MEGAN

THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013
EVENING
I’m sitting on the sofa in his living room, a glass ofwine in my hand. The house is still a total mess. Iwonder, does he always live like this, like a teenageboy? And I think about how he lost his family whenhe was a teenager, so maybe he does. I feel sad forhim. He comes in from the kitchen and sits at myside, comfortably close. If I could, I would come hereevery day, just for an hour or two. I’d just sit hereand drink wine, feel his hand brush against mine.
But I can’t. There’s a point to this, and he wantsme to get to it.
“OK, Megan,” he says. “Do you feel ready now? Tofinish what you were telling me before?”
I lean back a little against him, against his warmbody. He lets me. I close my eyes, and it doesn’ttake me long to get back there, back to thebathroom. It’s weird, because I’ve spent so longtrying not to think about it, about those days, thosenights, but now I can close my eyes and it’s almostinstant, like falling asleep, right into the middle of adream.
It was dark and very cold. I wasn’t in the bath anylonger. “I don’t know exactly what happened. Iremember waking up, I remember knowing thatsomething was wrong, and then the next thing Iknow Mac was home. He was calling for me. I couldhear him downstairs, shouting my name, but Icouldn’t move. I was sitting on the floor in thebathroom, she was in my arms. The rain washammering down, the beams in the roof creaking. Iwas so cold. Mac came up the stairs, still calling outto me. He came to the doorway and turned on thelight.” I can feel it now, the light searing my retinas,everything stark and white, horrifying.
“I remember screaming at him to turn the light off.
I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want to look at her likethat. I don’t know—I don’t know what happenedthen. He was shouting at me, he was screaming inmy face. I gave her to him and ran. I ran out of thehouse into the rain, I ran to the beach. I don’tremember what happened after that. It was a longtime before he came for me. It was still raining. Iwas in the dunes, I think. I thought about going inthe water, but I was too scared. He came for meeventually. He took me home.
“We buried her in the morning. I wrapped her in asheet and Mac dug the grave. We put her down atthe edge of the property, near the disused railwayline. We put stones on top to mark it. We didn’t talkabout it, we didn’t talk about anything, we didn’t lookat each other. That night, Mac went out. He said hehad to meet someone. I thought maybe he wasgoing to go to the police. I didn’t know what to do. Ijust waited for him, for someone to come. He didn’tcome back. He never came back.”
I’m sitting in Kamal’s warm living room, his warmbody at my side, and I’m shivering. “I can still feelit,” I tell him. “At night, I can still feel it. It’s thething I dread, the thing that keeps me awake: thefeeling of being alone in that house. I was sofrightened—too frightened to go to sleep. I’d just walkaround those dark rooms and I’d hear her crying,I’d smell her skin. I saw things. I’d wake in the nightand be sure that there was someone else—somethingelse—in the house with me. I thought I was goingmad. I thought I was going to die. I thought thatmaybe I would just stay there, and that one daysomeone would find me. At least that way I wouldn’thave left her.”
I sniff, leaning forward to take a Kleenex from thebox on the table. Kamal’s hand runs down my spineto my lower back and rests there.
“But in the end I didn’t have the courage to stay. Ithink I waited about ten days, and then there wasnothing left to eat—not a tin of beans, nothing. Ipacked up my things and I left.”
“Did you see Mac again?”
“No, never. The last time I saw him was that night.
He didn’t kiss me or even say good-bye properly. Hejust said he had to go out for a bit.” I shrug. “Thatwas it.”
“Did you try to contact him?”
I shook my head. “No. I was too frightened, at first.
I didn’t know what he would do if I did get intouch. And I didn’t know where he was—he didn’teven have a mobile phone. I lost touch with thepeople who knew him. His friends were all kind ofnomadic. Hippies, travellers. A few months ago, afterwe talked about him, I Googled him. But I couldn’tfind him. It’s odd?.?.?.”
“What is?”
“In the early days, I used to see him all the time.
Like, in the street, or I’d see a man in a bar and beso sure it was him that my heart would start racing.
