The Game You Played (18 page)

“You have a life. It’s what you do every day that makes up your life. If you stay home every day and stare at the four walls, well, then that becomes your life. Sometimes, when you’ve reached rock bottom, it takes going step by step to get yourself out of there. But you
can
do it. We’re going to make a plan for you. Just small steps.”

Handing me a piece of paper, she asked me to write down things I could do over the next week that were different to what I usually did.
Small steps.

I wrote:

Go swimming.

Have my hair cut.

Have dinner with friends.

Go to Bingo with Nan.

Go see a movie.

I planned on doing none of those things.

When I glanced up from the page, Dr Moran was eyeing me fixedly. “Phoebe, I’m going to be in close contact. I’m going to want to know that you are doing these things, okay? I’ll be calling you each day to see how you’re going. You’re going to need to have your phone switched on. I’ll be calling at four in the afternoon every day. Just to see how you’re going with your small steps.” She smiled warmly, taking my sheet of paper and quickly reading it.

“I’d like that,” I said, lying to her for the second time.

She copied down what I’d written and then returned the page to me. “See this as a contract. I will tell you that I’m concerned about you. In my experience, you’re at a tipping point. If something else happens, you might well need to have a stay at a place where you can rest—and be monitored. Yes, I’m that worried. I need to know that you’re going to take these steps to reconnect with yourself.”

Straightening my jacket distractedly, I nodded. I had to be more careful at future sessions. I’d revealed too much, and now I’d won myself daily phone calls from my psych.

Tuesday afternoon

NAN SAT IN HER ARMCHAIR, MAKING a scratching sound with her pencil as she did the puzzles from a women’s magazine. She wore a green cardigan that had been pulled out of shape around the collar, from all the years she’d scrunched up the cardigan around her neck to keep out the cold. I knew that the cardigan would smell musty—everything in this house did. Even Nan. She had no care for new things. Behind her, on the wall, a sixty-year-old clock ticked loudly, winding its way around to two in the afternoon. I hated the ticking. But Nan didn’t seem to even notice the sound.

The whole day had passed slowly. I sat reading a book, wishing I’d put
reading
on Dr Moran’s
small steps
list yesterday. She probably wouldn’t have been happy with it, though. She wanted me to see people, get out of the house. Anyway, I’d read the same paragraph six times over. I couldn’t get into it, and this was only the second page. The book was one of my mother’s old historical romance novels. I used to like them when I was a teenager. Now, it seemed that romantic love was a lie.

“It’s soup for dinner,” Nan announced out of the blue.

“Okay.”

“It’ll be pumpkin.”

“Pumpkin’s good.”

“Sass called around while you were out at the doctor’s.”

“Okay. I told her I’d be at Dr Moran’s. Must have forgotten.”

Nan peered over the top of her reading glasses at me. “She’s still flitting about unattached, I see. Should be married off by now, that girl.”

“The man she was engaged to years ago is in prison, Nan. I think she dodged a bullet.”

“Well, she’d better find someone else, quick smart, before she turns thirty. She didn’t look crash-hot when she stopped in here last week, and I told her so. Too much makeup. She’s lost that glow of youth, she has.”

I stifled a sigh. “There’s no race to get married by thirty anymore. Why did Sass come by last week?”

Her expression softened a touch. “Drops in all the time. I guess I’m like family to her. She was forever in this house as a child, cheeky little so-and-so she was.”

Nan didn’t add that kids only used to come here when my father wasn’t around. It was an unspoken understanding. She hadn’t thought much of Morris—my father—but she’d forced herself to tolerate him because he was her daughter’s husband.

I used to spend a lot of time at Saskia’s house. Her parents and grandparents were relaxed and happy people. The house wasn’t there anymore. It had been pulled down years ago, to make way for the apartment blocks that were coming. Saskia’s parents and grandparents had moved way up north to Queensland.

All the old houses would be gone soon. Including Nan’s.

Nan switched on the TV. She flicked from channel to channel, complaining about the quality of the TV shows these days. She settled upon an old sitcom.

The canned laughter of the show ate its way under my skin. The whole thing was a manufactured experience, the audience instructed when something was funny and what to feel.
Laugh. Stop. Be sad (cue slow music when the character says something poignant) Stop being sad. Laugh.

Nan scowled when the show finished and a home renovation program began. I knew exactly what she was thinking, because she often said the same thing when those shows were on:
People want change for the sake of change. Why fix something that isn’t falling down?

