The Lost Boy

by S. A. McEwen

  Is that unreasonable? she wonders. Do teenagers pick up on social cues?

  “Would you mind giving us some privacy, Charlie?” she says pointedly, and waits while he shuffles down the hall. Nick watches her the whole time, his posture stiff.

  Olivia turns back to him, working to keep her face neutral. “Patricia left him a couple thousand dollars in her will. I had forgotten about it. But I suddenly thought maybe it was important. I don’t know. It’s weird, right?” She repeats the line she used with Rolands earlier. There’s a lot of other pieces of that information Nick could focus on. She wants him to focus on the strangeness of Patricia’s last wishes.

  “What?” Nick looks confused. This was not the way he expected this conversation to go. “How did you even know about it?” he adds, a moment later, struggling to catch up. He shakes his head slightly, as though he might shake away the puzzling nature of it, the sticky threads catching in his mind.

  “A letter came ages ago from her solicitor. I just sent it to Paul to deal with. I found it really strange. I mean there’s no provisions to help us to support Charlie, but Wolfie gets something? It made me feel uncomfortable. So I sent it off for Paul to work out. And then, with everything else going on, I guess I forgot about it. But money…” Olivia lets her voice trail off. She leaves it to Nick to join the dots.

  Glancing at him, she thinks he does indeed look confused. And…guilty? Sheepish? Something moves across his face, but it is gone before she can put her finger on it. She’ll replay that look later, try to figure it out. Maybe he knew Patricia was leaving Wolfie something. But he doesn’t correct her on the amount, if that’s the case.

  “What did Paul say?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” Olivia says. “I didn’t have an appointment. I just stuck my head in the door and asked him to chase it up and let me know what happens. I should have emailed. But I needed a walk. It was something to do.”

  She lets the sentiment hang there, suspended. A tiny droplet of all the time that surrounds her, that she has to fill in before Wolfie comes back to her. Before she can breathe in his smell and hold him tight.

  Before she can acknowledge his fingers or say good night twenty times.

  Whatever he needs.

  She will do it all.

  Nick has no reason to not believe her, and she moves mechanically around the kitchen. She’s not hungry, but food preparation gives her hands and mind something to focus on. She takes some chicken out of the freezer and runs some hot water in the sink. She knows it will take too long to defrost, and she hates defrosting in the microwave. But hell, she can’t think beyond a stir-fry. Coming up with that is as much problem-solving as her mind can take right now.

  Nick is silent, and as she chops and sautés, the edges of her mind pick at her relationship with Charlie.

  When she was younger, she would never have imagined it was difficult to love a kid. Their joyfulness, the way they threw their love around, recklessly, exuberantly; just being near kids made her smile. The thought of any child, anywhere, not getting the love it deserved from the adults around it filled her heart with such heaviness and despair that she couldn’t think about it. Of all the charities she donated to, none were to orphanages or places to support abused or neglected children, despite the fact that this was the cause in which she most passionately believed. But it was too painful for her to even look at their websites: her mind shied away from them instinctively, slippery and unfocused.

  Untethered.

  Children not getting the love they deserved untethered her.

  It was tied up in the pain that surrounded Abby, even though Abby was loved.

  He was.

  Just not enough.

  And here she was, mother of two. Struggling to manage her feelings.

  Struggling to love.

  How naïve she had been, she thinks to herself. To think that simply being near a child was enough to ensure that you loved them. That all children were loveable, just by the fact of their age.

  That all children were good and deserving.

  That none of them should be hurt, or lonely, or held down in anger.

  That none of them should be cut free.

  19

  Saturday

  At 10 p.m. on the dot, Ray’s phone rings, and he smiles.

  His smile fades as his partner starts talking, though.

  “Slow down, slow down,” he interrupts, struggling to make sense of what is being said to him.

  “When are you coming home?” is all that he can understand.

  “You know that,” Ray says, his voice soothing. “It’s on the calendar. It’s just three more days. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  It’s always been this way: Ray, being the anchor, holding things together. Which was odd, when you thought about it, because Ray was also the one that had served time, had bounced in and out of juvenile detention, angry and on edge. It was probably this relationship that saved him, pulled him out of something dark, gave him something meaningful to contribute. Looking after someone else somehow spilled over into looking after himself.

  His mind drifts back to Mandy. Mandy had wanted to wade into that day: his mum. The car ride out of Melbourne. How Ray got here, to this place, inside lockup, but also inside his own head, where he was also locked up, and it was bleak and lonely and painful in both places.

  He could never go there with Mandy. What she knew, she had gleaned from his case file, and police reports. His mother’s murder. What he’d seen. Unspeakable things.

  He’d been so little. He can’t believe he survived. He can’t even think about it. But somehow, he could go there in love. He could talk about it, to just this one person.

  Nobody else.

  I just don’t know what to do with this, is all he hears now. For the first time, he wishes they had a Mandy in their lives again, because he doesn’t know what to do with it either. For so long, it’s just been the two of them—no family. No support. No intrusion. They have no roadmap to follow when police come knocking on your door. Police have never had something to give, only something to take. So it’s hard not to think that only grief will come of this.

