Picture Me Gone

by Meg Rosoff

  This time Matthew looks up at him, interested, amused. I know, he says.

  The two men sit unmoving, each coming to the separate realization that he has misunderstood the other.

  The ashes of an old friendship flutter and settle in a delicate heap beneath the breakfast table.

  Please, says Gil, and I can hear a rich chattering of emotions in the word. His please means Please let this all end, please let’s resolve this so I can go home.

  Matthew smiles at him. It’ll all be fine, he says.

  I want to help.

  Oh, I’m well beyond help, Matthew says calmly.

  I look over and see Matthew and Gil, their eyes locked across the table, concentrating like chess players.

  You’re not, Gil says.

  No? There is the ghost of a smile on Matthew’s face, as if behind the thick dull pain there is a funny side to all of this. I appreciate your faith, he says.

  Suddenly I am frightened. My father’s faith in Matthew is one of the instruments of his destruction. It reminds him of what he was. How much he has lost.

  Matt, come back with us. Come home. Please. Gabriel misses you.

  Matthew nods. He looks exhausted.

  I’ll stay as long as you need me to.

  No, says Matthew. Go back to London. There’s nothing more you can do.

  Are you sure? But I can hear in Gil’s voice that he’s relieved. No doubt Matthew can hear it too.

  Matthew nods. I wonder if he is already drunk, always drunk, in a way that doesn’t quite show.

  What happened? Ask him what happened that day, Gil, ask him properly, for god’s sake. I edge closer, drawn by the dark tug of missing facts.

  Gil is still talking, tentatively, saying all the wrong things. I’m sure you can sort things out with Suzanne. For Gabriel’s sake.

  But Matthew has stopped listening. The very air around him has ceased to move. I look at Gil. Listen! I want to shout. Something happened that day. Something’s happening now.

  I am struggling, trying to read a story written in a language I don’t quite speak. Why can’t Gil translate?

  Perhaps Matt chose a brother who would not see into his soul.

  The puzzle pieces in my brain dance just out of reach. I turn to Matthew and focus hard.

  Gil speaks of getting back to normal. Matthew stares out of fathomless eyes. He sits perfectly still but the hand that grips his glass trembles.

  With an air of resignation, Gil gets up from the table and goes to check out, leaving the two of us together.

  I focus harder. Gil has told me that in order to translate you need to be a chameleon, to put on the skin of another person, to creep inside his head. I have seen this transformation take place within him—his features and sometimes his personality seem to alter with each voice he takes on, with each book.

  And then the pieces begin to line up. I am back on the day of the accident, the day Owen died.

  It is dusk.

  My head aches, my skin feels tight. Has Matthew been drinking? I can’t tell. Owen is sitting in the backseat.

  And then I think of Matthew opening the car door for Honey and, of course! Honey was in front. Matthew took her everywhere, Suzanne said. She loved the car. So Owen sat in the back because his father’s dog was in front. If their places had been reversed, the child would have lived and the dog died.

  With Honey in front, Matthew had to turn to look at Owen, to talk to him. At that hour, in winter, with ice on the road and everyone driving too fast, that’s all it would have taken. One backward glance. Or two. A lorry coming up from behind.

  The picture comes together. That’s why Suzanne hates Honey. For surviving when Owen didn’t. And it’s another reason to hate Matthew. For putting Owen in the back. She knew the dog would have been in front.

  Something else occurs to me.

  What if Suzanne knew everything? What if she not only knew everything that happened that night, but everything? About Lynda and Jake. Matthew’s drinking. Maybe she sent him away after Owen died. She’d lost her son and wasn’t prepared to lose her husband to a manslaughter charge on the same day. What if she saved him from arrest on the day she was called to the hospital to identify her dead son?

  I feel dizzy with the shifting ground of the story. Matthew is staring at me now.

  Recalculating, says my brain. Recalculating.

  I judged Suzanne to be angry and trivial, the sort of woman who drives people away. But what if she is the hero of the story, the one who has kept all of Matthew’s secrets? That’s why she never seems to be telling the truth, because it’s his lies she’s hiding. That’s why she looks angry all the time.

