When I wake again it’s a quarter past one in the afternoon. Push myself to sitting, look at the low, lumbering clouds, full and heavy like swollen cows’ udders. Nausea rises. ‘Tommy?’ My voice skips and scratches. ‘Listen, Tommy… Mummy’s got her witch’s voice today!’ No response and the TV is muted. Force myself to stand, the ground beneath my feet shifting – a whole-body seasickness.
The kitchen has been scrubbed, sparkling. Did I do all this last night, or this morning? When? My boys? Wait – ‘Tommy? Herbie? Tommy?’ Breathe, Sonya, breathe, breathe, breathe. Pull on my jeans and a warm hoodie, fight the acid reflux by swallowing manically, fight the spins by holding on to any hard surface to hand. Keys? On the hook by the door. Another gem that Howard drummed into me. Slam the door behind me, the whole house shaking, and run to the green, adrenal glands in overdrive. There are three little children and a dad, someone I don’t recognise. ‘Excuse me, have you seen a big black dog and a little boy?’ The man looks at me like all men ultimately look at me, like I’m a strange creature that’s just crawled out from under a rock: should he stamp on me or run? This man grabs his three children and herds them away. That’s right, run away, you always do in the end. Rain starts to gather in the heavy clouds overhead. An image of my boys, lost and scared, rises up and slams me, winding me with the force of it. Where else would they go? The beach? The shops? I run to the corner Spar. ‘Have you seen a little boy and a big black dog?’ The boys behind the counter shake their heads, then snigger. ‘It’s not funny, you assholes, a little boy is missing…’ They stop laughing. ‘Haven’t seen him, missus.’ Run on to the main road searching for a flattened black coat, insides trailing, blood oozing, all worst-case scenarios playing out. ‘Herbie? Good boy, Herbie, good boy.’ My voice is ripping from me. Herbie would never let anything happen to Tommy, as long as the stupid mutt hasn’t stepped out into oncoming traffic. Everything else he instinctively understands, except for that one kink, where he’ll see a car and barrel into its path. I run back to the park and perch on the swing, pushing it into motion with my feet, hearing Tommy’s voice in my ear: ‘High, higher, highest.’ The movement helps offset the mounting sense of panic. Lift my face towards the sky, the lightly falling drizzle cooling my hot cheeks. How long has Tommy been missing? An hour, five? Who could I call? My father? The thought is swiped as soon as it surfaces. Howard? He’d say this was bound to happen. The guards? – but what kind of a backlash might come from a call like that?
My feet take off, slipping in my flip-flops on the wet tarmac as they run towards the house directly opposite ours, with its clipped hedge and planted borders, front door an innocuous brown, in keeping with the rest of the street. Why didn’t I think of this in the first place? I knock politely, three times, wait, then knock again and again, louder and louder, fuck propriety, until the door opens a crack. ‘Have you seen Tommy?’ Mrs O’Malley points behind her into the kitchen, where Tommy is sitting at a table, a book in front of him, Herbie at his feet. Rage rips through me. ‘Didn’t you stop to fucking think I might be worried?’
Mrs O’Malley pulls the door behind her and steps outside. ‘Not in front of the child. You didn’t get the note, then?’
Note or no note, how dare this woman go into my house and take my boys?
‘Your front door was wide open this morning. You had me worried.’
Breathe, swallow, restraint. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ I bring my thumbnail to my mouth and tear the quick with my teeth. Need to pull this back. ‘It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.’ This last word visibly softens Mrs O’Malley, who opens the door wider so Tommy is fully visible, so beautiful, lost in his own world, dunking biscuits and drinking milk. ‘Such great concentration.’ She speaks low and nods in his direction. Have I missed something? ‘It’s the Encyclopaedia Britannica and he’s enamoured with Australia and the marsupials.’ Has she told him about bushfires burning them alive? And why is my son allowing himself to drink milk from another animal? Have I not told him often enough? Why have I not run to him and engulfed him in one of my hugs, squeezing the breath from him? Mrs O’Malley gestures at me to come into the living room and sit on the rustling couch, which looks like it’s still wrapped in the plastic covering it was delivered in decades ago.
‘Tommy was very hungry this morning, Sonya.’