by Jo Watson
Mike walked up to me and put two big hands on my shoulders. Comforting, warm hands.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
He smiled at me and my anxiety immediately started to disappear. I forced myself to smile back at him.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “I know this town. I know how small towns work. What do you need to know?”
I started to shake my head. “No,” I said emphatically. I couldn’t let him help me when I was secretly researching his family. That would be wrong. On so many levels. “I can’t let you do that. I’ve already caused too much trouble and put you in a bad situation,” I said. “But thanks for your offer. I probably don’t really deserve it, after all I’ve done.” I moved away from him, and felt the emptiness immediately. The steady weight on my shoulders had been reassuring.
“I disagree. If I help you, I’ll make sure you stay out of trouble.” He walked over to the couch and sat down. “At least I can keep an eye on you.” He said the last part with an amused tone of voice.
I turned around and looked at him.
“How’s your head feeling?” he asked.
I reached up and touched it. The pain was ever so slight. “It’s okay,” I said.
“That’s good.” He turned the TV back on and I sat down next to him again. But, before we were able to settle on anything, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered quickly.
“Shit,” he said, with a sense of urgency in his voice.
I immediately turned and looked at him; his face took on a frown.
“Where?” he asked, into the phone. There was a pause. I couldn’t make out the words being said, but I could hear that it was a woman’s voice and she was speaking frantically.
“What time?” He looked down at his watch as he spoke, and then he nodded. “I’ll go there now.” He hung up and stood up immediately.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Well, you know the reason I left you in a parking lot, holding condoms?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that again. Petra Van der Merwe. She’s escaped from her home and someone said they saw her by the beach.” He started walking towards the door. “I have to go now.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you sometime, then.” I followed him into the entrance hall and watched as he grabbed his car keys.
“You’re coming with me. You’re not meant to sleep tonight, remember? Doctor’s orders.” He pulled a jacket off a coat hanger and held it out for me. “Come. It’s cold outside.”
I walked up to him and he slipped the huge jacket on to me. “Thanks,” I said, running my hands over the coat.
“Pleasure,” he mumbled, and then held the door open for me.
I walked through it and into the chilly night air.
“You warm enough?” he asked, as we ambled towards his car—not his police car. This was confusing, having two cars. How did he decide which one to drive?
“Yes, thanks. But what about you?” I looked at the T-shirt he was wearing. “Isn’t this yours?” I indicated the jacket I had on. “Shouldn’t you also be wearing something warm?”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry about me.” And then he smiled at me again—that big, bright smile that made his green eyes sparkle—and I felt myself go warm and fuzzy inside. Suddenly, I no longer needed anything to keep me warm.
CHAPTER 44
“Mrs. Van der Merwe, please come with me.” Mike started walking slowly towards the old woman on the dark beach in front of us. She was barefoot and alone, silhouetted against the white clouds that were lit up by the bright, full moon. I climbed out of the car into the cold sea air. The wind was strong and it was whipping cold droplets of water off the crashing waves. The wind howled in a way that was eerie and loud.
She turned around briefly and looked at Mike, and then looked back out at the waves in front of her. The waves were black and the breeze coming off the sea was so icy that I shivered. She didn’t respond, and Mike took another step towards her.
“Petra,” he said, in a voice that was so soft and caring, it made my heart flutter. “Petra, can you hear me?” he asked.
She turned around, looked at him and then smiled. “Pierre, is that you?” she asked, happily.
“Yes,” he said. “Dis my, Ma. It’s me,” Mike said softly, speaking half Afrikaans and half English. I could tell from the way he spoke to her that he’d done this many times before.
“Pierre, where have you been? Waar?” she asked, and then rushed up and hugged him with all her might. My heart broke a little bit, just watching her.
“I’ve been right here,” he said, as the old woman took his face in her hands and looked at him happily.
“You need to shave.” She ran her hands over his chin and I smiled. “You know what Dad always said.”
He nodded. “Cleanliness and godliness,” Mike said.
And then Petra turned to me and smiled. “Bianca?” She rushed over to me and pulled me into a hug. “You look so well.” And then her hand reached down to my stomach and she laid it across it. I flinched and almost pulled away, but her words stopped me. “You’re hardly showing.”
“Uh . . . Sorry, what?” I looked up at Mike.
“The baby,” Mike said to me. “Our baby,” he reiterated, with a firm and pointed nod.
“Our . . . What? The what—?”
“Baby,” he said again, raising his eyebrows at me. “The one that you’re carrying.” He pointed at my stomach and I didn’t know whether to be offended or not.
“Baby. Yes! The baby—our baby.” I played along when I understood what was going on. I’d been cast in a strange movie that I had no idea I’d even auditioned for. I looked back at Petra. “Yes, I’m still small,” I said to her. “My mom was small, too—it’s a family trait, I think.”
“But you’re taking good care of her?” she asked, with great concern.
