The Boy in the Photo

by Nicole Trope

  The words feel familiar. She has heard them somewhere before. In the cold her shivering intensifies, her teeth chatter and she feels her hands shake. Suddenly, she knows where she’s read those words before.

  ‘You’re Tom,’ she states, the realisation flooding her. Exhaustion and panic combine so that she feels numb and stupid, beyond stupid, for not having figured it out sooner, for believing that Tom was just another man devastated at the loss of his daughter.

  ‘Who’s Tom?’ asks Daniel.

  ‘Shut the hell up!’ Greg shouts.

  Megan sees her son flinch and then he takes a tiny step closer to her. A small, tiny, little step towards her.

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ spits Greg, unaware of Daniel moving at all, his eyes focused on Megan. ‘Poor Tom, poor, poor Tom, whose wife has taken their little girl. You fell for Tom, didn’t you, Megan? You liked him and you felt sorry for him and I think you may have even loved him. You should have agreed to meet him, Megan. You would have had a lovely surprise. Waiting for you would have been your husband and son, ready to try again, ready to be your family. I imagined it a thousand times. I knew how happy you would be and I wanted that for you because I have only ever wanted you to be happy. It’s all I ever wanted. But instead you found yourself another man, or maybe you always had another man, even when we were married.’

  ‘What does he mean, Mum? What’s he talking about?’ asks Daniel. ‘Who’s Tom?’ he repeats, confusion across his face.

  ‘What do you want, Greg? Why are you here?’ Megan asks, her voice just above a squeak, knowing as she says the words that he can only be here to hurt her, to cause her pain. The gun makes that much very clear.

  ‘I want what I’ve always wanted. I want to have a wife and son who love me and respect me. I tried, Megan, I really tried. Even after you rejected Tom, I gave you another chance. All you had to do was go away with Daniel for a couple of days, just a couple of days and it all would have been okay.’

  ‘A couple of days?’ she repeats. ‘Tom never… You never told me to go away with Daniel for a couple of days… Sandi…’ She stops talking. How does he know what Sandi advised her to do? She cocks her head a little in Daniel’s direction, watches him take another small step towards her.

  ‘Yes, Sandi said that,’ he says. ‘You liked Sandi, didn’t you?’

  He is no longer looking at Daniel, has seemingly forgotten he’s there. Her stomach flips. All this time, she has been talking to him. She has only ever been talking to him. Only him. The connection she felt with Tom and Sandi was never real. They never existed. Everything has been a lie. She feels bile rise in her throat and swallows convulsively. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  ‘Don’t you see? I gave you everything you wanted. I gave you a man to fall in love with and a woman to be friends with but they were all me. It’s me you want to be with, me.’ Megan knows that he’s waiting for her to tell him he’s right. Even as he stands in front of her with a gun, he still believes they can be together again.

  ‘No, I …’ begins Megan and then she remembers a conversation with Michael about a time in his career when his life was at risk. He had gone into a service station and walked in on a man threatening the attendant with a knife. ‘I just kept him talking,’ she hears Michael say. ‘Sometimes all you need is to keep the person talking until you can figure out what to do.’

  ‘Who was in your house, Greg? Who was the person who died?’ she asks.

  ‘Ah, now that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Who was in the shack? The horrible shack where I had to live with my son so you couldn’t hunt us down and take him from me. Do you know how much I gave up for you, Megan? Do you realise how many people you’ve hurt? That poor bastard is just one more person who had to suffer for you. He had to pay with his life so I could make sure you never got to mess up another kid. All he wanted was a place to sleep for a couple of weeks and now he’s dead. He’s dead because of you, Megan. What other choice did I have?’

  A face comes to Megan: a genial, smiling, young man on an adventure – a young man with a past. ‘Steven Hindley,’ she whispers. ‘The British backpacker.’

