“Well, I would have,” I answer. “But some woman hijacked my car, so …”
She almost smiles. And slightly loosens her grip on the belt. “You were going to pay your respects?”
I was going to get closure.
“Sure,” I tell her.
Something like regret creeps into her body, shifting muscles awkwardly, and I try to stifle it before it takes over.
“I can do that some other way,” I reassure her. “Funerals aren’t for everyone.”
She doesn’t seem convinced but nods.
I look over her shoulder and out through the open car window. Really, I chose the most inauspicious location for this conversation. It’s nothing but a dusty road and a picnic table, but that’s the thing with Evie. She blurs backgrounds. When we were younger, she’d let me practice street photography down dirty city alleyways, beside dumpsters and graffiti-covered walls. Even now, I want to take pictures of her, raw and messy and anxious. I’m shocked at how easily I could let her slip back into the role of muse in my world. For so long, she was the story I wanted to capture, until the images corrupted and all the editing in the world wouldn’t rally the happy ending I’d hoped for.
“Thank you for … going along with the hijacking,” she says. “If you hadn’t—”
My journalistic colleagues are out for blood. Since the accident, Evie has had a target on her back. Add to that the uproar her exit would have caused in the family itself, and I can see why she took a chance on me. That, and the fact she has no idea who I really am.
Evie’s childhood home is a turn-of-the-century terrace house in Cooks Hill, Newcastle, just a block from the bustling cafés and boutiques of Darby Street. The weatherboard cladding issporting a fresh coat of duck-egg-blue paint, and the wrought-iron fence is rusty, its hinges squeaking as she pushes through the gate.
“Every crack in the concrete is familiar.” She places a hand on the trunk of a fig tree beside the front steps, tracing the knot in the bark as if she’s greeting an old friend.
I watch as she scans the items on the veranda. Terra-cotta pots filled with tired annuals. A white macramé hammock chair, swinging in the afternoon breeze. Her body stills at the sight of a blue-and-red plastic tricycle. Then she knocks on the door, hard and sharp. Ready to put an end to this agony.
Footsteps approach.
“It’s not them,” she whispers before the door opens. Footsteps are like fingerprints. Indelible proof of a person, locked in from years of tramping the earth.
A woman is standing there barefoot in a faded denim sundress. Late thirties. Fractious toddler on her hip. The little girl is wielding a yogurt-covered spoon, which she drags through her mother’s blond hair, and along what looks like her last nerve.
Evie can’t seem to speak.
“Hello,” I say, stepping forward.
The child beams at me, and the mother shifts away from us, wary. “I’m not buying anything,” she says, already reaching to close the door. “Sorry, it’s not a good time.”
It looks like it never would be.
“We’re not selling anything,” I offer quickly, worried she’ll shut us out.
“I grew up here,” Evie adds, her voice thin. “I’m looking for Christine and David Hudson?”
The woman visibly relaxes after hearing Evie’s parents’names, now that it’s clear we’re not hawking solar panels or eternal salvation. “Oh, yes,” she says more openly, shifting the toddler to her other hip. “They were the previous owners.”
Evie’s body stills as mine moves unconsciously into the gap between us.
“Was this a deceased estate?” she asks, her hand shooting to my arm.
“Gosh, no! I couldn’t buy a house from dead people!”
There’s visceral relief. Evie lets go of me, then smooths the creases she made in my sleeve until I shrug her off and step back. She’s always been touchy-feely to my keeping people at arm’s length.
“No, the Hudsons were lovely.” The woman pops the squirming toddler on the floor at her feet. When she stands again, her face is a picture of compassion. “Did you know them?”
Evie tries to answer, but chokes.
“It was a reluctant sale on their part,” the woman continues. “They said there were too many memories here, in the house. And in the city. Moved north, I think. Or maybe west?”
