The Boundless Sublime (37 page)

On the bad nights, when I couldn’t shut out thoughts of Fox and Daddy and the endless days I’d spent locked away, I would break. My trips to the kitchen weren’t merely observational missions. I dug past the almonds and tofu and apple cider vinegar to find forgotten treasures. I scooped peanut butter from the jar and shovelled it into my mouth. I squeezed mayonnaise direct from the bottle, took long slugs of maple syrup. I gnawed chocolate from the block and slurped flavoured yoghurt straight from the tub.

Afterwards, I’d clean myself up as best I could and climb back into bed, curling up as spasms and cramps wracked my body.

Mum didn’t say anything about my fridge raids, although she must have noticed. Instead she patiently prepared nutritious meals for me, and then sat opposite me at the dining table and made timid attempts at conversation while I pushed grilled pumpkin and avocado around my plate and tried not to throw up.

‘You’ll tell me, won’t you, darling?’ Mum asked. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help?’

I nodded, my eyes filling with tears.

Mum gave me a supportive little nod, and passed me the salt.

Aunty Cath called to check up on us. Mum held the phone out to me and I took it, listening as Aunty Cath prattled on about the weather in Cairns, and how bananas were expensive this year. She asked after Mum, and I replied robotically that Mum seemed good.

‘I think she’s met someone,’ said Aunty Cath, lowering her voice so it hissed and buzzed in the receiver. ‘She’s keeping it
to herself for now, and I respect that, but I’m so pleased for her. She’s been through so much.’

I put down the phone without saying goodbye. Was it true? Had Mum met someone? Was that where she was going, when she said she was going to her counsellor? What about Dad? What about me? We were both locked away, and Mum was shiny-eyed and happy? Mum, who had been so broken and weak?

The doorbell rang, but I made no move to answer it. Whoever it was, I didn’t want to speak to them. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. Mum came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel and glancing sideways at me.

It was two police officers. One of them was familiar – I realised with a jolt that she was one of the ones who had picked me up the night I’d left the Institute. My heart thumped. Mum showed them in and they sat on the couch.

‘How are you doing, Ruby?’

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

My reply hung in the air. The police officer turned to Mum.

‘It’s been a week,’ she said. ‘We really need to ask Ruby some questions. We’re trying to get some more information on this organisation she spent time with. We think it has ties with a man called Glen Ardeer, and several missing persons cases.’

Mum glanced over at me. I didn’t say anything. She shook her head. ‘That’s not a name Ruby has mentioned to me.’

As if I’d mentioned any names to her.

‘This man is wanted for questioning,’ said the police officer. ‘We think he might be dangerous. It’d really help if Ruby could come down to the station for an official interview.’

‘I appreciate that,’ said Mum, her voice firm. ‘But she isn’t ready to talk. She’s been through a lot. She needs time.’

The police officer nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Maybe in a few days,’ said Mum. ‘I can bring her to the station and you can ask her anything. Just let her finish adjusting back to the real world.’

The officers exchanged glances. ‘Okay,’ said the woman. ‘We’ll see you in a few days.’

She gave Mum a card with a number on it, and left.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Mum came over and slid onto the couch next to me, her arms wrapping me up in a tight hug. ‘I love you so much,’ she said. ‘All I want is for you to be safe.’

I nodded, aware that I should reciprocate. I should hug her back, or cry, or something. But I didn’t remember how to do any of those things.

‘I didn’t think it would be this hard,’ I told her.

Mum gave me a squeeze. ‘You’re doing so well,’ she said. ‘You’re extraordinary.’

Mum put on a dress and lipstick to go to her therapy appointment. I wondered again if the counsellor was made up, and she really was seeing someone, like Aunty Cath had said. Mum certainly seemed to be excited to be going. Or maybe she was just excited to get away from me.

After she’d gone, I trudged back to my room and curled up on the bed with my laptop, my fingers treading well-worn pathways through the internet.

Nothing. Not a whisper.

I thought about the Monkeys, and felt a stab of guilt. I pictured the police officer’s card lying on the table in the hallway. What was the name she had said? The man they were looking for? Another image popped into my mind. The desk drawer in the Inner Sanctum. Maggie’s pendant. A wedding ring. A plush giraffe. My phone. And a credit card with a name on it.

My heart began to pound.

I typed
Glen Ardeer
into Google and hit enter.

And there he was. He was younger, but it was unmistakably him. Same silver-rimmed glasses and white hair.

Daddy.