I nodded. “Of course, the best.” I looked up at Mike and gave him a shrug. He gave me a small, relieved smile. Our eyes locked and my mind decided to run down a very strange path, one where I was actually imagining what our child would look like, what with all those good, green-eyed genes that he was sure to pass on. I quickly looked away and turned my attention back to the woman in front of me.
“Have you thought of names?” She looked at me and then over to Mike. Her face was old, time had etched deep lines in it, but she was smiling.
I shook my head as Mike walked over to me. “Not yet; we’re still trying to decide.” I slipped my arm over Mike’s shoulders. It wasn’t totally necessary for the scene, but it felt like something I wanted to do.
Petra looked at us both. “You’d better hurry,” she said. “It will happen in the blink of an eye.” And then her smile faltered and she looked out over the sea again, as if she’d zoned out of this reality and into another one—one where she was remembering something. “Trust me, blink your eyes too many times and it all happens. It happens so quickly that, soon, it’s all over.”
A knot formed in my stomach at her words. Mike slipped his arm around me, too. “We like Emily,” he said, and nudged me.
“Yes!” I said, playing along with this strange charade again. “And Abigail,” I added. “We like Katy, too.”
“Yes! And Jennifer,” he said.
“Jessica, even,” I added.
“Yes, Jessica,” he confirmed. “We like the J names.”
I nodded. “Joanne.”
“And Jolene,” he said quickly.
“What?” I looked up at him. “Jolene?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with Jolene?” he asked.
“Well, it just reminds me of that song.”
Mike smiled at me. “You can’t say you don’t like a name just because of a song.”
“Of course I can dislike a name for that reason.”
“No, you can’t. Jolene is a really pretty name.”
“So is Eileen, but you can’t name someone that, or
, every time anyone met them, they would go, ‘Come on, Eileen,’ in their heads. Or, worse, out loud.”
Mike’s smile grew, and suddenly the cold air felt a little warmer.
“So, you’re saying we can’t name our daughter Billie Jean, either?” he asked, a teasing quality in his voice.
“No,” I said. “Definitely not. You have to think carefully about a name, you know? A name is for life. Just look at what happened to me.”
And now he was beaming at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re really taking this seriously, the naming of our daughter,” he said, and, at that, I smiled back. Our eyes locked; the stars seemed dull and muted in comparison to his eyes—they were the brightest things in the night.
“Well, she should take that seriously,” Petra said, and I snapped out of it. I’d almost forgotten she was even there!
I leaned over to the old woman. “Who knows—” I winked at her—“maybe her middle name should be Petra.”
At that, her face lit up. “You would do that?” she asked, sweetly.
“Of course,” I said.
“Come, Ma.” Mike let go of me and slipped his arm around her small, fragile-looking shoulders. “Let’s get you home; it’s cold outside.”
She nodded and Mike started guiding her back to the car. She stopped and turned around again. “You’re a good boy. Always looking out for me. You were always such a good boy,” she said, and then turned to me. “You got a good one.” She patted Mike on the arm and he looked over at me awkwardly.
I smiled at him. “I guess I did.”
“You must always take care of each other,” she said, that sad tone in her voice again. “It goes so quickly.”
Mike and I looked up at each other, and something unseen and barely there passed between us, like a thin wisp of something. A whisper, an echo of a thought. A fragment of a half-formed feeling.
“We will,” he said, as he helped her into the car.
CHAPTER 45
“Come, let’s get you into bed.” The nurse at the old-age home took Petra by the hand and led her over to her small bed. I looked at her bedside table; she only had one photo on it. It was of her and a young boy—I assumed this was her son, Pierre. My throat tightened as I looked at that smiling picture of her and then looked back at her profound sadness as she climbed into that bed, all alone. She turned to Mike and me again.
“You will come back soon, Pierre?” she asked, urgency in her voice.
“Of course.” Mike walked up to the bed and took her hand in his. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, patting the back of her hand. And then he did something that brought a salty sting to my eye—he leaned in and gave her a small kiss on the forehead as she closed her eyes.
We all started backing out of the room slowly, when she opened her eyes and looked at me again. “Bianca, you must take all your vitamins, and do what the doctor tells you,” she urged, “so my grandchild grows strong and healthy.”
“Of course,” I said. We all exited and closed the door behind us.
The nurse, whose name tag said Sister Cynthia, looked over at Mike and gave him a smile. “Thanks for doing that again.”
“How did she get out, this time?” he asked.
“We have no idea; she’s a real escape artist,” Cynthia said, with a hint of affection in her voice.
“We found her on the beach. Something serious could have happened to her.”
“Oh, God.” Cynthia shook her head. “We’ll have to assign someone to watch her all the time. We’re short staffed and we’re doing our best, but, with the recent cutbacks and—”
Mike put a hand on Cynthia’s shoulder. “I know. You’re doing a good job, here. You’re doing your best.”