  But now Suzanne has decided that she can no longer lie for him, or has fallen out of love or out of sympathy. Her impulse to protect him has expired. She has fallen in love with someone else.

  I meet Matthew’s eyes. The contact seems to last forever. It sucks me down into a furious black fog, a muttering hell. I struggle in the cloying dark. Get me out of here, get me out!

  And then suddenly everything clears and I tremble with the force of what I see.

  Matthew doesn’t want some time away, he wants forever. He wants to die. I feel it so strongly it chokes me. He left Honey behind because he didn’t plan to come back.

  His eyes are intense and serious. He seems surprised and—could it be?—slightly amused by what has passed between us.

  I am floating up to the ceiling, looking down on this scene. I can’t speak.

  Gil returns with the room key and a printout of our bill. His smile fades when he sees us and he looks from one to the other, puzzled. But Matt is a conjurer of moods and he sets questions for Gil to ease the moment: When will you return to London? How is Marieka? Will you see Suzanne?

  I turn to leave and my chair slides back more violently than I intend, tipping backward with a crash.

  Honey leaps to her feet, her whole body poised, a low noise in her chest. I wonder how far she will go to protect him. Would she tear out my throat?

  Come on, Gil says to me, let’s pack up. I’ve got some calls to make, he says to Matthew, who nods assent. We’ll leave in an hour. You can follow us when you’re ready.

  I text Jake. It’s awful here.

  And within seconds he texts back. It’ll be over soon.

  Which is true, one way or another.

  twenty-eight

  Gil phones Suzanne and talks for a long time. I am glad not to be included. I want to go back to being a child.

  There are hundreds of channels on American TV and I flick through without paying much attention to anything on the screen. It is mostly commercials. I come to the high numbers, where a topless woman rubs her breasts and starts to ask if I want to get to know her better before I click past. I pause on a nature show where a quiet-voiced man admires a beautiful stag in a clearing, saying, Isn’t he a magnificent creature? and then raises his rifle and shoots him through the heart. The animal staggers and falls to his knees. I want to throw up.

  A week ago America felt like the friendliest place in the world but I am starting to see darkness everywhere I look. The worst thing is, I don’t think it is America. I think it is me.

  Gil phones Marieka next. I don’t hear much of what he’s saying. It’s OK, he says. We’ll be there before you know it.

  He’s too worried to lie to anyone now. He’s worried for Matthew, as well he should be—the time I spent in Matthew’s head felt like drowning. Maybe he’s even worried for me.

  I slip under Gil’s arm so that he has to hold me close. I wish he could clasp me tight enough to squeeze the images out of my head. They are not real pictures but they are more vivid than any I have ever seen. I do not need to close my eyes to see them.

  Gil, I say. Do you think Matthew will be OK? What if he does something desperate? I look intently at my father. Think, I beg him silently. Look at your friend. Figure it out.

  Gil tightens his arm round me. Don’t worry, Mila. Matthew will sort himsel
f out. He always does.

  I want to tell my father that maybe this time he won’t sort himself out. But at my age, should I be the one to know?

  Make him promise to come home with us, I beg. Please. Gil looks surprised. Make him promise.

  OK. I’ll make him promise.

  Just then my phone rings and Gil reaches over to answer it, fumbling the buttons but eventually hitting the right one. He says hello and then, to my surprise, hands it over.

  CAT!!

  Dad’s moved to Leeds, she says, with no preamble, not even hello.

  No! I say. Leeds?

  With his girlfriend.

  His what? Are you kidding?

  Ha ha ha, she says grimly. Yes, I are making the funny joke.

  That’s awful! Have you met her?

  Despite the distance between us, I can see the expression on her face. Yeah, she says. I’ve met her.

  I don’t suppose she’s nice?

  Evil viper troll-bitch from hell.

  Oh, Cat. I’m so sorry.

  I don’t care if I never see him again. Mum hates him too. She says she’s damned if she’ll pay for me to visit him. Are you still there?

  Yes, I’m here. I’m coming home soon. We’ll make voodoo dolls.

