Free Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave Page B

would have decided that Fate or Destiny played a part in this—his daughter going missing thirty-six hours before I’m released from jail—there has to be something in that, and thank God it wasn’t the other way around, otherwise, instead of coming to me for help, he may have come to blame me for her disappearance. He’s given me a thousand dollars in cash for expenses with the promise of more if I need it. The cash is to smooth any wheels that grind to a halt along the way. He’s given me the gun he threatened to shoot me with last year. It brings back memories. I hide it beneath my wife’s side of the mattress. He’s given me a photograph of Emma when she was ten years old, taken at her birthday party. He’s asked me to carry it with me until I find her. He wants that photograph burning in my pocket as a constantreminder to find Emma, as if I need reminding. I fold it into my wallet. And he’s told me how he thinks Emma would react. She’s a smart kid, he said, one who wanted to study psychology because she thought she was good at figuring out what people thought. He said no matter what the situation, she would adapt and she would survive it. I just kept nodding the entire time hoping he was right, but knowing there wasn’t a lot a young girl like Emma could say to talk her way out of the situation some sick bastard has put her in.
    He’s also given me a photograph of Emma taken a month ago. She’s an attractive girl. Last time I saw her she was lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her body. She was awake and didn’t know who I was. I didn’t go into the room, just stood outside it arguing with her father, telling him I was sorry. Her black hair is hanging to her shoulders, framing a face with an easygoing smile, the kind you love to see on any attractive girl, but the kind you don’t see on many of them. There’s no doubt that smile could break some hearts. Her eyes are squinting a little on account of the sun, the background a park or a backyard somewhere.
    My parents arrive only moments after my lawyer leaves. I hear them pull up and go back outside and meet them. They climb out of the car and Mum runs over and hugs me and Dad, who has never hugged a man in his life, shakes my hand and I invite them inside and we sit down drinking cold drinks while we catch up on all the same things we caught up on when they visited me twice a week in jail. Dad is in his midseventies, his hair white but full, no signs of it receding out of existence, a fact he’s proud of. He has a beard with no mustache, which is a real shame. He is relieved when I tell him I no longer need to borrow a car. Mum is in her early seventies and knows she may not be around in twenty years, and is making up for that by getting in as many words as she can before passing away. She has thick glasses that hang around her neck, a holdover from her years working as a librarian in town, and dark blond hair that’s been coming out of a bottle for the last twenty years. She offers to stay longer so she can help me around the house but I turn her down. My parents are lovely people, but spending the last fourmonths without them calling me every day or popping in all the time certainly gave jail an upside. There aren’t any uncomfortable silences because my mum doesn’t give them time to develop. Mostly she updates us on what other family members are doing. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, but I wish I did because it’d spread Mum’s attention toward me a little thinner. I hear about my cousins, uncles, and aunts; new jobs; new additions to the family; who’s sick. I almost need to take notes just so I can keep up.
    It’s nice seeing them, but it’s also nice seeing them leave. When they’re gone I drive to a nearby mall. I was once told that Christ-church has more mall space per capita than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere. The rental is quiet and easy to speed in by accident. The air-conditioning works a treat and