The Good Liar(22)

Kate checked on the boys, then went to the big-kid swings and sat down. She gripped the metal chains with her mittened hands. Unusually, they were alone. Although she could hear the constant traffic on Sherbrooke Street, it still felt as if she were in a bubble of silence penetrated only by the boys’ shouts of glee.

Where was everyone else? The other nannies she typically passed the time with, the women from the Philippines who made up most of the nanny class in Westmount? The occasional mother there with her own children like a normal mom? Probably all watching television, their children distracted by iPads while they relived their distant grief at the horrors of October tenth.

She checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Though it felt like forever, it hadn’t been enough time. She should keep them there for another thirty minutes at least. With the plastic swing cutting into the back of her knees, Kate broke up the minutes like she had a year ago on the bus from Chicago to Montreal.

That Greyhound bus ride takes one day, seven hours, and fifty minutes.

Kate registered that information when she bought her ticket—a bargain at $120 because she was paying for only one way—but it was one thing to know a detail and another to live through it. Chicago to Kalamazoo. Then Detroit. Then over the bridge to Windsor, Ontario. Then on to Toronto, where they switched buses. Another switch in Ottawa. And finally they pulled into Montreal.

Nineteen hundred and ten minutes in all. Like that song from Rent where the minutes were counted out in a hopeful melody. Only it wasn’t an upbeat show tune. But that was the number of minutes it took to change her life. No, that was wrong. It had taken a lot less than that. The minutes on the bus were the minutes it had taken to change her location. Her life had changed before that, much faster and much more slowly than those two days.

She watched Willie and Steven throw a stick into the dead grass and run after it like puppies. They were content for the moment, but she knew from experience that this could change in an instant. Happy laughter replaced by tears or screams. Arms flying, bruises raised.

She tried to concentrate on them. But now that she’d started thinking about the bus, it was hard to shake it. The dead-air smell. The way she’d become familiar with the odor of her fellow passengers. The way her own body’s smell had changed, even the scent of her pee. How she hadn’t had anything left to read. She’d refrained from asking the woman across from her, who seemed to have a small mobile library, for a book because that might lead to conversation, questions. Everything Kate wanted to avoid.

The worst part was the border crossing between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. She’d sat with her nose pressed up against the dirty glass as the bus got closer and closer to Canada, her thoughts racing. Even on this bus full of oddballs, she stood out. Her clothes a mix of what she’d been able to buy at the bus station and what she’d been wearing when she made the decision to leave. She needed something new before they got to the border. A backpack full of the things people usually had when traveling, not the weird amalgam she was carrying. But with her money already dwindling, she settled for a new sweatshirt.

She washed her hair in the bathroom sink of one of the roadside gas stations they stopped at with hand soap. Then changed and transferred everything she cared about into the pouch of the new sweatshirt. Her money. Her passport. A picture of her family. She should’ve left it behind, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it, either. But she knew, someday, she’d want this piece of comfort. Even if it came with pain. So she touched it like a talisman, and that was good enough for then.

For all her worry, the border was a breeze. Her Canadian passport was scanned, her photo checked. The customs officer asked her where she lived and what she’d been doing in Chicago. Montreal, she said, making sure to pronounce it as Canadians do, with the O replaced by a U. She’d been visiting friends in Chicago when everything happened.

“Bad luck,” said the officer.

“Bad luck,” she’d agreed.

And then, right when she couldn’t stand being on the bus anymore, when she thought she might be sick if she had to breathe in any more of the terrible antiseptic smell or the stench wafting from the bathroom, the bus driver announced that they were arriving at their final destination.

And all she could think was: Now what?

In the park, Kate checked the time again. Finally, enough seconds had passed, and it was coming up on noon. She looked around. She’d lost track of the boys for a moment, and her heart started to battle panic.

“Willie! Steven!”

She roamed through the play structure, thinking they might be hiding from her. They weren’t. The swing set blocked the way to the street; they couldn’t have gotten past her without her noticing. They must’ve gone deeper into the park. She started to run down one of the paths. The pond! The boys loved the pond, where ducks paddled in the summer. They drained it every fall, but there was always an accumulation of rain in the bottom that would be deep enough for a three-year-old to drown in.

“Willie! Steven! Where are you?”

She caught a hint of laughter on the wind. She pushed herself harder, turning the corner to bring her to the pond. She stopped, trying to breathe, searching for any sign of them. The pond circled an island of land planted with several trees. She heard a giggle.

“Willie! Come out, come out!”

Willie popped out from behind a tree with his arms wide. “Taa-daa!”