Aiden didn’t respond. He gazed straight ahead in that same uninterested way. I clicked on the radio and tried to stop myself wondering what was in his mind. All the knowledge was there but he refused to let it out. That was when I realised I was angry with him. I couldn’t help it. I was angry with Aiden for not communicating with me. And I was suspicious. I was suspicious of everything.
“Why don’t you talk?” I said, banging the steering wheel. “Why won’t you tell me?”
I ran a red light. If Jake had been there he would have forced me to pull over and driven the rest of the way home. He would have hated to see me in this state. But he wasn’t there. It was only Aiden, who didn’t seem perturbed by my unhinged state in the least. All he did was stare out through the windscreen—staring and thinking and not reacting to anything around him. Maybe Jake was right. Maybe he was a vegetable.
No, I wouldn’t believe it. A vegetable doesn’t paint. A vegetable doesn’t acknowledge my words. There was the time he nodded at me, and the time where I thought I heard him singing—unless it had been a figment of my imagination…
As the streets faded one into another I took deep breaths and eased my foot off the accelerator. The paper bag from the pharmacy sat on Aiden’s lap. My heart was pounding all the way home. When I checked the rearview mirror, the black transit van was back. I pulled in to my drive and swore. Even more reporters were clustered all around the house.
The transit van stopped a little way down the street. I was right—they’d been following me around as I went about my day-to-day chores, hanging around in a transit van like the mob following a target.
The front door burst open and Denise stepped out. She rushed over to the door and opened Aiden’s side, as a swarm of people with cameras and microphones gathered around us.
“What’s going on?” I shouted. “How did you get in the house?”
“Jake let me in earlier.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“We need to get inside. There’s been a development,” she whispered.
“It must be a big one.”
She nodded. “It is.”
“Aiden, what’s it like being in the real world? Aiden, do you still have an attachment to your kidnapper?” yelled a reporter.
I turned away from Denise and Aiden, stepped down the path towards the reporters at the end of the drive, and clenched both of my fists. I was hot all over despite the chill in the air. “Fuck off and leave us alone! This is fucking private property and you’re trespassing. I mean it. Leave us alone. LEAVE US ALONE!”
I was shaking as Denise wrapped an arm around my shoulder and guided me back up the path to the door.
23
“I’m putting the kettle on,” said Denise. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute and try to calm down.”
I was pacing the length of the kitchen, rubbing my belly in circular motions. It was less than two weeks to my due date and I was supposed to be nesting, not yelling at reporters. I was supposed to be making the house pretty, buying pink booties and hanging a mobile above the crib like a pregnancy montage in an 80s romantic comedy.
“What’s happened? Why are the reporters like rabid dogs again?”
“Sit down for a moment, Emma.” Denise flicked the switch to turn the kettle on.
In the interest of getting the information faster, I sank my backside down onto a dining chair. Then I opened my hands and shrugged to prompt her to continue.
“The police have asked Jake to go to the station for questioning.”
“What?” I could feel my blood pressure rising. “Why?”
She spoke slowly, in the same way I’d seen teachers talking to agitated students. “I don’t know all the details. I think they want to go over Jake’s statement for the day Aiden went missing.”
“It can’t be Jake. Aiden has lived here with him for days now. Don’t you think Aiden would have reacted? It can’t be. I know him. He’s my husband. This is his baby. Anyway, how would Jake have had the time to keep a boy locked away for ten years?”
“Now, I’m not saying that it is Jake. I’m not saying that at all. But, wives have been lied to in the past and husbands have found ways to conduct all kinds of heinous and time-consuming activities.” She poured water into two mugs. “But I’m not saying that Jake did it, okay? All I know is that he’s been asked to answer a few questions to help the investigation. It could be nothing.”
“Fat lot of good you are.” My brain-to-mouth filter had stopped working due to the intense stress of the day. “If you can’t even tell me why they’re questioning Jake.”
Denise was very quiet as she stirred the milk into the tea.
“Or maybe you won’t tell me. That’s more likely.”
“My job is to aid you through this difficult process. Doing that is my priority, which is why my colleagues might feel it necessary to hold back information at times like this. I’m here to help, okay? I know this is hard. Now, have a cuppa and try to relax. You have the baby to think about.”
“Oh yes, I forgot I’m a walking incubator,” I snapped as I took the tea from her. Then I shrugged and sighed. “Sorry. Difficult day. I’m getting fed up with everyone expecting me to put the baby first. I am, of course, but I matter too, you know.”