  ‘Well, well, look at you. Sleeping with a cop must have made you a bit smarter. Yeah, poor old Steve, he really shouldn’t have accepted all of that whisky. He didn’t even struggle when I put the pillow over his face, just went off to sleep like the idiot he was. Funny that he was the one who told me about fire and what it could do – that was his favourite subject. He was right about it too, it destroys everything, cleans it all up and leaves nothing. I had to light a few more just to enjoy the spectacle. I bet Steven never thought that fire would land up getting him.’

  ‘Steven? It was Steven?’ gasps Daniel. ‘But you said he left. You said he left!’ he yells. ‘You said he had to go and visit a girlfriend. You said he left.’ He is crying hard now, not even bothering to wipe his eyes, tears rolling down his cheek. ‘You said,’ he repeats, ‘you said, you said.’ He points his finger at his father as his face contorts with anger and despair. ‘You told me no one would be in there, that they wouldn’t find anything, you lied, you lied.’ His hand shakes.

  Please stop, Daniel, don’t make him any angrier than he is.

  ‘Shut the hell up!’ screams Greg. ‘Just shut up. I had to do it because of her, it was all because of her.’

  Greg is out of control. An explosion is coming. He waves the gun around as he shouts, almost unaware he’s holding it. The sick feeling in her stomach reminds her that she has felt this way before. He has reduced her to this feeling before. Someone is going to get hurt. They’re going to get hurt.

  She knows that she needs to keep him talking until she can get the three of them inside the house. Once they’re inside she can get them to her bedroom and she can lock the door. Then she can take her children into the bathroom and lock that door as well. There will be two doors between Greg and her family. Surely he won’t be able to get through two doors?

  She goes through the route in her mind, her heart racing as though she and her children are already running up the stairs.

  ‘Aaah,’ cries Evie, frustrated at being held so tightly, at being awake, at the fear shuddering through her mother’s body. Megan swings her body, desperately trying to get her to quieten down.

  She needs to get some help. She longs for a morning jogger or someone on the way to an early shift but the street is eerily empty and silent. She wishes Mrs Evans was looking out of her window. It must have been Greg her neighbour was seeing all this time. He has been watching her and her family since the day Daniel came home. The thought makes Megan shudder.

  You’re their mother. Figure it out. You need to save these children.

  ‘Why did you pretend to be Tom and Sandi, Greg? Why were you so kind to me online?’ Keep talking, keep him talking, keep talking. ‘You hated me, Greg. Why did you want me back?’ While Megan speaks, she touches the side of her phone, turning it to silent. Her hand is under Evie’s bum and she doesn’t think Greg can see that she is holding her phone.

  Daniel is frozen in place now, eyes huge and head swivelling between his parents. His hands chase each other around in desperation. His tears keep falling.

  I’m here, baby, I’m here and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Hold on, beautiful boy, just hold on.

  Megan uses her thumb to touch her phone, hoping that she has hit the dial button on Michael’s number. If it’s not him, it will be her mother, Connor or James. They are the top four numbers that she dials and she prays that somehow, someone will answer and understand. But how could they possibly understand this?

  ‘I didn’t hate you, I never hated you! I love you. I’ll always love you. I just wanted to make you happy!’ yells Greg, throwing his hands around. His face is twisted with anguish and she can see the sheen of tears in his eyes.

  ‘I was the perfect husband and you were too selfish to see it. We could have had such a wonderful life together. Even after you divorced me, I gave you another chance. I g
ave you Tom to fall in love with so that we could be together again but then you had to go and screw it all up. You had to marry that man and have that child as if Daniel and I had never existed. You tried to erase us, Megan. What kind of woman does that? What kind of mother does that?’

  ‘Greg, listen to me,’ says Megan as she slowly inches towards Daniel. He has stopped moving and she needs to get in front of him. She needs to shield him. As she moves, she turns her body a little, defending Evie. ‘We can sort this out. It can all be worked out so everyone is happy.’

  ‘No, I’m done with that. You don’t understand that a woman like you needs to know the consequences of her actions. You can’t have children, Megan, you’re not fit to be a mother.’