Cynthia nodded. “We’ll figure something out,” she said softly and thoughtfully. “I have to go do my rounds, now, but thank you.” She looked over at me, as well.
“Oh. Pleasure. No problem. I hope she’s okay,” I said.
Cynthia gave me a sad smile. “She won’t remember any of this in the morning.”
“She won’t?” I asked.
Cynthia shook her head, looking solemn. “I don’t think she has that long to go, either. We’ll miss her when she’s gone. She’s been with us for a long time.” And, with that, with those few words that held such gravitas and importance, she turned and walked away from us. I stood there and watched her go, then cast my eyes back to Petra’s door. She was so alone, right now. Physically and emotionally. My heart was breaking for her; she seemed like the saddest person I’d ever met in my entire life.
“Come,” Mike said softly. “It’s been quite a night for all of us. Let’s go home . . . wife.” He gave me a small smile; I guess he was trying to lighten the mood somewhat. It worked, and I found myself smiling slightly back.
“Wife?” I started walking down the corridor with him. “Funny, I don’t remember you ever proposing to me.” I gave his shoulder a small nudge with mine and he nudged me right back. “Come to think of it, if my memory serves, I don’t think we ever consummated our relationship, either, so it must be the immaculate conception.”
“I’m not going to live that down, am I?”
“Probably not. But I do forgive you, though. Now that I see your excuse was real.” I looked up at him and we shared a small, sad smile together. We walked out into the cold night again and climbed into the car.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“She has Alzheimer’s. She’s stuck in a moment in time. It’s like a daily loop,” he said.
“What moment? Where are her son and husband?”
“Her husband died some years back. And, about forty years ago, their son got married and moved to the UK with his pregnant wife. She’s never met her grandchildren.”
“What?” I swung around in my seat and looked at him.
“I don’t even think she speaks to her son anymore,” Mike said thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“I don’t know the full story, but I know he married someone that the family—mainly the father—disapproved of. He was disowned and moved away.”
“And Petra also disapproved?” I asked. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know all the details, only bits and pieces that the nurses from the home have told me. All I know is that there were cultural, religious differences. Bianca is Jewish, and Pierre’s family are very observant Christians. Pierre chose to convert and he and Bianca wanted to raise their children as Jewish. This didn’t go down well. His father disowned him.”
“I can’t believe Petra would have felt the same way. You saw her with me tonight, when she thought I was Bianca.”
“Apparently her husband forbade her to speak to Pierre ever again.”
“Why? I mean, that’s just . . . crazy. It’s her son. How could he do that?”
Mike turned and looked at me. “Families have beliefs and biases. They have fights and falling outs. I don’t know all the circumstances, and maybe there were more factors. All I know is that it’s heartbreaking, that’s for sure.” His voice became weak and small.
“Has anyone tried to do something to fix this?” I asked.
Mike shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Someone has to do something about it,” I said, getting worked up.
“What?” he asked.
“Can’t we phone her son and tell him that she wants to see him? I mean, she clearly does. That’s all she wants in the whole world.”
Mike shook his head. “We can’t do that. You can’t get involved in family matters, as much as you want to.”
“You’ve thought about doing it?” I asked.
He nodded. “About a hundred times, but . . .” He paused and looked at me earnestly. “Family matters are complicated, they’re just . . . complicated. Take my family, for example. I thought we were normal, but, a year ago, I discovered things were a lot more complicated than they appeared to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“My grandmother was also in love with someone she shouldn’t have been in love with. Someone the family disapproved of.”
“Really?” At that, I perked up. “Who was she in love with?”
“Again, I don’t know the full story. I don’t think anyone does, actually. All I know is that the relationship was very much frowned upon and she was forced to marry my grandfather, Ian. She wasn’t free to love who she wanted to love.” He sighed and looked out of the windshield. The streetlights illuminated the contours of his face and he looked . . . beautiful. “I think some of us take for granted that we can fall in love with and marry who we want. It certainly isn’t like that for many of us.”
I felt a tear come to my eye as I thought about it all. As I thought about the lonely woman who longed for her son. The son who lost his mother and the grandchildren that had never known their grandmother. I thought about Edith, longing for a man she couldn’t have, and about him, thinking that she no longer loved him. I was overcome with this feeling of utter loss and my heart physically ached. And then guilt. Mike was opening up to me, and these were the things I wanted to hear, but this felt so one-sided. Like I was using him for information, like I was . . .
“My family is complicated, too,” I blurted out, without really thinking.
He turned in his seat and looked at me.
“My father died before I was born. My mother was a wreck for a long time—she still is, in many ways. We’re not close, at all,”
I continued.
Mike scanned my face again; he always seemed to look at me in a strange, specific way. As if he was trying to see me for who I was. He wasn’t just looking at me, he was . . . well, it felt like he was . . . seeing me.
