She smiled softly, as though they both knew the answer to that question. No, no, no. Jake looked over at the corner of the room, where the short corridor led to the stairs. There was no way he could go down there. He couldn’t face what might be waiting at the bottom.
“I can’t do that!”
“But what if it’s Daddy at the door?”
Which was exactly what Jake had hardly been daring to think. That maybe Daddy did want to find him after all, and that somehow he had, and that it was him who was downstairs now.
It was too much to hope for.
“Daddy would come up and get me.”
“Only if he knows you’re here. He might not be sure.” She thought about it. “Maybe you need to meet him halfway.”
Jake shook his head. It was too much to ask.
“I can’t go down there.”
The little girl was silent for a moment.
Then:
“Tell me about the nightmare,” she said quietly.
Jake shut his eyes.
“It’s about finding Mummy, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve never told anybody about it before, not even Daddy. Because you’re so scared of it. But you can tell me now.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she whispered. “I’ll help you. You walk into the living room, and the house feels empty. Daddy’s not there, is he? He’s still outside. So you walk across the living room.”
“Don’t,” Jake said.
“It’s sunny.”
He scrunched his eyes shut, but it didn’t help. He could remember the angle of sunlight through their old back window.
“You walk so slowly, because you can feel that something is wrong. Something is missing. Somehow, you already know that.”
And now he could see the back door, the wall, the handrail.
All revealed in stages.
And then—
“And then you see her,” the little girl said. “Don’t you?”
This wasn’t a nightmare, so there was no way to wake up and stop the image from appearing. Yes, he saw Mummy. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, her head tilted to one side and her cheek resting against the carpet. Her face was pale, even slightly blue, and her eyes were closed. It had been a heart attack, Daddy told him afterward, which didn’t make sense because that was something that happened to older people. But Daddy said that sometimes it happened to younger people too, maybe if their hearts were too … and then he’d trailed off and started crying. They both had.
But that was afterward. In that moment, he’d just stood there, understanding what he was seeing in a way his mind couldn’t make sense of, because the feelings were all too big.
“I saw her,” he said.
“And?”
“And it was Mummy.”
Just Mummy. Not a monster. The monstrous thing was how it had made him feel and what it meant. In that moment, it had seemed like a part of him was lying there instead, and that he would never have the words to describe the world of emotions that exploded inside him, as big as the way the Big Bang had made the universe.
But it had just been Mummy. He didn’t need to be scared of her.
“We need to go downstairs now.” The little girl put her hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
Jake opened his eyes and looked at her. She was still there, and somehow more real than ever, and he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone who loved him so much.
“Will you go with me?” he said.
She smiled.
“Of course I will. Always, my gorgeous boy.”
Then she stood up, and reached out, and took his hands, pulling him to his feet.
“What are we being?” she said.
Sixty-five
“I’m sorry. I’m going now.”
I wasn’t even sure who I was apologizing to. Saunders, I supposed, for arriving on his doorstep and accusing him, frightening him, without any real evidence. But the apology also went deeper than that. It was to Jake. To Rebecca. To myself, even. In some way or other, I’d let all of us down.
I looked back at Karen. She was still holding the phone to her ear, but she shook her head at me again.
“Look,” Saunders said carefully. “It’s okay. Like I said, I know you’re upset. And I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now. But…”
He trailed off.
“I know,” I said.
“I’m happy to talk to the police. And I hope you find him. Your son. I hope this is all some kind of mistake.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded, and I was about to head back to the car when I heard a noise coming from somewhere in the