Jack had listened to my story, trying to suppress a look of horror, with the occasional tactful interjection. But now he was silent, just shaking his head and looking out at the horizon.
‘Silvia?’ he said at last.
‘Yes?’
‘How come they didn’t kill you when they came for your parents?’
‘I don’t know Jack. I told you, I don’t know.’
He wanted to know how exactly I’d found out the real reason my parents were killed. I didn’t want to lie to him. It didn’t feel right. But I felt that it wasn’t necessary to tell him everything just yet. It didn’t seem relevant. My answer wasn’t a complete lie though. It was half true.
‘Books,’ I said.
When I was finally free to leave my artificial and fabricated family, I moved out. Not long after settling into my new place I fell in love with books. If I could give one piece of advice to politicians it would be this: you want a dumb nation? Close all the libraries and book shops.
You get a lot from reading, at least that’s what I found. Because almost all books are about people: their lives, stories, experiences and all the details that go with them. And so, naturally, by reading other people’s stories, I was drawn to my own. To the details.
At first I read children’s storybooks. It was through the easy-reads that I taught myself to finally properly read English. Then all sorts of books. Historical fiction, romance, biographies, classic novels. The books helped me delve deep into my memories. For years I’d been taught to not ask questions, and finally something – perhaps inevitable – happened inside me, a light turned on.
I made sense of the world through books and art. Books I consumed and art I created. It wasn’t necessarily a logical sense I was making of the world, but if nothing else the world certainly seemed less senseless when I read and when I created.
The money I received every month from the Cruz family was obscene. They were wealthy but even this seemed extravagant for them. At first I thought it was guilt money because they’d not fought hard enough to keep me when I moved out and drifted away from them. Then I started to think that maybe it was a compensation for the fact my mother got killed. Maybe it was filtering down from a higher power. I hadn’t put all the dots together yet, and perhaps I didn’t really want to. I had been taught for years to not ask too many questions, and I didn’t want to overthink it. In fact, I didn’t want to think about it at all.
I kept quiet. I kept myself to myself. I hadn’t yet learned the art of communication. All those years with my fake family had been years of solitude of a strange kind. I’d been surrounded by people, and yet I’d felt utterly alone. Like there was a constant invisible and impenetrable barrier between me and them. No matter how close we appeared to get there was always a feeling of limit, of never fully being able to let go. I was my only friend. Why? Because I was terrified. My mind created monsters and I didn’t know whether they were real or fantasy.
The monthly payments, and the simple fact I was still alive. It didn’t add up. But the hardest part was the fear. The feeling that I was being observed. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it was paranoia. After all, it had been years, they should have forgotten about me by now. Perhaps. But it didn’t stop the monsters in my mind. I was still running away from the bullet that I was spared from that night.
Who could I possibly turn to anyway? How can you run for help to the authorities when the authorities are probably the ones you’re running away from? I kept my mouth shut so they’d have nothing to find. Nothing to see here. Just a normal life, a normal girl. I didn’t want any trouble and I didn’t want any more grief. I tried to give the appearance of living the most ordinary life I possibly could. Stay out of sight and out of mind.
I had enough money to not have to work. But I did work. I imagined it might keep me a little saner. Art was my distraction. The time I spent drawing, painting, sourcing art supplies, curating exhibitions, selling my work, all of that was time that kept me from thinking about other things. I don’t know what I would have been like if I didn’t have my art. I think I would have been even more of an outcast, more of a misfit. Maybe I’d have been drowning all the pain in alcohol and drugs on a daily basis, roaming the streets, maybe I’d be dead. All that time to think, I’m sure it would have killed me by now in some way. Maybe art was my drug, a drug that helped me to see the bright side, reminded me to focus on the beauty. And other times it was simple, pragmatic distraction.
*
The sun hid behind a cloud and a pleasant breeze blew over us. I stopped talking. There was probably more to say, but I felt I had come to some kind of close.
Could it be true that after all these years my story had been vocalised? Had I really just done this or was I asleep? Would I wake up and think thank fuck that didn’t actually happen! Or would I think, shit, that dream felt so good, I need to tell someone?
It all felt so strange, I actually had to laugh.
Jack was silent, lost for words perhaps. I felt exhausted. I lay back on the boulder, stared up at the sky. A tear rolled down from the corner of my eye. I wiped it away quickly and closed my eyes and breathed deep.
‘It’s all so insane, isn’t it?’ I laughed. I was waiting for some kind of response or reaction.
‘Silvia?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you never thought to bring this forward to a lawyer, to someone who could help you?’
I laughed, but I didn’t even answer him. The simple answer would have been yes, it had crossed my mind, but the fear of being found out had always been too strong. It was far easier to live by their rules of silence.
‘Because you just did.’