  ‘Okay, Greg, I understand,’ says Megan as she slowly moves closer to Daniel.

  Greg is still waving the gun around. His pupils are dilated and his movements are jerky. She tries to get Daniel to look at her without speaking. She needs to tell him to move behind her but he is crying and shaking and she can see he cannot think straight. The few steps between her and her son seem an impossibly great distance to cover.

  ‘Megan… Megan, what’s wrong?’ comes Michael’s quiet, tinny voice from her phone.

  ‘Put the gun down, Greg!’ Megan shouts.

  ‘Who said that? Who are you talking to?’

  ‘Put it down,’ shrieks Megan, her voice returning in full force. She will not let this man hurt her children. She will not.

  She lunges for Daniel, grabbing him by his arm, pulling hard and shoving him towards the front door as she turns her back on Greg.

  ‘Run, Daniel!’ she screams, and together they stumble towards the front door. From a few streets away Megan thinks she can detect the sound of sirens but she knows it is probably wishful thinking. No one is going to save her children but her. She gives Daniel one more push and he falls into the house as she trips in after him.

  What she feels then is not so much pain as a physical shock as the gun goes off and the smell of something burning fills the air.

  She looks at Daniel and then she holds Evie out to him.

  ‘Mum?’ he says, tears streaming down his face. ‘Mum,’ he says as he grabs Evie from her and she falls forward.

  The last thing Megan hears is Greg screaming her name.

  Daniel saying, ‘Mum.’

  Evie crying.

  And the sounds of sirens that have arrived… just a little too late.

  Forty

  Daniel – One day later

  ‘Do you understand the plan?’ his father had asked him the day before the fire, the day before he’d sent him into the police station to tell them who he was, the day before everything changed.

  ‘Yes,’ Daniel had said, just like he had said all the other times his father had gone over what would happen. ‘Yes, I understand, but I don’t know what we’re going to do with a baby. How are we going to raise a baby? She won’t know us. She won’t like us.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I know how to take care of a baby. I took care of you, didn’t I? All you need to do is make sure that she trusts you, that she likes you. Babies are stupid. They like anyone who’s nice to them. Give her toys and talk to her. Show her pictures of me so she recognises my face. Don’t let them know what you’re doing. Don’t let them know how clever you are.’

  ‘Why can’t we just go somewhere else? Why can’t we leave without the baby? If Mum’s had another child, she won’t care where I am anymore.’

  ‘Don’t call her Mum, she’s not your mum. Now let’s go through it again. You leave the house and you go to the spot I showed you under the big rock, and you wait there for me. I’ll make sure your clothes smell like smoke before you leave. I’ll come and get you once it’s done and take you nearly all the way there. Tell them I’m dead. Tell them about the fire. Tell them it was the hotplate. That thing’s a piece of shit.’

  Daniel had nodded and nodded so his father wouldn’t get angry. Now he remembers asking, ‘But what about Steven?’

  ‘Steven wants to go back to Sydney to see some girl. I’ll make sure he leaves before I do anything.’

  ‘Maybe he could help us. He showed me how to decorate my knife with a burning stick. Steven’s good at fire.’

  ‘I don’t want Steven involved. Only you and I can be involved. You make sure Megan trusts you; both her and that dickhead husband need to trust you.’

  ‘Do I call her Megan?’

  ‘Of course not. Call her… call her Mum, but remember, she’s not a good mother. She’s a bad mother, a bad person, and everything she tells you about what happened when you were away is a lie. If she tells you she looked for you, it’s a lie. If she tells you she wanted you home, it’s a lie. She lies and she can’t be allowed to get away with it – she has to pay for what she’s done to you and to me. Her whole family are liars. Remember that, you’re dealing with a family of outright liars and we have to protect that innocent child from them. Now do you remember the plan? They need to think I’m dead or they won’t take you back to your mother. You have to tell them about the fire. Say it was started by the hotplate, say you tried to save me. Hide the SIM card for your phone in your underwear, don’t let anyone see it. Take the phone apart the way I showed you and tell them you dropped it.’

