black, brown, and very young. They often have a trauma history, and trauma changes our brains and how they function. There are effective, evidence-based ways to work with trauma (I highly recommend The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk), and they all start with compassion, not violence. Seclusion and restraint do not teach these children anything, except that the world is unsafe and traumatising, and adults, who are supposed to look after them, cannot be trusted to do so.