  But the police just asked a few questions, and left again. That was the end of it, right? There was no indication that they’d be back, that they needed anything else.

  Now, though, he makes soothing noises. He encourages apathy—just wait till I get home. Don’t do anything. We’ll work it out together.

  And he hopes to God no more police go knocking on their door.

  20

  Four Months Earlier

  Wolfie is crouched on the loungeroom floor, his mouth puckered in concentration.

  Olivia watches him carefully line up his matchbox cars.

  He makes a perfect line, in a perfect rainbow.

  The fire engine he keeps in his hand, frowning.

  It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, and Olivia has a large glass of chardonnay in hand. She called in sick to work, unable to gather enough strength and headspace to leave Wolfie at childcare. His distress is so enormous, so palpable, so consuming, that lying on the couch with a glass of wine seems like a sensible alternative.

  The educators talk to her in hushed voices. Have there been any changes at home? Is there something Wolfie is worried about?

  Olivia doesn’t have answers to these questions. What are the changes that you can quantify to explain such nervousness? Wolfie, once joyful, now keeps to himself, watching the other children but refusing to join in any activities with them.

  “He’s become very quiet,” the educators tell her, curious, worried.

  There is nothing at home that Olivia would consider warrants such a change. Nick and her are drifting apart, but it’s a quiet drift. There are no arguments. Nick stays back later and later at the office; Olivia rushes to pick Wolfie up, shore him up with love and kisses, spend quiet time with him to help him regulate after the stress he’s been displaying at pickup. All day, by all accounts.


  And then, exhausted, she snaps at him and feels herself defined by sharp edges and harsh lines—all the things she is rushing home early to protect him from. Only to find them in herself.

  Kiss, kiss, pinch a little.

  This erosion of her sanity is unexpected. She finds herself wishing for bygone eras, where she could stay at home, consumed only by her child, without the stress and pressures of work deadlines and creative briefs she can no longer focus on. She thinks about her grandmother in a different light. Because no one warned her how hard it would be, this adulting business. How anyone managed to parent, and work, and run a house, and maintain a marriage. Did other people find it easier? Did anyone else feel like they might crack under all the pressure?

  She resents Nick’s ability to shut it all out. Was he always like this? she wonders, now. She remembers Nick being attentive, attuned, thoughtful. When did it change? Was it only since Wolfie was born? Is it only parenting that divides them?

  “He’ll grow out of it,” he says, whenever she tries to talk to him about it. And goes back to his laptop.

  While Olivia worries that they are failing him somehow.

  Now, she drinks too much chardonnay. She scrolls through her Facebook feed. She hates that Nick isn’t trying harder, while she falls short of all the bars she sets, herself.

  “How’s step-parenting?” Bing texts, and Olivia jerks upright, and spills chardonnay all over her shirt. And then: “I’m thinking of giving it a go myself.”

  21

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  Johnny shakes his head, but Ray can’t read his expression. Is Johnny angry with him?

  “I was just trying to get us some bloody dinner.”

  “I told you how to get us the bloody dinner. And it doesn’t involve stealing shit and bringing the cops down on our heads.”

  “Yeah? Well maybe I’m sick of begging from dawn till dusk for a few measly dollars. Maybe I just wanted to eat till I’m full for a change.” He digs into his stolen stash ferociously. It’s not the first time he’s taken things, but it’s easily the most he’s taken, and he had been feeling good until he’d showed Johnny.

  Proud.

  Jesus.

  For a few minutes he gorges on chocolate. One bar, two, three. Finally, he throws one over to where Johnny sits, nestled in boxes and blankets. It’s cold, and they usually take turns begging.

  He watches Johnny from lowered eyes.

  For a minute he thinks Johnny isn’t going to take the chocolate bar. He sits stiffly in the dark, then he reaches out slowly and takes it, unwraps it methodically. Their eyes meet, and Johnny doesn’t look away, from the first bite until the last.

  “Thank you,” he says, eventually. “But please don’t bring that shit back here again.”

  22

  Sunday

  “Do you think you’ll have another baby?”

  Nick is startled out of his reverie.

  Charlie is offering him a coffee, as has become his habit these last few days. Nick supposes he’s trying in his own small way to be helpful, when he must see that Olivia and Nick are completely falling apart.

  Even to Nick, who’s so resolutely positive and optimistic and committed to seeing the best in people, it’s an oddly timed question. It feels almost like Charlie is offering up a solution: well this one’s missing, how about we just get another?

  They had talked about it, Olivia and him. It seems ridiculous now. It wasn’t long after Charlie’s second visit—Nick had been so high on family love juices he would have had ten more, if Olivia had agreed to it. But she’d been oddly resistant.

  “What makes you think that’s a good idea?” she’d said, the movement of her coffee cup abruptly stopping halfway to her lips at the proposition, so much so that the hot liquid slopped over the lip, dripping onto Olivia’s skirt. She hadn’t flinched, her eyes intent on Nick, watchful.

