Our Little Secret(41)

“I feel a bit sweaty,” she said, turning pages of her storybook, a mindless tale about a ballerina mouse.

“Do we have to read this book?” I asked. “It’s super lame.”

“Superlame-o!” shouted Olive, as if it were a new cartoon character. “Mommy gave this book to me.”

“Do you like your mommy?” I asked.

“She’s pretty.”

“Who do you like more—her or me?”

Olive turned her hot little face up towards mine and planted her hand on my forearm. She sighed a breath of overripe strawberries. “Am I pretty, Angie?” she asked, her eyes suddenly, inexplicably, brimming with tears.

“You are. You are so, so pretty.” I put my arm around her and handed her another candy from my pocket.

“But I already brushed my teeth,” she whispered.

“We won’t tell anyone. It can be our little secret.”





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17


“Why tell me that?” asks Novak.

“What?”

“Why tell me you manipulated the mind of a child?”

“Are you going to arrest me for giving a kid a candy and telling her she’s beautiful?”

Novak walks around the room. Under the electric light, he looks haunted. “Can we talk more about where you were two nights ago, Angela?”

“What’s your first name? You use mine all the time, in almost every sentence. What’s yours?”

There’s a second or two of wariness. “Jonah.”

“Oh, my God. I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“Where were you the afternoon of June fifteenth?”

“What was the fifteenth—Thursday? I was at my house, or rather my mom’s. We covered that already . . . Jonah.”

Novak sits down. “Tell me what you know, Angela. Now. So, you were at home on Thursday evening?”

“I went home after work, ate dinner in my kitchen and went to sleep on the couch.”

“I thought you were living at the Parkers’ house while you gave your mother space to adapt.”

“Like I said, I moved into HP’s for a while. And then I moved out again.”

He pauses, then reefs through his notes, bookmarking a page with a hooked thumb. “Mr. Parker says you lived with them for six weeks. When did you move out?”

“Didn’t he say? Oh, it was a couple of weeks ago, I believe. Early June.”

“Is that when you stole Saskia’s necklace?”

“I told you. I don’t know anything about that. Olive must have put it in my book. You know how kids are always hiding things.”

“I need the details of why you moved out. Full disclosure.”

“Well, pick a direction, Jonah. One minute you’re telling me to hurry the fuck up, the next minute you’re asking for more detail.”

He weighs every word when he speaks. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

“Oh, Jonah,” I say. “You need to trust that I’m steering you for a reason. I’m taking you all the way to the middle of the maze. Can’t you see how easy this is for you? All you’ve ever had to do was listen.”


When I called HP and told him that I was stuck living with my mother, he was quick to offer me his place to stay.

“I saw your mom downtown, actually. She told me all about it. What if you come our way for a bit, stay with us?” His voice was eager. “We’ll cheer you up. We’ve got the room, and nobody wants to live with their parents.”

“Yours would be okay.”

“Everyone has their . . . quirks.” He paused on the word. “When you live with them.”

“So I won’t be in the way?”

“Little J—” He faltered. “Angela. You’re family.”

He didn’t even check with Saskia first, or at least I don’t think he did. When I turned up the next day, they put me in their spare room at the top of a curving staircase, every solid step of which HP had sanded into smooth, pale wood. Most of the walls in the house were blue—the kind of aqua you see in postcards sent from the Greek islands. It was as if Saskia were trying to paint herself into the ocean she’d long ago given up.

Above the fireplace, they’d framed a huge photograph of themselves bungee jumping from a bridge in New Zealand. Their ankles were tied together, and at the moment when the camera had captured them, they were at the pinnacle of their bounce, the strain in their spines identical.

HP’s house faced west, so that every evening Saskia sat on the porch and watched the sun dip behind the smoothness of the mountains, casting oily shadows onto the horizon of the lake. She called 5 p.m. “sundowners” and claimed it as adult time, always making popcorn and dusting it sparingly with sea salt and flakes of nutritional yeast. She handed out Australian lager in tall cans. HP and I were expected to attend.

“I’m stoked you’re staying with us, Ange,” Saskia chirped that first evening. “No point worrying your mum. Stay as long as you like, mate, no worries.” She reached across the swing seat and bumped me on top of my wrist. Bullfrogs sang in the ditches. “So, go on then—what’s the deal with your oldies?”