Seeing his face again was like an electric shock. Something inside me exploded, scattering shrapnel throughout my body. Little shards of guilt and shame and longing and hatred. I missed him. I missed Daddy so much. His calm, quiet certainty. His unwavering faith in me.

But that wasn’t him. Not all of him, anyway. He was a liar. He wasn’t sublime. He didn’t live off light and air, he lived off chocolate and whisky and fast food. He’d lied about Maggie, and Fox. He’d been wrong about the casino. And he’d hurt me.

I remembered his face. The twist of his mouth. The light in his eyes. He had beaten me, and he had
liked
it.

With a shaking hand, I clicked the first link.

Glen Ardeer was notorious. I read the Wikipedia page fifty times, spiralling between disgust and disbelief. He’d been a scientist, working in the nineties on some program to sterilise fruit flies. He’d published a paper proposing a technique for chemically sterilising humans. It had been pretty controversial – the groups that he’d suggested would benefit from sterilisation were what you’d expect from a white supremacist bigot. Lots of comparisons to Nazi eugenics
had been made. Ardeer was fired from the university where he worked, and a few months later was arrested for sending death threats to former colleagues. He did a few months’ jail time, and disappeared before his parole period was up.

That was it, then. That was Daddy. Not an opium smuggler, or a medieval knight, or an American Civil War veteran. Just some lunatic who wanted to engineer a race of superhumans.

I saw the ghost of a strange girl, gaunt and hollow, reflected in the glint of the computer screen. I still didn’t recognise her.

‘Enough,’ I told the reflection.

It was time to let go. Let go of Daddy and Fox and the Institute. None of it had been true. It was time to figure out who I was.

When I heard the front door open, and Mum moving about in the living room, I went out to greet her, feeling clear-headed for the first time in forever.

‘Mum?’

Mum looked up from the kitchen bench where she was making herself a cup of herbal tea.

‘I’d like to go and visit Anton,’ I said.

Mum’s expression faltered a little, and she came forward to give me a hug. ‘Of course, darling.’

Anton was the first step.

Bare-limbed trees lined the cemetery pathways like watchful skeletons. Trees and roses were arranged in neat lines, each one with a bronze plaque underneath.

Mum had a bunch of flowers. I’d brought one of the Matchbox cars that Anton had loved so much, and his plastic figurine of Elsa from
Frozen
, which sang ‘Let It Go’ in a tinny
little voice if you pressed a button on her back. It seemed appropriate.

A straggly rose was planted behind Anton’s plaque. Mum told me it was yellow – Anton’s favourite colour.

‘It’s just getting established,’ she said. ‘It’ll be beautiful soon.’

I nodded.

Mum talked to the plaque, telling it how happy she was that I had come home. About how she’d watched
Ninja Warrior
on TV and thought of him. About how she was making veggie burgers for dinner tonight but wouldn’t put in any tomato because she knew he didn’t like it.

I wondered if she expected me to say something. I wasn’t sure I could. I couldn’t pretend that this dirt and bronze and straggly rose bush were my brother. My brother was gone. He was never coming back.

There was so much lost in the past. What was left to look forward to?

I didn’t know.

But I had to find out. I had to keep going.

I set the car and the Elsa doll down beside the plaque. Then I squared my shoulders and turned to Mum.

‘I think … maybe I’d like to go and see Dad as well.’

Mum looked taken aback, but she nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to our lawyer about how to organise that. But in the meantime …’ She reached out and took my hand. ‘My counsellor runs a therapy group that’s meeting tonight. I think they could help you.’

So it was real. There was no secret beau after all. Aunty Cath would be disappointed.

I tried to imagine sitting on a chair in a circle, holding a styrofoam cup of coffee and talking about my feelings. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Daddy’s voice was finally gone
from my head, but I knew I was a long way off being better. I needed help. I nodded.

The smile that broke across Mum’s face was like a knife in my gut. Would I ever smile like that?

‘I’ll call him as soon as we get home,’ she said. ‘Let him know that you’re coming. He’ll be so pleased to finally meet you.’

Mum was in a dress and lipstick again, ready to take me to her group. I’d put on some of the new clothes that she’d bought me – jeans and a flannel shirt, and new underwear. My new bra was too tight, squeezing the air from my lungs.

Mum seemed nervous, fiddling with the strap on her watch, and it occurred to me that maybe she
was
seeing someone – someone in this therapy group. Maybe it was even the counsellor himself.

We got into the car and Mum smiled brightly at me as she started the engine.