Because who was to say that I hadn’t escaped decapitation only to fall victim to some other gruesome death? Awful things happened all the time in big cities. The statistics backed me up on this one. Big crimes happened in cities. People got away with things in big cities. So many people, and so much busyness, and everyone bustling around doing their own thing, and no one knew each other and nobody cared. That was how people got killed. That was how people got murdered.
To further boost the likelihood of catastrophe, Vancouver’s bus station was located smack-dab in the worst neighborhood. Vancouver actually had a task force to deal with the amount of human excrement that ended up on the sidewalks and in the alleys around there. There were more hookers than kids in the neighborhood. At the Ivanhoe Pub across the street, a person could buy a drink, or sex, or stolen cheese or stolen jeans or a stolen car or a stolen child.
I wished that Dad lived in a nice little town like Port Townsend. Actually, I wished he lived in Port Townsend in particular. Not in Vancouver, where fifty-two women had disappeared from this very neighborhood, with the DNA of half of them ending up in the mud and pig shit at a farm just outside the city. The murderer had gone to prison in 2002, but he still scared the crap out of me. Also, I didn’t think he’d worked alone. I thought his brother was just as guilty. He was still out there.
—
This was what happened when I had to wait. My mind raced. It got ugly. Fast.
In about the time it took me to eat a bag of chips, I could go from thinking about what song to listen to next to imagining what it would be like to have my head sawed off by a madman.
Tim McLean had no idea it was coming. He was just sitting there, asleep, and then one slice, and then pain and blood and screaming—
I stopped in my tracks so abruptly that my suitcase bumped me from behind. My heart galloped in place. I had to find Dad before it got worse.
Inside the bus station were two rows of wooden benches where Dad usually waited for me. He wasn’t there. I checked the coffee shop. The newsstand. The little kiosk that sold international phone cards. I checked the parking lot.
It was getting dark, and the lights of the city sparkled. The air was warm. It stank of piss and exhaust and hot city garbage. And the music again. A girl at the edge of the park, her eyes closed as she played. She slid the bow across the strings as if the violin weren’t there at all. I recognized the song. Coldplay. “Clocks.” She was good. And she was cute. Very cute. A man cut in front of her, hunched over, his face twisted as he argued with someone who no one else could see. The girl didn’t even look up. She just kept playing.
If I had been a different person—say, a normal one—I’d have gone over there and listened and put some money in her violin case and asked an interesting question. Make an observation, Nancy would say. And then ask a specific question. But there was too much out there. Cars and buses and taxis. Horns honking. A siren. The SkyTrain slicing along overhead. A one-legged bum begging for change, two girls in stilettos arguing, a guy puking against the wall, and an old woman organizing her shopping cart. And the small, grassy park where that girl had just barely escaped being shoved into a cargo van the week before.
The music stopped. I looked across to the park. She was having a drink of water, her head tipped back. Flip-flops, tan legs, cargo shorts, a leather belt with stars stamped into it, a black T-shirt tight around muscular, tanned arms, a silver necklace with a ruby pendant, a jumble of cuffs and friendship bracelets on one wrist, short auburn hair.
Dad’s truck wasn’t out there.
How about some more dead women? In that same park there were fourteen pink granite benches arranged in a circle. A memorial to the girls who’d been murdered in their college classroom by a wacko with a gun and a manifesto. One bench for each girl.
The girl started playing again, and I thought, If I were her, I’d pick a better place. A safer place.
Murder happens.
The panic attack slammed into me from the front, as if I were being gored by a bull. I backed against the wall and put my hands on my knees. I took ten deep breaths. Ten really good ones, Nancy said. Nice and deep and even.
I was drenched with sweat. My hands were clammy. It felt like the bull was sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to go back inside. I wanted to be where it was safer. Inside, with air conditioning and shops and people wearing clean clothes and talking to other real people.
Honking horns. Screeching tires. Sirens coming from all directions. The air thinned and got hotter and the lights were too bright and the dark was too heavy and I still couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t be out there for one more second, but I couldn’t move, either. Focus on the violin music. Soft and sweet and totally out of place amongst the grime and the crazies. The girl with the violin. Look at the girl.
She was playing with her eyes closed again. Totally oblivious. Stupid and naive. How many times had someone stolen her busking money right out of her violin case? How many times had she avoided something much worse?
Move, Maeve.
Move.
One foot. The other foot. Through the door. Back inside.
I shivered in the cool air and parked myself on the closest bench. I took out my sketchbook and pencils. Art as therapy, Nancy said. But it wasn’t. It was art as survival. It was one of the only things that could calm me down. I sketched the big old clock high up on the wall. I sketched a woman walking by, holding a toddler by the hand.
Dad knew better.
It never went well when I had to wait. Never, ever.
I sketched the garbage can. A fire extinguisher. The guy behind the counter at the newsstand, until he saw me studying him and gave me the finger.
I called Dad, hoping that maybe for once he would pick up. But no, his phone went straight to voice mail. Maybe he was at an AA or NA meeting. He always turned his phone off at those. I called his house. No answer. I tried Claire. No answer.
I had to pee, but I wasn’t going to go. One time I found a pool of blood congealing on the bathroom floor. Another time I found two security guards and six firefighters standing over a woman who was splayed on her back on the floor, and two paramedics on their knees at her side. Just step around, honey, a fireman said. Go ahead.
I tried Dad again. Straight to voice mail.
I texted. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
And Claire. Where is Dad?!?!?!
And Mom, too.
Dad is late. If I disappear into the murky depths of the Downtown Eastside, know that I never wanted to come here and it will be all your fault. Enjoy the guilt.
I started a text to Ruthie. I’m waiting for my dad at the bus station, and I
Wait. What was I supposed to say to her?
I was thinking about how fucked up that day was
Delete, delete, delete.
I sent Mom another text instead, but she was on a plane to meet Raymond before leaving for Haiti.