10.

‘You’re telling me honestly, truthfully, in absolute earnest, you had no idea these existed?’ Claire asked with misty eyes as she returned the final page of the letters to the pile on my motel room’s benchtop.

‘No, I mean yes, fuck,’ I replied, trying to manage my nerves and a lighter. ‘I told you, Mum always said the first she heard of him after he vanished was during the coroner’s first international call.’

‘And you didn’t read them all?’

‘I couldn’t. I got to the second one and it was like my body started rejecting them.’

‘I think you should.’

I ignored her, staring at the downward-facing pile.

‘He mentions buying a car to travel across the country …’ I mumbled, my curiosity punctuated by a half-baked attempt at upward inflection.

Claire didn’t want to play this game, trying to outlast the silence but soon losing. Pursing her lips, she nodded with tight, concise movements.

‘And did he really die in September that year like she told me …?’

Her tongue crept out, wetting a dry bottom lip before it was pinched between teeth. Her eyes went pink again as she turned her head left then right – only a few degrees, but enough.

‘Fuck me,’ I said, blowing smoke and feeling another twang of nausea as I ran my hands through my hair and squeezed the back of my neck as if it were the only thing keeping me upright.

‘You need to read them, Mark. All of them.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that man’s already taken enough from me. I’m not letting him take the only good memories I have of my mother as well. I mean, Jesus Christ, what kind of monster lies to her kid about his father being dead?’

‘Come on, don’t speak like that. She was a kind woman and I think she had her reasons. It sounds to me like he – like your dad – might have had his own as well.’

‘You’re defending him now too, are you serious? I don’t care if he can string a sentence together; I don’t believe a word of this hollow, pseudo-sincere wank. Putting a bow on ugly things doesn’t make them any less ugly.’

‘I’m not defending him, Mark, I’m just saying –’

‘You know, the only thing you two share is neither of you were around to see the damage caused. The nights I had to listen to my mother cry herself to sleep, watching her stay alone because no man could undo what my father did. Being branded a “fatherless bastard” and told he left because of me by the kids at school. I’ve never even left Melbourne because I couldn’t stand the idea of not being here if she needed me. And her – you never even met her, what the hell would you know?’

‘I didn’t have to. I heard the way you spoke about her. There was love in your words, Mark, pure love. The kind I’m beginning to think you don’t believe you’re capable of anymore.’

‘Get out.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Just … get the fuck out of here.’

And that she did. Too many of my conversations were beginning to end with a slammed door. Maybe I truly was my parents’ son. I glanced between the letters and a rubbish bin in the corner, thinking they might be a good match for each other.

Sitting outside a café, I browsed a newspaper. A full-page ad caught my attention: an aerial shot of an expanse of buildings disappearing into the horizon, headed by: ‘Wake up in The City That Never Sleeps!’ I couldn’t figure out why on earth anyone would want that, but found myself scanning the fine print anyway.

My stay in the motel hit the two-week mark after what was supposed to be a few days. Anxiety crept in; I couldn’t bear to stay in my mother’s house, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Melbourne either. Something had to give. I read the first letter again and got annoyed at myself for feeling a throb of excitement and curiosity about what came next, as if I were betraying my mother with the thought. It was a shame, though: if the man who’d penned it hadn’t been such a loser, it might’ve made for a good read.

An apology to Claire seemed to stick, which I knew I didn’t deserve, but I had nothing else anymore. She came around and I told her I was taking a holiday after all.

‘Why New York City?’ she asked.

I produced the full-page advertisement I’d botched tearing from the paper.

‘Because of half an ad for it?’

‘Ah, never mind that. Look at it – doesn’t it look great?’

‘You can’t even stand the crowds in Melbourne. How would you cope in New York?’

‘It could be exciting. You said it yourself; I should go on a holiday.’

‘I did, but …’

‘What?’

‘If I answer and you tell me to leave again after I’ve come all this way, I’m going to stab you.’

‘Deal.’

She drew in a calming breath.

‘Are you sure this has nothing to do with those letters?’

‘What? I can’t visit an entire continent because of a few pieces of paper?’

‘It just seems less than coincidental considering the first of them was sent from New York, is all.’

‘Your point being?’

‘My point is I’m worried you think these letters are the beginning of something, instead of accepting they’re the end,’ she sighed. ‘You’re like this little race car full of pent-up energy, waiting for a green flag. You wanted your mum’s okay to dream bigger than Melbourne; some absent dad’s approval to feel like you’re worth more than dirt. I don’t think you’ll like what you find if you pursue this, Mark, and I don’t want you to be all alone if that happens.’

‘But if going to New York might help me put this to rest?’

‘Then, I guess …’ she looked to the ground and sucked a pout into one side of her mouth, then raised a hand and dragged an invisible flag back and forth through the air above us with sarcastic exaggeration.

I smiled and felt a wave of relief as I pulled her into me. She managed to force a ‘dickhead’ out between our lips as they met.