The Boy in the Photo

by Nicole Trope

  She is also trying not to think about the fire, about the backpacker, and how Daniel may have been involved.

  Michael smiles at her suggestion of a picnic. ‘I think that would be great. I could use some sun.’ Daniel has his eyes glued to his PlayStation screen and merely shrugs. He is playing a game Max introduced him to.

  ‘I’ll get everything ready while you two pop up to the shops and get pastries for dessert. How does that sound?’ Megan says.

  ‘What do you think, mate? Want to come and choose what you’d like?’ asks Michael.

  Daniel shrugs again but Megan knows this is tantamount to enthusiastic agreement. Michael is always careful to look elsewhere when he makes these kinds of offers, and also always careful to only call him ‘sport’ or ‘mate’, never ‘son’. She didn’t think it was possible for her to love Michael more than she already did, but watching his careful efforts confirms for her that she has lucked out. She is pretty sure that most other men would have run a mile if they had to deal with all the complications involving the return of a kidnapped child. Daniel has stopped sneering when Michael speaks, and sometimes Megan will find him sitting as close to him as possible without actually acknowledging him or touching him. She and Michael both know that if he reaches out to her son, he will be rebuffed. Daniel will need to be the one to make the first move with Michael, maybe for months or years or maybe even forever.

  For their picnic they choose a park that Megan remembers visiting with her son many times.

  As she unfolds the picnic blanket, she watches him roam his eyes over the park. She doesn’t say anything to him, waiting and hoping that some memory will be sparked.

  ‘We came here all the time,’ says Daniel finally. ‘I broke my wrist when I fell off that climbing frame – remember?’

  ‘I remember,’ says Megan as the image of four-year-old Daniel cradling his wrist gently while they waited for an X-ray at the hospital comes to her.

  ‘I forgot about this park,’ he murmurs. ‘I loved this park.’

  ‘You did,’ agrees Megan. ‘I think we spent at least two afternoons a week here until you started school.’

  ‘I forgot about this park,’ he says again.

  ‘But you remember now and that’s good,’ she replies with a smile.

  ‘He said you never took me to the park.’

  ‘He said… but you knew that wasn’t true, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sometimes I did… sometimes I thought I dreamed it and he kept telling me I never even went to the park with you because you never wanted to be a mother. He kept telling me and telling me until I just… forgot about this park.’

  Megan tries to find something to say, something that doesn’t express the rage she can feel building up inside her.

  ‘Not true, sweetheart,’ she finally says, ‘but you know that now, don’t you, because you remember.’

  ‘I remember,’ agrees Daniel, and then he walks over to where Michael is pushing Evie on the baby swing. He stands watching them awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, too big to go on the equipment but somehow looking desperate for the chance to be the little boy he once was when he pumped his legs to get his swing to reach higher and higher until he felt like he was flying.

  What happens to a child who has had this experience? wonders Megan. How does he grow up and get married or become a father? How does he ever learn to be safe inside his own skin, inside his own thoughts?

  She sits down on the blanket and begins unpacking her cooler bag, deciding that today she will not think about this. Today she will enjoy the sunshine with her son and daughter and husband. Today she will just be Megan, who is a wife and a mother, out for the day with her family. Today, she will just be.

  Thirty-Two

  Six weeks since Daniel’s return

  ‘How’s he doing?’ Megan asks Olivia.

  ‘Megs,’ she says, laughing. ‘This is the third time you’ve called and he’s only been here a few hours. I told you I would call if I was worried in any way.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ sighs Megan. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘It’s just that this is the first time he’s been on a sleepover and you can’t stop worrying about him. I remember Max’s first sleepover – I slept with my phone in my hand and I have nowhere near the reasons to worry like you do, but you have to trust me and you have to trust him. If he even looks like he’s getting uncomfortable, I will call you, and Roy is willing to drive him back in the middle of the night if necessary.’

  ‘Thanks, Liv, sorry I’m being such a pain. If Michael were here instead of working, I’m sure he would ply me with drink and a bad movie but I just can’t seem to relax.’

  ‘Go clean something – organising always relaxes you.’

  ‘Okay, and I promise not to call you until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And I promise to call you for the slightest worry I have.’

  ‘Deal,’ laughs Megan.

  She checks the time. It’s only eight o’clock and Michael will be home at ten after working the late shift. She knows she should just relax and enjoy her free time but she cannot stop worrying about something going wrong. Daniel had greeted the invitation from Max with enthusiasm.

  ‘I never really liked sleepovers when I was your age,’ Megan had told him, hoping that she could give him an easy way to decline the invitation if he wanted to.

  ‘I’ve never had one before,’ he’d said.

  ‘Never? Not with any of your friends when you lived with… with Dad?’

  ‘I didn’t really have friends,’ he had informed her flatly. ‘Dad didn’t like anyone at the house because… because they might report us to the police.’

  ‘But you must have had some friends at the school you attended, even if you were only there for a short time?’

  ‘Not... not really,’ he had replied and then his gaze had gone flat and he had stared past her.