  Wolfie had been about to celebrate his third birthday, and Patricia’s stint in London was—for the second time, perhaps really this time—drawing to a close. The idea of pulling his family in closer and tighter and more was like a physical need.

  He had wanted a tribe.

  “Well, it’s nice to have them close together, don’t you think? Even if we started trying now, Wolfie would likely be four before a little brother or sister came along. Charlie will be home soon, and he’s old enough to help out. I’d love to have three,” Nick had told her.

  Olivia had just sipped her coffee thoughtfully for a while.

  “I’ll think about it,” she’d told Nick, but he could see in her furrowed brow and the hard, thin set of her mouth that she’d already thought about it, and she wasn’t enthused. And though he’d raised it again intermittently over the next year, she was always evasive. She wasn’t sure; things were hard with Wolfie right now; could she think about it?

  Eventually he’d just let it go: resigned himself to just the two.

  Was he angry about this? Disappointed? Resentful? Nick realises with a start that he doesn’t really know.

  Now, Charlie’s question feels painful to Nick. He can’t quite put his finger on it. It might have been that what Olivia had wanted had won out over what he had wanted; or it might have been a curious and misplaced sense that the universe would have shifted had they had three: some kind of magical thinking. Wolfie would not have been on the trampoline by himself because he would have had a baby to watch over or play with. It might have even been the first experience of discomfort with Charlie—that he really wished he hadn’t asked that question at this moment in time; that he couldn’t fathom his motives or empathise with his clumsy attempt at conversation.

  Usually, Nick wouldn’t delve too deeply into his discomfit. None of these explanations would strike him as reasonable; all would thus usually be dismissed. Ever since Patricia left him, he’s latched on to being the even-handed one: calm. Rational. Supportive. Giving. So when more difficult feelings start to well up, his impulse is to squash them right back down again. Sadness—resentment, even—that his desire for another child was thwarted, or that his eldest son said something insensitive at a difficult time, would normally not seem reasonable to Nick. He thinks his relationships hinge on being accommodating. Not demanding too many things. Not expecting perfection from people. Accepting that they are probably doing their best.

  Somehow, through this process, he’s managed to deny to himself that he’s entitled to feelings, too. Partly it’s protective; Patricia had taken to his sense of himself as someone worthy of love like kids to a piñata. It wasn’t just being left, being rejected—Patricia had gone much further than that. It still takes his breath away. His mind has shied away from the truth of it for fifteen years.

  So partly his sliding mind and relentless reasonableness is helping him to cope. To not feel the pain of it when someone he loves does wrong by him. To not leave even the smallest skerrick of room for harder questions, like am I worthy? Or am I loved?

  Now, though, Nick is startled by the thought that perhaps it’s also partly laziness.

  It’s hard to confront painful things.

  It’s a luxury to avoid them. A luxury that is right now being poked full of painful, sharp little holes.

  “I don’t think so,” he says to Charlie now, taking the coffee from him, his thoughts and body sluggish, uncooperative. He sits heavily at the kitchen table. It’s been seven days: he can no longer carry on with practical tasks and wait for the police to find and return his child. Somehow, in this moment, with that question, all the things he tries not to think about are crowding his brain and they won’t be shoved aside. His pushing down, pushing away is failing him. He can’t keep his thoughts positive—his resolute refusal to think about worst-case scenarios can’t be sustained anymore.

  Minutes tick by. Nick sits at the table and stares into space. He forgets about Charlie, he forgets about Hannah, he even forgets about Olivia.

  He just wants his son back.

  In their bedroom—and it might as
well be on another continent, she feels so distant to Nick—Olivia has stopped getting out of bed.

  She lies in an unwashed T-shirt, her mobile phone clutched to her chest.

  To an outsider, it would look like she is waiting for a call from the police. The call that they have found Wolfie. That he is fine; that he is coming home.

  But that’s not why she clutches the phone to her chest.

  She’s thinking about making a phone call. She wants to. She doesn’t want to.

  As she swings wildly between calling and not calling, she squeezes the phone to her then holds it away from her. She will hold it close and not call. She will allow herself to open it, go to her contacts list, stare intently at the screen.

  Then she will close it again and clutch it tightly.

  Rolands does call, but she is a distraction from Olivia’s indecision. Nevertheless, Olivia’s attention is dragged back to the case, as Rolands sees it.

  “It would be good if you could do another press conference,” she says.

  The media have not left speculation alone.

  They report on unfounded sightings. They report on how grief-stricken Olivia does or doesn’t look. They speculate on her marriage, her mothering, and everything in between.

  Talk-back radio shows take calls. It’s always the women who are the vilest. Some part of Olivia floats above this, curious and speculating herself. Is it that age-old, primitive response—if they other her enough, make her seem far removed from themselves, then they can’t be tainted by whatever it is that Olivia is tainted with. Photos of her where she is not a collapsed, sodden mess of tears are proof that she is not grieving like a “real” mother. A picture of Nick eating take-away alone instigates an entire thread of conjecture about her failings as a wife and wonder at whether these failings have pushed Nick into the arms of another woman.