  Perfect, she says. How’s my egg?

  Oh Christ, her egg. It’s big all right, I say. How’s mine?

  I’ve been far too busy having my life wrecked to think about chocolate, she says, in her most self-righteous voice.

  Neither of us says anything.

  Are you having fun in America? Her voice is sulky.

  Fun? I say. For some reason this strikes me as hilarious. Fun? I say again, and start to laugh. Not really, Cat. Not really very much actual so-called fun. What I’m having is what you might call the opposite of fun. Anti-fun.

  Perfect, says Cat, and that’s it, I’m off, laughing so hard I can’t stop.

  What do you mean perfect? I can barely choke out the words. What kind of friend are you?

  The best kind, she says, trying to sound serious but giving way to snorts of hilarity. It would be unbearable if you were having the time of your life while I suffered the torments of hell. At the words torments of hell she explodes into guffaws, which sets me off even more.

  Tears are running down my face and I’m about to answer that the torments of her hell are nothing compared to the torments of mine, but there’s a click and she’s gone.

  Gil comes back into the room and looks at me quizzically but I just groan and dry my eyes on my sleeve.

  My sides actually ache from laughing so hard and for a minute I can’t move.

  I love you too, Cat, I want to say, even though the phone line is completely silent and my answer is years too late.

  twenty-nine

  We drive back to Suzanne’s in silence. Neither of us is looking forward to this reunion.

  I don’t know what Gil said to him, but Matthew arrives an hour after we do and Suzanne walks out to the car to greet him. They embrace and she drops her head onto his shoulder. For an instant the flow of emotion between them is powerful, unmistakable. But she pulls away too soon, her lips pursed tight. His eyes search her face but she turns away.

  Gabriel flaps his hands up and down like a penguin when he sees me. He starts to laugh and say me-me-me, which could be his version of Mila. I scoop him up, kiss him noisily on his fat neck to make him laugh even more and bounce him up and down. Gabriel B-B-B-Billington! Silly Billy Billing-ton!

  But when Matthew appears, Gabriel’s happiness hits a different note. He would fly out of my arms if only it were possible.

  Matthew catches him up and the two spin round, gabbling in some private language. Honey watches quietly. When at last they stop, Gabriel reaches over a bit dizzily and grabs my hair with one fist. He holds on to steady the world, then shifts, his face suddenly serious, closes his eyes and lays his head against Matthew’s chest. He is a simple mechanism, like a toy airplane with a twisted-up rubber band to make him fly. When the rubber band untwists, he falls to earth. I remove his hand from my hair, opening each finger softly, but grateful, somehow, for the gesture. He is nearly asleep.

  Suzanne comes out of the kitchen and takes him off Matthew, saying it’s time for bed and that she’s made sandwiches for us if we’re hungry. She disappears with Gabriel and we can hear the bath running.

  I look at the sandwiches Suzanne has made—cheese and tomato on brown bread—and am suddenly ravenous. We sit on high stools at what she calls the breakfast bar and eat our supper. Gil opens a beer and holds it out to Matthew, who doesn’t take it.

  None of us speaks. After a minute or two, Matthew gets up and leaves the room. We hear his tread on the stair. A door closing.

  What did we expect to find when we set out? Something nice? Did we imagine Matthew ran away to join the circus? That it was like searching for a lost cat, one you might find up a tree, grateful to be rescued? Frightened cats will claw you to pieces when you try to save them. I glance at Gil. Did he not think any of this through?

  A gulf has opened between us and I am angry. I am a child, I want to shout at him. Protect me.

  My head hurts. Despite a greater than average ability to see clearly, I have been conned. The people I have expected to take care of me—the wise ones, with life experience—have got it wrong.

  I return to my room (Owen’s room), climb under the covers fully clothed and pull the dark woolen blankets up over my knees and head, like a tent. It’s boring being with messed-up people all the time and after all those hours and days in cars and motel rooms I have a desperate urge to be by myself, to escape the tension in the house and the failure of our trip. (Was it a failure? Or an unhappy success?)