Nan put another sitcom on. More canned laughter. I thought of heading upstairs just to lie on the bed and get away from the noise.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was Pria—all sympathy and comfort. Saskia had told her about what happened with Luke. Typical Sass. She couldn’t keep anything to herself for more than a day. Pria begged me to come up to her house so she could hug me in person. She couldn’t come to me because she was waiting on Jessie to get home from school. Kate was on her way there, too. Sass couldn’t make it, Pria said.

I was about to make an excuse when I remembered Dr Moran’s
small steps
again. It would be something to tell her when she called later. Plus, I enjoyed hanging out with the girls when I made the effort. I told Pria I’d come up there for a few minutes.

“Be back in time for dinner!” Nan called as I left the house. I suppressed a smile. It was like I was ten again.

I ran my hands through my hair as I walked down Nan’s garden path and out onto the street.

Deliberately, I looked away from the Wick house and number 29 when I walked past. If Bernice was peeking through her window, I didn’t want to see her. And if a curtain shifted at number 29, I didn’t want to know. And I didn’t look at Luke’s parents’ house or my own house either. If Luke wasn’t going to be in my future, then I had to start separating myself emotionally.

I couldn’t stay here in this street for very long—too many reminders of the past. But I’d need a job if I were to move somewhere else. I couldn’t imagine what my resume would say.
Out-of-work actor. No experience in any field other than acting. Needs to answer to her psychiatrist on a daily basis. Not good with children.

Yes, that should get me a decent job.

A chill breeze blew around my ears. I continued on up the hill.

Before I could think of leaving Nan’s, I had to concentrate on getting better. I’d try Dr Moran’s small steps and see where it took me.

It took less than ten minutes to reach Pria’s house, but it wasn’t a walk for the faint-hearted. The hill rose sharply, and the vigorous roots of Moreton Bay figs lifted up the pathway everywhere. The house lots became larger and more impressive the farther up the hill you went, the homes high and imposing and kept behind ivy-covered walls. The gardens looked healthier and more abundant, as though the very air up here nourished them.

I didn’t know many of the people on the highest part of the hill, apart from Pria and Kate. The people mostly kept to themselves. I knew everyone at the lower end.

After Tommy had gone missing, it hadn’t been any different. The people from the high end would gently grasp my arm and hand me platitudes in lowered tones.
Oh, it’s shocking. I don’t know how you’re managing.
The people on the lower end would march right up to me and they’d say,
If I get my
hands
on the animal who took Tommy
,
I won’t think twice before ripping his guts out and stuffing them down his throat until he chokes
. Intellectual-me wanted no such thing. Gouging out someone’s entrails wouldn’t do a single thing to change the terrible thing they’d done. But the dark-night-of-the-soul-me fed hungrily on the
entrails
rants. The rants were raw and on the same level as my rage. The people at the high end brought me food on pretty plates and left like angels in the night. I didn’t want their food. I had no appetite. I wanted rage. I needed rage. Because the rage would sustain me.

But in truth, the
force-feed him his own guts
people didn’t share my pain. They wanted retribution for the sake of it. I didn’t want retribution as much as I wanted Tommy. A memory flashed through my mind of his soft little cheek against mine and the sound of him whispering in his croaky toddler voice,
Mama. Sssh, Mama shweep now . . .

I reached Pria’s house and climbed the time-worn stairs that had been cut into the boulders. I smiled at the alcove in the rockery where Pria kept a collection of naughty gnomes that mooned the unwary.

I heard Kate’s kids charging about the moment Pria opened the door, their voices ear splitting as they squealed.

Pria and Kate pulled me inside—Pria still in her work gear and Kate in her usual gym clothing.

“Oh, honey.” Pria hugged me.

Kate threw her arms around me next. “I can’t believe it. Seriously. It’s just—” She shook her head.

“It’s been going on for a while,” I admitted. “I just ignored it, I think.”

“You’re the best thing that happened to Luke,” Kate told me, her eyes wet. “Really. What was he thinking?”

“He’ll make the right decision, in the end.” Pria pulled her hair loose of its tight bun. “That’s one thing about him that’s always stood.”

It was almost strange hearing Kate and Pria talk about Luke in such knowing terms. But of course, they’d both known him as long as I had. They’d each even been his girlfriend.

“Any more news about the letters?” Kate asked me.