  ‘What if you get hurt?’ he remembers asking his father, because that had been all he was worried about. He didn’t want to lose his father, even though sometimes, sometimes he hated him.

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to me, Daniel. I’ll just go back to the house and make sure the fire keeps burning. Once you’re back with your mother, I’ll contact you on the phone. Make sure you do what we talked about and tell everyone you lost the SIM. Don’t let anyone catch you talking to me.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to her, Dad, she hates me.’

  ‘She sure does, and anyone who can hate her own child doesn’t deserve to be a mother. You don’t have to like her or be nice to her and you won’t have to stay there a long time, a couple of months at the most, and then we’ll have her child and we can leave the country again, start over somewhere fresh. I can get a real job and you can go to school.’

  Each phone call had been hard. ‘Does she trust you yet, does the baby trust you? She can’t cry when you pick her up. Let me know when you’re ready.’

  He hadn’t been sure if he was going to take Evie to his father, not after the first time he’d seen her with his mother. He’d known that he and his father couldn’t take care of Evie the way his mother did, and as the weeks had gone by, he’d started to wonder about the things his father had told him, about all the things he’d said his mother had or hadn’t done.

  In the middle of the night he would toss and turn in bed, clutching his stomach as anxiety gnawed away at him. He had no idea what to believe, no idea who to trust.

  His first day at school had been a revelation. The other kids were supposed to be mean, to tease and taunt him and he was supposed to have to keep secrets like the last time he went to school. The other kids were supposed to pry and snigger but they hadn’t. The teachers were supposed to tell him he was stupid because he hadn’t been for such a long time, that he knew nothing. But he’d been right at the top of the class even though his father had told him to pretend he didn’t understand. He couldn’t resist getting the answer right or the way the maths teacher clapped when he was the only one who could solve the problem. He couldn’t resist the feeling it gave him.

  And then he had felt guilty because he wasn’t supposed to enjoy the school his mother sent him to or like eating the food his mother cooked or wish that he could talk to his uncle Connor about being a scientist. He was supposed to hate them all but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  He’d started to wonder and to think and eventually he realised that his father was the liar.

  His father had been the liar all along.

  He hadn’t known what to do with that truth, with that reality, because it meant everything that had hap
pened over the last six years had been a lie. Half his life had been a lie. His mother hadn’t been tired of taking care of him, she hadn’t stopped loving him and she had looked for him. He hadn’t wanted to believe any of the things she was telling him until he couldn’t deny the truth anymore.

  His father was the liar. He’d told the same lies over and over, making them part of who Daniel was until he believed everything he said. One lie on top of another, on top of another. Higher and higher went his father’s skyscraper of lies.

  But by the time Daniel had realised it, it was too late. He’d felt twisted up inside and he hadn’t known what to do, hadn’t known how to tell his mother what was really going on. Sometimes he’d gotten so close. He would open his mouth and try to make the words come out but he couldn’t make it happen. The plan was in place and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His father wouldn’t let him stop it and now… now none of them could ever go back.

  In the other room Michael is crying and it scares Daniel to hear Michael cry because he’s so tall and strong, but it also makes him feel it’s fine for him to cry too. Evie is crying because she wants her mum. Daniel feels the tears slip down his face. He also wants his mum. He wants her to put her arms around him and tell him it’s okay.

  But nothing is okay.

  How can it be okay?

  Epilogue

  Eight weeks later

  Daniel kneels down and places the flowers he is carrying on the grave.

  ‘They look good there, buddy,’ says Michael and Daniel nods.

  ‘I like roses,’ he says, ‘they come in so many different colours.’

  ‘Do you want a little time alone?’ asks Michael.

  ‘I don’t mind if you stay,’ says Daniel. He actually doesn’t want to be alone. Graveyards are creepy.