Just My Luck(103)

‘No, it’s not that. Well, yes, yes, obviously. But—’ My dad shakes his head. He seems bewildered.

‘I mean it’s also a relief, right? Now we’ve found out who did it, the kids are safer.’ Mum sounds shrill. I can see her face side-on. She looks hard, furious. Then her face sort of collapses and she starts to cry. This is her thing; she behaves aggressive and tough just before the moment she shows her vulnerability. I think she needs to take some evening primrose or something. ‘I am devastated too,’ she admits. ‘I’ve known for months that Patrick is a vile, despicable criminal, but I never imagined he’d hurt our daughter, a child he has known since she was born. I suppose that’s self-absorbed of me; after all, he killed Toma’s child through greed and neglect, so actually planning an abduction isn’t such a jump.’ WTF? Patrick killed someone? A child? Mum goes on. ‘The man disgusts me. You saw her, Jake. You saw the state she was in.’

‘I know, I know.’ Dad looks like he’s going to cry again. He’s been like an emotional wreck since I was kidnapped. They both have but Mum tries harder to tough it out, it’s like she doesn’t want to worry me. Dad’s eyes follow me around, scarred, scared, sorrowful. I wish he wouldn’t. It’s hard enough dealing with my own crap. Dad turns to Mum and pulls her to his chest. She sort of collapses against him. I shiver. I mean I’m home now, right? Safe. But yeah, Mum is correct – I was in a state. Totally fucked up. It was so, so beyond awful. I rub my stomach. I feel empty. Since, you know. I wasn’t even sure I wanted it. I probably didn’t. So why am I so sad? It’s a relief, right? That I didn’t have to make a decision. The doctor said I’d still be OK, you know, in the future, when I’m older and I’m with someone. So that’s good. Only it doesn’t really feel good. Not totally. I feel so, so sad. I try not to think about it too much. Probably for the best. But even though I’m not trying to remember stuff, bits keep coming back to me. Like nothing in a coherent run but flashes of sounds or smells. The memories choke me, deafen me. Like I can still feel the gag in my mouth, tearing at the side of my lips, the actual texture of the cloth and I keep wanting to spit it out. And the smell of the damp, fuggy mattress lingers in my nostril, makes me feel sick and faint. The perfume the woman wore hangs about near my hair. I mean that’s not possible. Perfume doesn’t transfer from one person to another and even if it did, I’ve washed my hair like five times since then. But the smell won’t go away.

‘I’m going to go and visit Megan,’ I yell as I clatter down the stairs.

‘What? No. Why would you do that?’ asks Mum, breaking from Dad’s embrace and turning to me, the habitual look of perpetual worry etched into her face.

‘I’ve just heard you say Patrick has been arrested.’

‘Well, taken in for questioning,’ Mum corrects cautiously. She doesn’t yell at me for listening in to their conversation or anything like that. Since my abduction, and the baby thing, Mum and Dad have started to treat me differently. Differently from before and differently to each other. Mum and I are closer. She seems to, I don’t know, almost respect me as another adult now. Dad seems embarrassed if anything. I guess there’s no way either of them can see me as their baby girl anymore.

‘Can you imagine what she is going through? Her dad is like a proper crim.’

My dad, who is basically a hero – negotiated my release, recovered me, got me to hospital – steps up again and says to Mum, ‘I’ll drive her, she shouldn’t go on her own. You stay here with Logan. We won’t be long.’

Mum, who was probably going to have like a million objections and probably also wants to come with us – not to offer Carla any consolation, just to punch her in the face or something – looks torn. ‘Mum, we were best friends for forever,’ I add.

‘You can’t leave Logan here alone,’ points out Dad.

Mum is pretty stressed about our security at the moment, understandably. Even if Patrick is behind bars and if he was responsible for kidnapping me, he’s hardly the only greedy nutter on the planet. There’s no way she’ll leave Logan alone. Mum nods stiffly.





48


Emily


We drive to the Pearsons’ house in silence. Dad keeps his eyes on the road, he looks tense, stressed. Everyone does, all the time now. We haven’t spent much time alone together since he found me in that barn. Any time really. If I walk into a room and it’s just him, he makes some excuse to leave, says he’s looking for a book to read or has an errand to run. He is obviously uncomfortable around me. I get it. I’m not exactly cool with him either.

It’s the pregnancy thing.

Dad hasn’t talked to me about it. Not mentioned it once. I get it. He saw my baby bleed out all over my leotard; he can’t hide from the fact his princess had sex. I swallow hard, chew on the inside of my cheek as though I am eating gum. It stops me crying. I don’t know if Dad is angry that I had sex, per se. I mean under normal circumstances he’d be furious, clear-cut furious. But it’s so complicated. Maybe he’s not angry as such, just sad about how it all turned out. I don’t know. Mum says he feels bad, like really, really bad. Daddies are supposed to protect their little girls, right? She says she feels really bad too. She cried when she told me this. ‘We’re so sorry we didn’t keep you safer, that we didn’t protect you.’ She’s said this over and over again. It’s not like it’s their fault; they didn’t hit me and bundle me into a van. I think it’s a good thing I’m not going to be a parent yet. I really couldn’t cope with the constant guilt and self-blame that obviously comes with it.