  She cleans the kitchen and then folds some laundry before going into Daniel’s room to tidy up. She has tried to mostly stay out of his room, wanting to give him the space she feels he needs, but she’s sure that he won’t mind coming home to a made bed.

  In his room she picks up some dirty clothes off the floor, inordinately pleased that he is relaxed enough to begin behaving as he had done when he was six. She remembers arguing with him at least once a week about the fact that he couldn’t get his clothes into the laundry hamper in the bathroom. ‘It’s not rocket science and you are perfectly capable of doing it.’

  ‘Sometimes I’m thinking stuff and I forget,’ was his reply and it usually made her laugh.

  She straightens his blue duvet and then she lifts the pillow and sees that his Billy Blanket is still stuffed under there. She smiles and thinks about folding it but then leaves it because she realises he doesn’t want her to know that he still sleeps with it.

  As she goes to place the pillow back she notices the edge of a photograph under the blanket. She leans down and pulls it out. It is a photo of her and Michael and Evie – or at least it was. Megan recognises her mother’s living room with the ocean, a calm, flat stretch of blue, in the background. The photograph had originally been in the bottom of the cabinet in the living room where she keeps all her loose pictures that she has yet to put into albums. It was taken about six months ago when they had all been celebrating Connor’s new research grant. She and Michael were both still a little dazed from lack of sleep because Evie was only two months old.

  Michael hadn’t minded the sleepless nights or the days when neither of them managed a shower. ‘I can’t believe I was lucky enough to have a child. I never thought it would happen after my divorce,’ he said more than once.

  In the photo, Michael is standing behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders, and Evie is in her arms. Megan recalls that her daughter was smiling her newly acquired smile at her grandfather, who Megan now remembers had just stuck his tongue out at her. Evie had let out a sudden, first giggle, making everyone else in the room laugh. Megan had wanted
to bottle the happiness she’d felt that day so she would always be able to reclaim the feeling.

  But as she looks at the photo that feeling is overshadowed by terror. She is hot and cold all at once. Both Evie and Michael have been eliminated from the picture, drawn over with thick, black marker. Only Michael’s hands on her shoulder and half of one of Evie’s hands remain. And stuck onto the picture, standing next to Megan, is Daniel. He has taken a photo of himself from six years ago, cut it out and pasted it onto the destroyed image. Megan almost wants to laugh because while the picture is a close-up of the top half of her body, the picture of Daniel has been taken from further away, and so she looks like a giant next to his six-year-old self.

  She cannot place where the image of him is from. She has hundreds of photos of him, and after he was taken, she had asked her family to print out whatever they had. She has no idea when he would have gone through the bottom drawer and found the two pictures – one to ruin and one to save.

  She sits down on his bed, feeling a little queasy. She understands him wanting to add himself, but the blacking out of Evie and Michael sends a chill down her spine. He has made them disappear.

  He wants them to disappear. Megan can almost understand his feelings. Greg had told him over and over that she didn’t want to be his mother anymore. Her having a new husband and child only serves to confirm that this is true regardless of how many times Megan explains what actually happened to Daniel.

  She slides the picture back under the blanket and wipes her clammy hands on her pants. She replaces the pillow, unsure of what to do. She doesn’t know if she should confront him or if she should just leave it, accepting that it’s his way of dealing with how out of control he feels.

  Going into Evie’s room, she looks down at her sleeping daughter, who has recently found her thumb and now sucks it furiously in her sleep. Suddenly she is afraid for her, for what her older brother thinks of her, and for what he may be capable of doing.

  She slumps down onto the couch in the living room and pulls her computer onto her lap. She would like to call Michael, but she knows he’s busy with a new case and could be interviewing suspects or witnesses. She cannot call Olivia again and there is no way she would want to talk to her about this with Daniel in her house. She knows that she will have to mention this to Eliza next week, but she is almost certain that the therapist will tell her that he is just ‘trying to process everything’.

  She hates the way she feels, hates the idea that she is afraid of what he might do and of who he is now. She pictures Greg and imagines pushing her fist into his face. She doesn’t know if the level of hate she feels for him will ever dissipate.

  Opening her computer, she finds her Facebook page, hoping that Sandi is online. She would almost be happy to speak to Tom right now.

  ‘Hey,’ she types.

  ‘Hey,’ Sandi replies instantly.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good, love, how are you?’

  She thinks about how to tell Sandi what she’s found. She hates the idea of discussing her son in a negative way but she knows she can count on Sandi to just listen and then offer advice.

  ‘I found something,’ she finally types, and Sandi responds with a question mark.

  ‘Daniel had a picture of me, Evie and Michael under his pillow and he’s blacked out Michael and Evie. I know that he’s probably just acting out and he wouldn’t really do anything to hurt Evie, but it feels… I feel like he’s someone I don’t know, someone I can’t trust.’

  ‘Oh, babe, that’s so hard. It must have really scared you.’

  ‘It did and now I don’t really know what to do.’

  ‘Have you asked Tom? I know that sometimes it seems like he has more of a guy’s perspective, and who wants to listen to men, right? But maybe he remembers being a twelve-year-old boy. I’ve only got daughters so I have no idea really.’

