Matthew Jamieson stared at the television screen. He’d live-paused it on the photograph then left it, scared to press play again in case it revealed something more horrible than he could bear.
The face haunted his dreams and chased sleep away. Not the still version of a calm schoolboy having his picture taken that the news crew had chosen, but the face twisted in a rictus of terror while he advanced closer.
Missing Man’s Body Found, read the headline below it. This long after the event, Matthew had begun to think that it would never happen. That the hills above Christchurch would keep their bounty a secret forever.
“Come on, Matthew,” his wife yelled from the kitchen. “It’s almost time to eat.”
“Coming.” He turned the TV off, still frozen on the image, then walked through to the bathroom to wash his hands before the meal. Even though he hadn’t been doing anything but paperwork, sometimes he needed the appearance of cleanliness to remind him that he was clean.
His wife set down a casserole pot that contained meals enough for six. This long after the boys had gone from home, Emilia still hadn’t downsized the portions she cooked to reflect the changed status of the family. It was as though if she continued to provide for them, the boys would be beckoned home.
Fat chance. If George and Thomas wanted to pop in, they had an hour and twenty-minute flight down from Auckland first. If Steven and Augie wanted to attend, they’d have to uproot their families from San Francisco first.
Not that any of their boys showed the slightest interest in their parents any longer. Emilia was forced to follow their activities on Facebook along with every other virtual friend. Letters home had never been a thing, not even by email. Comments went unanswered, the click of a button to like beyond the attention span of any of them.
“I went down to see Rosemary today,” his wife announced. “She’s recovering nicely from the surgery.”
Matthew nodded and mumbled, “Good, good,” hoping that he didn’t have to expand any further. He couldn’t for the life of him think who Rosemary was or what medical procedure she’d required. His wife talked about people all the time, and Matthew couldn’t keep any of them straight. Even when he met them, their faces blurred into one montage, all the same.
When the silence stretched out too long, Matthew said, “I think the fellow Andrew that I chatted with the other day is coming around at last. If he can stay the course, I think there’s a good chance he and his wife will have a good and lasting marriage.”
“Just like ours,” Emilia said, reaching out her hand and laying it over his. Matthew stared down at it for a moment, then moved it aside to go back to eating.
Back when he was a lad, there’d been a flush of true love that made him feel like every cell in his body was overheating. A girl who walked in front of him into his physics class, always flashing a little bit of leg. During summer months, he didn’t notice, but in winter the school uniform kilt she wore had crisp pleats that broke with the back and forth movement. He’d been so entranced that Matthew made sure to carry his books in two hands in front of him. No need to make himself into more of a laughing stock than he already was.
Emilia was nice, and Matthew’s mother had approved of her. Still, nothing she’d ever done had ever come close to repeating that feeling of friction and heat.
She was explaining something now, her cutlery dropped while she moved her hands about in expansive gestures. It only happened when she became truly passionate about a cause or a crusade. That’s how Matthew thought of them, anyhow, if he thought of them. Emilia’s little crusades.
What happens if she goes into your office and turns on the television? What will you say if she asks you about the man on the screen?
Matthew’s throat seized. He couldn’t swallow the masticated meat in his mouth. He put his hand up, ready to catch the food if it came back out, and ran for the sink. When he spat it out, the wasted food sat in a brown crushed lump. His mother’s voice rang in his ear, are you so spoiled that you can just throw away good food? Kids are starving to death in Africa.
“Matthew? What’s wrong?”
He ran water in the sink and started up the Wastemaster. When the pressure from the taps wasn’t enough, Matthew got a long-handled scrubbing brush from under the sink and pushed it down the drain. The water spinning into the black hole looked like a glaring eye.
“Didn’t you like the taste?” Emilia said, standing and wringing her hands together with worry. “I tried a new cayenne pepper but not too much. I know you don’t like hot food, but I thought a bit of spice would improve it.”
“The casserole is beautiful,” Matthew said, leaning further over the sink, staring back at its one baleful eye. What would it feel like to shove his arm in there? To feel the metal blades tear at his flesh and pulverize his bones?
He shuddered and stepped back, turning the machine off at the wall. “I just felt dizzy for a second,” he said. A shiver ran through his shoulders in mute support for his claim. “I thought I was about to choke, that’s all.”
Matthew clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Just a silly spell. Don’t worry about it. You were telling me about Rosemary?”
Emilia’s frown deepened, and she moved over to feel his forehead with the inside of her wrist. Matthew tried not to flinch back from her touch.
“I said, I’m okay,” he said, catching her arm and gently pushing it away from her face. “It was just a passing thing, nothing to be concerned about.”
“Come and eat the rest of your dinner, then,” Emilia said, her voice taking on a scolding tone that she may as well have inherited from his disapproving mother. “Before it gets cold.”
Bile gushed up the back of his throat, spilling over his tongue in a flood, burning, sour. Matthew grimly fought against the accompanying nausea, swallowing the unpleasant mouthful down into his uneasy stomach. “I think I’ll actually go and lie down for a while,” he said, turning toward the bedroom. “I might be getting one of my migraines.”
“Do you want me to call Dr. Phillips?” Emilia asked. “You haven’t had a migraine for years.”
Matthew hadn’t had a migraine ever, in fact, but it had made a quick and easy excuse for family obligations.
“There’s not much he can do,” Matthew said. “I’m sure if I can lie down in a dark room for a while, that’ll take care of the worst of it.”
“Do you want me to bring you—”
Matthew held up his hand, cutting her off mid-offer. “Nothing. Don’t do anything. I’ll rest on the couch in my office, so I don’t disturb you during the night.”
Emilia’s expression melted into one of gratitude. Probably thinking he was such a selfless husband to think of her when he was in pain. The bile ate away at the back of his throat, steadily rising once again. He needed to get to the television and get rid of that image. He needed to forget about everything that had happened when he was young.
Matthew turned away from the wife who was all he deserved and escaped to the solitude of his office room to sleep and forget.