I used to hear his voice in crowds. But that stopped,a long time ago. Now, I think he might be dead.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know. He just?.?.?. he feels dead to me.”
Kamal sits up straighter and gently moves his bodyaway from mine. He turns so that he’s facing me.
“I think that’s probably just your imagination,Megan. It’s normal to think you see people who havebeen a big part of your life after you part companywith them. In the early days, I used to catchglimpses of my brother all the time. As for him‘feeling dead,’ that’s probably just a consequence ofhis being gone from your life for so long. In somesenses he no longer feels real to you.”
He’s gone back into therapy mode now, we’re notjust two friends sitting on the sofa anymore. I wantto reach out and pull him back to me, but I don’twant to cross any lines. I think about last time, whenI kissed him before I left—the look on his face,longing and frustration and anger.
“I wonder if, now that we’ve spoken about this,now that you’ve told me your story, it might help foryou to try to contact Mac. To give you closure, toseal that chapter in your past.”
I thought he might suggest this. “I can’t,” I say. “Ican’t.”
“Just think about it for a moment.”
“I can’t. What if he still hates me? What if it justbrings it all back, or if he goes to the police?” Whatif—I can’t say this out loud, can’t even whisperit—what if he tells Scott what I really am?
Kamal shakes his head. “Perhaps he doesn’t hateyou at all, Megan. Perhaps he never hated you.
Perhaps he was afraid, too. Perhaps he feels guilty.
From what you have told me, he isn’t a man whobehaved responsibly. He took in a very young, veryvulnerable girl and left her alone when she neededsupport. Perhaps he knows that what happened isyour shared responsibility. Perhaps that’s what heran away from.”
I don’t know if he really believes that or if he’s justtrying to make me feel better. I only know that itisn’t true. I can’t shift the blame onto him. This isone thing I have to take as my own.
“I don’t want to push you into doing something youdon’t want to do,” Kamal says. “I just want you toconsider the possibility that contacting Mac might helpyou. And it’s not because I believe that you owe himanything. Do you see? I believe that he owes you. Iunderstand your guilt, I do. But he abandoned you.
You were alone, afraid, panicking, grieving. He leftyou on your own in that house. It’s no wonder youcannot sleep. Of course the idea of sleeping frightensyou: you fell asleep and something terrible happenedto you. And the one person who should have helpedyou left you all alone.”
In the moments when Kamal is saying these things,it doesn’t sound so bad. As the words slip seductivelyoff his tongue, warm and honeyed, I can almostbelieve them. I can almost believe that there is a wayto leave all this behind, lay it to rest, go home toScott and live my life as normal people do, neitherglancing over my shoulder nor desperately waiting forsomething better to come along. Is that what normalpeople do?
“Will you think about it?” he asks, touching myhand as he does so. I give him a bright smile andsay that I will. Maybe I even mean it, I don’t know.
He walks me to the door, his arm around myshoulders, I want to turn and kiss him again, but Idon’t.
Instead I ask, “Is this the last time I’m going to seeyou?” and he nods. “Couldn’t we?.?.?.??”
“No, Megan. We can’t. We have to do the rightthing.”
I smile up at him. “I’m not very good at that,” Isay. “Never have been.”
“You can be. You will be. Go home now. Go hometo your husband.”
I stand on the pavement outside his house for along time after he shuts the door. I feel lighter, Ithink, freer—but sadder, too, and all of a sudden Ijust want to get home to Scott.
I’m just turning to walk to the station when a mancomes running along the pavement, earphones on,head down. He’s heading straight for me, and as Istep back, trying to get out of the way, I slip off theedge of the pavement and fall.
The man doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t even lookback at me, and I’m too shocked to cry out. I get tomy feet and stand there, leaning against a car, tryingto catch my breath. All the peace I felt in Kamal’shouse is suddenly shattered.
It’s not until I get home that I realize I cut myhand when I fell, and at some point I must haverubbed my hand across my mouth. My lips aresmeared with blood.