“Not a thing. My psych advised me to try to stop thinking about them. Leave it to the police.” I knew that talking about letting the police do their job and following my psych’s advice would appeal to Kate and Pria.

“Good idea. They’ll get it sorted,” Kate said, as I expected she would.

“Your psych sounds wise.” Pria indicated towards the other end of the house. “C’mon, I think we all need a nice glass of chilled wine.” She took us through to the kitchen and poured three glasses of white wine.

The house had barely changed since I was a kid. Mahogany wood surfaces gleamed everywhere. Enormous paintings of the harbour claimed the walls, and the same ornate furniture stood in the rooms. A steady hum of air flowed from the air conditioning vents. The clocks were new—they ticked in every room. Pria had told me she held her psychotherapy sessions in different downstairs rooms, wherever a client felt most comfortable—and she liked the clocks so that she could keep an inconspicuous eye on the time, rather than checking her watch. Some clients preferred to stretch out on the sofa. Others liked to sit and drink coffee at the kitchen bench. Still others liked the plant-filled atmosphere of the sunroom.

Instinctively, Pria led Kate and me along the long, dark hallway to the sunroom. We curled up our legs on the round wicker chairs, letting the afternoon sun spill on our faces from the skylight.

Kate’s twin girl and boy—Orianthe and Otto—giggled as they played hide-and-seek around the large potted ferns. They were three. Not that much older than Tommy would be now. Orianthe had her father’s blond hair and determined eyes. Otto had his mother’s softer, dark-haired looks. Orianthe was the definite boss of the game, staunchly refusing to be the one to seek. She insisted on being the one to hide.

“Kids, go play outside,” called Kate. She shot me a look that I was sure was meant to look exasperated, but instead it looked apologetic. I’d only seen the twins three times since Tommy went missing, and each time, Kate had looked apologetic. As though she needed to be sorry that she had kids that hadn’t been abducted, like my child had.

“They’re having fun,” I protested. But the kids had already run from the room. In truth, I was glad. I
did
find it hard just looking at them, feeling the absence of Tommy crush me even more.

I glanced around the sunroom. This room was my favourite. The wood-panelled walls, wicker chairs, hat stand, and ferns had always reminded me of a detective noir movie. It occurred to me that Detective Trent Gilroy would look at home here, dressed in a double-breasted suit, the statistical-blip crease in his forehead deeply furrowed as he puzzled over a case.

My fantasy detective noir Trent would figure out a vital clue about Tommy’s disappearance, and he’d leave in a hurry, hot on the trail. And he’d find the kidnapper. Because in a movie, the detective always found the kidnapper.

A sharp half sigh caught in my chest.

Pria tilted her head, a sad, warm expression entering her eyes. “How are you? We didn’t get that much of a chance to talk to you on Saturday. Too much to catch up on with all of us together. Plus, you fell asleep on us!”

I smiled. “Getting by.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too. I’ve just been so. . .”

“I get it. People distance themselves sometimes. It’s a kind of protective shield.”

“Yes, it’s been like that. How about you? What’s been happening? Didn’t you say you met someone new?”

An uncertain but happy smile dimpled her cheeks. “Yep. It’s mostly a long-distance thing, so we’re both trying to figure out how this is going to work.”

“Is there a possibility he might leave the navy?”

She looked hopeful for a moment then shrugged a shoulder almost defensively. “Well, who knows? That would be fantastic, but it’s his career. I’d like to think that we can meet somewhere in the middle and make some kind of new beginning, whatever that means.”

I gave Pria a crossed-fingers gesture then turned to Kate. “How about you, Kate? What’s happening?”

“I’m just flat out with the twins, I guess,” she told me. “I did some work for a Kmart clothing catalogue last week. I get two or three jobs a fortnight, usually. Elliot doesn’t like me to do too many jobs. He fractured his foot a few days ago, running after some little ratbag fourteen-year-old who was spraying graffiti on a wall. So, he’s been at home for a while, doing a Netflix marathon.”

“Does Elliot know you
graffitied
a wall once?” Pria teased.

Kate sipped her wine. “Someone should have arrested me.”

Kate was so different to how she used to be. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to me that she changed after that day at house number 29, thirteen years ago. Maybe she felt bad that we never told the police what really happened. Now, anyone breaking the law was a criminal in her eyes. No shades of grey. And it wasn’t just that. Kate used to be bold and independent, but now Elliot’s decisions ruled her. She had an almost child/parent relationship with her husband. She actually called him her captain and herself his co-captain.