I’d never paid much attention to her because I’d known how my father viewed her—as a momentary indulgence, nothing serious. But clearly, something about her had sent up a red flag after a decade. I had to unravel that thread again by following the bread crumbs my past self had left for me.
Though from the force of the handwriting on the page—the pen having gone through the page in places—I’d been in a manic or excited state when I’d uncovered the information. Drinking down a bottle of water I’d bought from the service station when I filled up the tank on the way to Piha, I brushed back the mental whisper that I was losing it, seriously going nuts.
Instead of returning to the Cul-de-Sac, I drove all the way back to my city apartment.
Once inside, I went again to the safe in my study. It held photo albums, the precious originals of all the images of my mother I’d scanned. This, handling them physically, felt far easier, far more real, than going through the scans.
A small part of me hoped that maybe, because they were physical, I’d remember better.
Happy memories of childhood appeared page by page.
The trip to the beach when my mother had worn that yellow halter-neck swimsuit and huge sunglasses, the picture of glamour. I’d never thought about how it must’ve been for her when she first arrived in this country from her traditional and conservative village. Had she always fought against the strictures and been eager to throw off the trappings? Or had my father had to persuade her into her first swimsuit?
I couldn’t quite imagine the latter, but I remembered her saying, “If he’d stayed the asshole I married, we might’ve been happy. Unfortunately, he decided to up the asshole ante.” She’d been drunk then, a dramatic sylph in a red-sequined gown draped on a chaise longue, while I sat in an office chair I’d rolled in from my father’s study.
He’d been away for the month, off on a business trip to Europe.
Looking back, I accepted she shouldn’t have been talking about that kind of thing with her son, but that month had been the happiest of my childhood. I’d been wearing a tuxedo that night—she’d taken me along as her date to some fancy do—but the rest of that month, we’d done things like make the three-hour drive to Rotorua just to go on the luge.
Both of us had hammed it up in a selfie we’d taken before we got into the little one-person carts and careened down the winding track.
“That was so much fun!” she’d said at the bottom, the required helmet on her head and her face clear of makeup. “Let’s do it again.”
We’d done it five times before heading off for ice cream.
I ran my finger down the far-too-expensive photo she’d bought at the booth run by the luge operator. I’d rolled my eyes at the time and told her she was getting ripped off, but that photo of us coming down the hill, my mother behind me, both of us grinning with glee, was one of my favorites.
But that wasn’t what I was looking for, so I forced myself to carry on.
Where the hell was it? I knew I hadn’t imagined it. Then again, maybe everyone who hallucinated thought that way. Should’ve asked Dr. Jitrnicka. Hey, Doc, if I don’t know I’m crazy, does that make me crazy?
There.
My eye fell on the image taken at a company picnic. I wasn’t in the photo because I’d been the one taking it. My father, my mother, three of his employees. Including his secretary. A cliché buxom blonde so dewy with youth she might as well have been plucked fresh from the tree.
Ignoring the people in the shot, I took in the scenery around them: it consisted of cars.
For some reason, we’d stopped in the car park and I’d taken a snap. Judging from the smiles on everyone’s faces, it had been a good day, and everyone had wanted one more memento. Even my mother looked content, her hand on my father’s chest as she hugged him from the side with her other arm.
The secretary, short and curvy, was at the opposite end of the group.
Behind her sat her car.
That was what I’d remembered. A car with a pastel-mauve paint job.
“Can you believe she spent good money recoating her car, and that’s the color she chose?” my mother had said with a laugh. “It’ll