now she’s an angel. She tells me that she’s taking classes, that she studies a lot, that she’s working a decent job in a very chic café (her own words) and that she and her husband absolutely love her. She even sleeps in Cameron’s room.
As Mrs Malkovich is talking, Francisca comes downstairs. My Fran – beautiful as a precious stone. Diamond and lava, both together. She smiles, and this makes me feel good. The last time I saw her she was crying because she thought I was going to die.
We hug. My heart doesn’t break. Desire doesn’t overwhelm me. I feel only a deep affection.
‘Hey, kid,’ I say to her, even though she’s no kid now, ‘you’re looking great.’
‘You too. How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Me too, you know? It’s strange, and even a little scary sometimes, but . . . it’s like I’m a kid again. They treat me like a twelve-year-old with the flu. I don’t know how long it’ll last. Maybe I’ll sneak out one night and take all the silver with me, but for now . . . I kind of want to be twelve. I never got to have that.’
Then, without further comment, I shoot her the question I’ve been dying to ask. ‘Did Penny come by here before she left? Do you have any idea where she is?’
Francisca cocks her head to one side and looks at me. ‘You’re still in love with her,’ she says. It’s not a question, it’s a statement.
In an instant, the spark in her eyes disappears and her gaze clouds over. I don’t know what she feels for me after two years and everything that’s happened. I stopped her from writing to me; I rejected her without words. I abandoned her, but she never stopped being special to me; she is me, she’s my sister, she’s my mother. She was my pillar during those broken days of my youth. My blanket on cold nights. Without her I’d have died at sixteen. She saved my life when I was hungry and when my heart was more fragile than an eggshell. She offered me her wounded body. And now she’s looking at me with these sad eyes like two inkblots, and it almost seems like she’s about to cry black tears. And yet I cannot and will not lie to her. No more bullshit, no more words that say no when my thoughts and my blood are screaming the opposite. So, quite simply, I nod and stare back into her eyes. It’s the truth – a truth that has kept me in hell for two years and three months.
Francisca slowly looks down, bites her lip and seems to be struggling with some thought of her own. For a moment the warrior girl of the past returns, the one we both want to pack away into legend now. Finally, her new self admits in a melancholy little voice, ‘Please believe me, but I don’t know. All I heard was that she went away just before you went back to prison. But . . .’
‘But?’
‘But I do know she loved you.’
She leads me to the couch, sits me down and tells me a story. I listen to it, giving no indication of how I’m feeling inside, which is to say I look exactly the same as ever, but feel like I’ve just swallowed a ball of flame. I think back to that night, to her words, to her face and her trembling body. My need to get her back is so strong and painful. For a moment I close my eyes, my fists clench, hard as iron, and I feel more alone than any castaway. Francisca, meanwhile, is watching me uncertainly; I guess she’s expecting me to explode any minute, but instead I stroke her cheek. I can’t be mad at her, even if what she did probably wrecked my whole life and any chance of happiness. I can’t bring myself to be mad at her, with those beautiful sad eyes – the eyes of a goddess.
As I leave I think, I love you, my little Fran, the light of my youth. You helped keep me alive when I was a boy. And yet, I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know why . . . but as a man, it’s Penny I can’t live without.
She’s just gone. Vanished. Not even Sherrie knows where she is. I’ve tried calling her number, but it’s no longer active. All I have left of her is a