  The snow is nearly gone but a wild wind whips the trees against my window. Under the pillow is Suzanne’s (Matthew’s?) Caravanserai book; I slip it out and illuminate the camel’s strange head on the cover with my phone torch. Long red and gold tassels decorate his bridle, which is set with disks of hammered silver. A low building with a teardrop-shaped entrance covers the background. I turn the pages past beautiful photographs of tents and woven rugs and men with burning eyes, and I imagine other journeys, with camels instead of cars and palm dates instead of sandwiches, where messengers move in long slow arcs across empty deserts with news of life and death.

  I close my eyes and imagine the cool interior of the rest stop, the whitening sun. After the endless bounce and sway of the camels, the ground feels unsteady beneath my feet. They drink, noses deep in stone troughs. Twenty gallons. Forty. Fifty.

  If I were on the Silk Trail I could cross Persia, China, Arabia. Just for a while, I would be happy moving through empty spaces, knowing no one, living a different life.

  I close my eyes and think about Jake.

  thirty

  Matthew and Suzanne speak politely, their faces empty of feeling.

  She has moved out of the house, returning with Gabriel so he can see Matthew, who only comes alive when they are together. I am touched by father and son; you don’t have to be a genius to recognize that they are full of love for each other. Honey lies beside them, forming a holy trinity. She does not take her eyes off Matthew, and he, in turn, keeps one hand laid gently on her head or back nearly all of the time. Suzanne is staying, she tells us, with a friend. I think it is probably more than a friend but I’m tired of knowing things.

  Down the phone line I hear Marieka’s sharp intake of breath. What sort of friend is she staying with? Who is it?

  But this I can’t answer. Age, height, color of eyes? I am not the KGB.

  I have barely spoken to Matthew since we returned.

  Our last day is sunny and Matthew and Gil work outdoors to keep busy. They dig up the garden, each working a different end, absorbed in different thoughts. Or the same ones, thought separately. Honey lies nearby with her head on her paws, constantly alert. I cannot bring myself to be inside her head.

  Our flight is tomorrow. Easter Sunday.

  I si
t with Gabriel and draw eggs for him in bright crayons and he slaps them triumphantly with his hands and shouts Ek! I get overconfident and try ducks and bunnies, but they don’t look right. He recognizes them though, despite my wobbly pictures, and I wonder how he translates bad drawings of ducks and bunnies into the animals he sees at the zoo or the park. Three dimensions into two, feathers and fur into pink and yellow crayon. An ordinary miracle.

  Duck! he says proudly and points. And then, Ek! Has he ever seen a painted egg? Or only the ones his nanny scrambles sometimes for his breakfast? She uses brown ones that look nothing like the ones I’ve drawn. How can he decode the world so expertly?

  We are all together for one last night, Gabriel in his pajamas with feet, Suzanne making dinner as if this were still her home. But no one is fooled. She is like a horse whose eyes have turned to the next jump.

  Matthew pours wine for his wife and his friend but not for himself. The conversation is stilted and he and Suzanne never address each other directly. When I offer to set the table, she looks grateful and then, instead of simply handing me the cutlery, she places it carefully in my outstretched hands and closes her fingers round mine. I look up into her eyes.

  I’m sorry, she says in a soft voice meant only for me. I’m sorry we made such a mess of your holiday . . . and everything else. She tries to smile and clasps my hands tighter for an instant before releasing them. It’s all a mess, she says. A big fucking horrible bloody mess.

  Her eyes swim with tears.

  It’s OK, I tell her. It’s not your fault.

  No? she says, pushing the hair off her face and shaking her head. Thank you for saying that. I don’t know anymore. Maybe it is my fault. She turns away.

  I set the table and Suzanne calls everyone in to dinner. We make small talk that no one will ever remember. Directly after dinner, she fetches Gabriel and kisses Gil and me good night.

  As she turns to leave, Matthew stops her and takes Gabriel from her arms. The child is more asleep than awake, but he wraps his arms tightly round his father’s neck and Matthew kisses his cheek, pressing his face against Gabriel’s, before gently freeing the child’s arms and giving him up to an impatient Suzanne.