Free Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking by Ivana Hruba Page B

Afterwards, I
clear the plates off the table. Lilian starts on the dishes. She’s
happy to do them, happy for me to go inhabit my space, behind the
other partition. She wants me to do my homework and listen to music
through the headphones while I’m doing it.
    Okay, Lilian, I get it. I’ll
get out of your way.
     
     

 
    28
     
     
    ‘Who told you that? Detective
Martin?’
    ‘No. Josh told me. They’ve
known about it for a long time.’
    ‘And nobody kept an eye?’
    ‘Lilian. The man did his
time.’
    ‘So? You always said you didn’t
trust him.’
    ‘That was for a different
reason altogether. He left my mother and me when we needed him
most.’
    ‘Well, he went to jail, didn’t
he? It’s not like he could have helped that.’
    ‘Sure. Whatever… Lil, you need
to— ’
    —
    God, this is going to go on…
Fairy, please come. Starling, please, show up, do something. Put me
out of my misery. I really can’t stand any more of this. But on and
on it goes, on their side of the caravan, under the covers, this
evil whispering.
    ‘Lil’, listen to me. They think
Drake killed her, put her in the ocean. That’s why we haven’t found
her.’
    ‘No, he didn’t.’
    ‘Lil’… He might have. It makes
sense.’
    ‘No, he didn’t put her in the
ocean. Sarah goes every day. She knows Starling is not in the
water. She knows the beach.’
    ‘Lil’…
    ‘No. She’s not in the water —This is all your fault, Chris! I hate you! I HATE
you!’
    Her voice is rising, from a
nothing whisper to thunder whisper. Our Lilian’s finally coming
into her own; like that bird, that Phoenix who overcame his own
death. And she’s getting stronger.
    ‘You brought us here! If it
weren’t for you…’
    Lilian is gathering pace. She’s
roaring. ‘I HATE YOU!’
    Oh, Lord. Where are you when I
need you? —Exactly. I’m going to have to hear this.
    ‘You said, you PROMISED we
we’re going to be safe, SAFE, here! And now my child is gone! Our
child is gone! Because of YOU!’
    Yes, her child is gone because
of him. So finally we’re getting to the truth. But Chris is silent.
For a bit. He takes a few breaths, seven elephants’ worth, and then
he sobs. The man sobs , for Christ’s sakes.
     
     

 
    29
     
     
    It’s been three weeks. The only
news is that they’ve figured out the fire started in the kitchen.
In the wood stove with the faulty latch. The log left in there to
die fell out on the floor and rolled to the kitchen cupboard where
it stopped. The log still had some life in it and it set the
cupboard on fire.
    Well, it is what it is. It’s
grim. Depressing. For all of us. Course, we’d rather have had the
fire started outside. We could have gone on believing somebody
other than Chris and Lilian was responsible. I think it’s more
Chris’s fault. Lilian had mentioned her concerns. She found it
difficult to close the stove door. She wanted the latch fixed. But
Chris could never find the time. He was always too busy with his
bullshit, whatever that was, at the time. So he fobbed her off.
Told her the latch was brand new and it only needed time to
‘settle’, told her the kitchen had been made over before we moved
in. And who made it over? —Exactly. Another thing you can hate
Drake for. But I don’t hate him. Lilian does. She imagines all
sorts of torturous scenarios in her vacuous head. All I can do is
cry with her, on occasion. Cause it is fucking sad what she’s going
through. She’s a mother of a missing child. It hurts. I am the
sister of a missing child. I know.
    Chris goes back to work. The
weather’s shit and they need extra hands on the trawler so Chris
goes. He seems relieved, rejuvenated even, by the possibilities
this move offers. He might get swept overboard. He might even jump
cause he has a death wish. We all do. But we go about it in
different ways. Lilian drinks. Takes her magic pills at the same
time. Chris drives around like mental. He’s bound to run himself
into a ditch. Or a