  Megan nods her head at this. She supposes she could call her brother or speak to James, but she doesn’t want her family to know that things are this difficult with Daniel.

  ‘I unfriended him.’

  ‘You did? Why?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be able to let go of the fact that I’m married again and have Evie. He thinks it’s the reason I’m having such trouble with Daniel. I just didn’t feel comfortable talking to him anymore.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘What do you think I should do? Should I ask Daniel about the photo?’

  ‘Look, I kind of understand why he may feel that way, like he wishes Michael and Evie would disappear. I didn’t know you and Tom weren’t talking anymore but he and I still talk. It would be a dream for us to have our kids back.’

  ‘I know that and I feel terrible for… I guess for not being able to tell you it’s just wonderful. It’s not.’

  ‘Maybe you and he need some time alone – time just to be together without anyone else. Maybe you should go away with him, just the two of you so that you can really connect again.’

  ‘I wish I could, but I can’t leave Evie. I’m still feeding her.’

  ‘Oh, right, I forgot about that. You can’t express enough even for a few days?’

  ‘No, I can’t, and anyway I wouldn’t want to leave her. I would have to come home again, and we would be right back where we started. Daniel is part of a family and he needs to get used to that.’

  ‘I understand but even just a day or two might help. It may give him the space he needs to talk to you, really talk to you.’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m a mother to two children now. I can’t leave Evie.’

  ‘I guess so, I just don’t know what else to suggest. I have to go now but I’m thinking about you all the time and really hoping it gets better. xx.’

  Megan sighs, shutting down her computer. She wonders if Sandi is right, if some time alone with Daniel would help, but then she dismisses the suggestion. She is a mother to two children, not just one – she cannot simply abandon her daughter.

  She hears the ping of a message on her phone. It’s from Olivia, an image of Max and Daniel. They are both laughing at something they’re watching on television. Daniel looks completely relaxed and at home with pizza slices piled on a plate in front of him. Olivia has texted:

  They’re having a blast.

  Thirty-Three

  Sunday 20 May 2018, Five years since Daniel was taken

  Megan opens her eyes and stretches across the bed. She runs her hand along the side where Michael normally sleeps, missing the feel of him next to her.

  In a week’s time he will sleep next to her every night for the rest of their lives but she wanted to be alone this morning, like all the other solitary years. ‘It’s become something of a ritual,’ she explained. ‘I run and I think about him and then I get through the day.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I were there?’

  ‘Next year you’ll be with me but this year I need to do it alone for the last time. I can’t really explain it properly but I don’t actually want it to be easier. I feel like with each passing year it is getting a little easier to live my life without him, especially now that I have you. But I need the day to be hard, just a little hard. I want to devote some time to thinking about him and missing him.’

  ‘Okay,’ Michael had agreed, squeezing her hand.

  Megan slides out of bed and dresses in her running gear. Today’s run will be gentle, just like yesterday’s run was.

  ‘You can keep running,’ her doctor had said, ‘but you need to make it a gentler experience. You’re thirty-seven now and that makes this pregnancy a little more complicated.’ Dr Sakasky seems not to have aged since Megan last saw her eleven years ago, when she was pregnant with Daniel. She is still tall and slim, her skin unlined and her blonde hair held back loosely in a ponytail. Megan had been surprised to find that she was still working in the same building, still using the same phone number. The allotted forty-five minutes for Megan’s first appointment had ticke
d away as she filled in the last eleven years for the obstetrician while Dr Sakasky shook her head and occasionally touched Megan’s hand gently.

  ‘You’ve been through so much, you’ve borne so much pain,’ she’d said. ‘Now it is time for a little bit of happiness, I think.’

  ‘I think,’ Megan had answered her, ‘but I am so afraid to believe.’

  When Megan had told Michael she needed to be alone, she hadn’t added, ‘And next year we will have a five-month-old baby.’ She hadn’t said that. It was a wonderful thought yet a terrible thought because a baby would make the day so much easier. A baby made you too busy to think much, a baby sapped your energy and your concentration. A baby might make her forget. The guilt already tore through her.

  For her run Megan chooses a route that is long and flat and she hits her stride quickly. She feels like she could go forever. She has not told Michael about the baby yet because she wants it to be a surprise on their wedding night. She is conscious with each step that she is carrying precious cargo.

  She is just over two months along and Dr Sakasky is fairly confident that all is well, although she will have to go for more tests. When she first missed her period, she imagined that it was early menopause and she had been completely heartbroken. She hadn’t tested until her period was nearly three weeks late, and then only because James had said, ‘What exactly is going on with your boobs, Megan?’

  Walking back into her obstetrician’s office had been a strange experience. Megan had paged through parenting magazines, casting surreptitious glances at the other women in the room, trying to gauge how far along they were. It was not a place she thought she would find herself again. She cannot help but compare it to her pregnancy with Daniel, which was not so much a surprise as a shock. Megan had already begun finding Greg’s lightning-quick mood changes and obsession with knowing where she was all the time difficult to deal with. Stray thoughts of leaving him and starting again, of admitting her mistake, had begun to torment her. The pregnancy had changed everything.