He’s being ironic. Novak thinks he’s driving this story. He thinks he’s ten steps ahead of me.
“We Skyped a couple of times, but Saskia was always right there in the background, butting in. They stayed at her parents’ place in Manly Beach and from what I could tell did nothing but surf and watch sunrises. I stalked her on Facebook. She wrote poems about water and light and posted them on her wall. Her security settings are child-like.”
“How long did HP stay over there?”
I pause. This is just pretense. Novak flicks through his file with his head down.
“Oh, here it is. Yes, okay, okay. So.” He looks up. “Did HP call you about his plans to wed?”
The mention of it still makes my mouth turn sour, yet Novak’s build to this moment is nothing less than thespian genius. I have to give him credit for that: my mother would be proud of him. What he already knows is that HP wrote me early in the new year, a few months after he landed in Sydney. Novak knows this because he would have found the letter by now, which I have always kept in its airmail envelope against the mirror on my dresser, every line of which is also seared into my brain. It wasn’t a well-written letter, mostly about the flora and fauna of Australia, as if HP was dreading writing the final paragraph.
Things have happened and plans have changed, he wrote in scrawly slanted lettering that looked like it was trying to dig its heels in on the page. Life throws curveballs and the best you can do is swing at them. Who knows? Maybe I’ll hit this one out of the park. I’ve asked Sask to be my wife. I don’t think she saw it coming, but she’s excited. We’ll have a ceremony on the beach, nothing too flash, you know me. Sask has a dress but she won’t let me see it—says it’s bad luck. Her mom’s telling everyone we’ve set a date and there’s a buzz around town, people keep shaking my hand. I hope you’re okay. I miss you. Everything’s changing but not that.
A month later he and Saskia were married.
Novak tosses a curly-edged photograph onto the table. HP and Saskia sitting on surfboards, the ocean shapeless behind them. They’re wearing leis and above their heads on fingers clasped together is the new glint of wedding rings.
“I’ve seen that photo before.”
“You didn’t attend the wedding?”
“I wasn’t invited. Nobody was. It was in fucking Sydney.”
“Ezra wasn’t best man?”
“Saskia’s brother. He was, like, twelve.”
Novak rests his hands in his lap. “Would you have gone if you had been invited? Would you have looked happy in the photographs?”
He’s definitely getting to know me.
“Did you get them a gift at least?”
“I framed a photo of HP, me and Ezra from grad and sent it in the mail. It cost me a lot to send. I never heard if it got to them.”
“They decided to move back here and had a party in Cove when they returned.” It’s not a question. Novak’s putting it all together for me. How kind. “You went to the party with your old pal Freddy Montgomery. And this was . . .” He’s flipping pages again. “. . . six years ago?”
I chew my thumbnail, hoping he won’t ask me the next question, but it’s inevitable. “So at the party when they moved back, she must have been—”
“Pregnant.”
“With their daughter.” He looks up. “With HP’s child.”
It’s the detail he’s been waiting for, and he watches my face. Every muscle in my being tightens so that no emotion escapes me.
chapter
* * *
14
It’s dark outside now. Once in a while, the sweep of a car’s headlights crosses the far wall as new visitors pull into the police station parking lot. The clock hand jars past twelve.
Novak’s been gone for hours. He just up and left with Freddy’s private letters. For a guy who’s got me for only a limited time, he’s letting a lot of the night slip away. At around ten, a policeman with thick ears and a ruddy face brought me a plate of macaroni, which he deposited wordlessly onto the table, clattering me a fork. The macaroni had congealed on the plate. I didn’t touch it.
I’m desperate to sleep, but there’s nowhere to lie down. Once in a while, I rest the side of my head on the table, the cool surface smooth against my ear; but my lower back curves awkwardly and soon enough I have to sit up again.
Has the whole department gathered by the coffee machine to talk about me? If I stay here much longer I’ll need a lawyer, because Novak is missing the point. If he spent more time actually listening, he’d be able to see the truth. Everything would become clear. It wouldn’t hurt, either, if he tried to be a little nicer. The only gesture of kindness was that cup of coffee and that never turned out to be real.
When HP left me and shacked up with Saskia, I lost any feeling of safety. Without him next to me, reality stopped being manageable: my brain wouldn’t flex anymore. HP took his happiness and spent it elsewhere, blanketed other people in it, while here I’ve been miserable for six years straight, not that anyone’s noticed. It’s a longer sentence than some people serve in jail. By day, it’s the boredom that gets me. Most people seem able to pad themselves with things they hope to learn or buy or achieve, but everything they’re aiming at is dull. Why bother to pretend that life’s not ultimately unsatisfying?
I read once that in a game of cat and mouse, the only way for the mouse to win is to walk willingly into the cat’s mouth. I think about that a lot. Futility’s staring directly at us. We should just stop running.
The truth is, I didn’t know Saskia was pregnant when I showed up to that garden party. When I told my mom they were having a wedding celebration, she closed her eyes and kept them shut for the best part of a minute. She was drinking coffee at the time, the steam from the cup curling around her chin. When she finally opened her eyes, they glistened with tears.
“I can’t believe he’s going through with it. Are you all right, darling? Why on earth are you going to their party?”
“Just to see HP.”
“That poor lost boy. Well, don’t engage with the Australian. Petitjean women do not allow others the opportunity to gloat.”
By the kitchen cupboard, Dad let out a wheeze of air that sounded like sarcasm. He was stirring sugar into a cup of tea.
“Is there something I can help you with, David?” My mother’s fingers gripped her coffee mug so hard that her fingertips pressed white near the rim. “Or did you have something to add?”
“Come on, Shelley. Can’t people marry who they want to marry?”
“Yes, but sometimes they regret their decision later,” Mom snapped back.