Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
“Oh, maybe a half hour on the bus. A bit faster on the train.” She smiles past me. “Elise!”
“Mom!”
I turn around, seeing a young girl running toward the car. Dragging a backpack. I put my hand behind me, tactically keeping my back to the car while the lady jumps out of the driver’s side and runs around the front, embracing the girl. Mother and daughter.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” she sobs into her daughter’s neck. I can feel the strength of her hug from simply observing. And feel my heartache at the same time. I never had the chance to grieve the loss of my mother. I was too terrified, too focused on staying alive. Avoiding pain as best I could.
Then Brad Black found me, and for the first time since she died, I felt safe. Cherished. The mother and daughter before me blur as my eyes well. But I can see they’re still cuddling.
* * *
I turn the doorknob, pushing my way into the bathroom, the sound of running water now deafening. I step in, looking down at my bare feet on a frown. Water. The whole floor is an inch deep in water. “Mum?” I say quietly, an odd uneasy feeling swirling in my tummy. I find the roll-top, claw-foot tub in the bay window. Water is pouring over the edge, the tap still running. I step through the water, lifting my nightdress up from my ankles, slowly getting closer to the tub. But something inside holds me back from taking that final step to see over the edge. My heart pounds, so much I’m sure I might cough it up.
I inhale some bravery, moving forward. Inside the tub slowly comes into view.
Her face isn’t one I will ever forget. Eyes open. Staring up at the ceiling. Completely submerged.
“Mum,” I whisper. She’s naked.
And in her hand beneath the water, is her necklace.
* * *
I blink, holding up my unfinished cigarette, then I look over my shoulder. The lady and her daughter are still hugging. I drop my phone into the back of the car and go to a nearby bench, lowering. Finishing my cigarette.
* * *
“You want to have a bath?” I ask, instantly troubled. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Pearl, you can do anything in the world that you want to,” Brad says gently, sitting me by the sink. I look at the bath with narrowed eyes, hearing the sound of water pouring over the edge. “I’ve got you.”
* * *
He’s got me.
I had a bath for the first time in eight years. I listened to water running from a tap and made myself sustain it. Because he was there.
I hardly have the strength past my sob to take one last drag of my cigarette. But I try. Tasting Brad Black, Scotch, and his skin. I flick the butt away, my shoulders jumping from the effort to suppress my sobs, My eyes sting. Every single face I’ve come to know and love flashes through my mind, one after the other. Even the bloody dogs.
I sniff back my sadness, my reel of reminders finishing on the clearest face of all.
My love.
49
BRAD
* * *
“What’s happened?” Otto asks down the line as I speed away from the boatyard. “Jesus Christ, I take a few hours off, and all hell breaks loose.”
“I’ll fill you in soon.” I overtake a truck that’s chugging along at a painstakingly slow speed. “I need you to get your laptop out and check the tracker on Pearl’s phone.”
“For fuck’s sake, Brad, I’m trying to create a romantic, memorable day for Esther and all I’ve done is serve as your bitch. I just got back from dropping your last request off at the boatyard.”
“Please, Otto,” I beg. “It’s important.” I want answers, and I want them from Pearl. Her words, her mouth. I hear him muttering and cursing, a few thuds, a door closing, a lock engaging. He’s in the bathroom. Probably naked.
“She’s at Miami Station. Why is Pearl at Miami Station, Brad?”
“I said I’d fill you in s—”
“No, wait. She’s moving away from Miami station.”
Fuck! “Find out which train.”
“I don’t think she’s on a train. In a car, I think. Or on a bus.”
“Why would she go to Miami Station and then drive away from Miami Station?”
“I don’t fucking know, Brad. I have a tracker on her phone, not a spy camera.”
I should’ve had him put a fucking spy camera on her phone. “I’ll call you back.” I hang up and call Pearl, swerving through the traffic.
“Hello?” someone says, someone I don’t recognize.
I frown. “Who’s that?”
“This is Geraldine.”
“Why do you have . . . my friend’s phone?”
“I don’t know!” She laughs. “I just found it on the back seat when I stopped for some gas outside the train station.”
I glare at the windshield.
The little fucker.
50
PEARL
* * *
I wrestle with my bag, trying to push it up onto the overhead rack, puffing and panting.