Page 51 of Deep Blue Lies

FIFTY

“What did she say?” I ask.

“She went back to her room, she packed her bag. And she was walking back to the harbour, when she saw something on the beach. I don’t know what made her go look, with all that going on. Divine intervention maybe?” He stops again but stares through me.

“What did she see?”

I hold my breath. Yet he takes his time.

“It was just sitting there. On the sand.”

“What was?”

He lets out a slow breath. “The car seat. The baby was still strapped inside it. This little baby, four weeks old – whatever it was. I don’t know. It was alive. It didn’t have a scratch on it.”

I’m silent. I feel my mouth hanging open.

“It was a miracle. Seriously, there’s no other word for it, no way to explain it.

It didn’t just survive the capsize, it must have floated for a mile before it got washed up.

But on top of that, it was Karen who found it, before anyone else even saw it.

” He shakes his head. “No one else saw. She was able to get it back to her room, clean it up, give it dry clothes and some milk or whatever it needed, and it was fine . When I saw her, she’d just got back from Mandy’s room.

She’d given it back. Happy as you like. No one saw, no one knew.

Our worlds ended . Then just like that, we were off the hook. ”

I don’t know what to say.

“What did you do?” I manage in the end.

He shrugs. “I mean right then? I probably did another line.” He looks at me suddenly, his face breaking into a grin like he’s still feeling the relief.

But it fades away, and I find he’s still watching me.

Watching for something. And deep down I know what it is.

But it’s hard to let myself think it. Hard to let it in.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He stares at me for a while. I hear him sucking his teeth.

“I don’t exactly know. You send me this crazy email, telling me Karen’s your mother but you don’t know anything about how you were born. I don’t know…” His voice fades out. “I don’t know why I told you. I figured you maybe deserved to know.”

I want to ask: know what? And why. But I already know what he’s hinting at.

How can I not? My birthday, my supposed birthday, is exactly a month before all this happened.

The same birthday as the baby in this incredible story.

I close my eyes, and in a flash I can see it all – the ocean, rolling and lurching.

I’m there now, in that car seat, the terror, bewilderment of seeing the yacht disappear into the distance in front of me. I feel the bite of salt in my throat.

Except of course I don’t. I couldn’t. I can’t.

I snap my eyes open, my pulse hammering. I look down at my hands on the table, they’re shaking. I have to bring this back to reality. To focus on something simple.

“What about Karen? What did she do next?”

He shakes his head lightly, as if I’ve shifted his train of thought too. “I don’t remember.” He seems careless now, this isn’t an important detail for him. “Went back to her room, I guess. We were tired. Emotionally wrung-out, you know? And then of course, that night…” A shadow comes over his face.

“What?” For a second I’ve actually forgotten.

“That was the night. When Jason lost it. He stoved Mandy’s head in, blew his own head off.

But this little baby.” His eyes are on mine, deep, blue, unblinking.

“It goes and survives again .” He’s quiet a moment.

“You ask me, that says something. I don’t know what exactly.

But maybe something’s meant to be.” He keeps looking, his blue eyes piercing into mine, but I can’t handle what he’s implying.

I don’t even know what he’s implying, not exactly.

Only that it’s something. Some unspoken signal that I feel him beaming into me, or trying to.

“What?” I ask in the end, looking down at the table to escape his gaze.

“Karen’s never spoken about this? Never hinted at it?”

“No. Never.”

There’s a pause, a humourless chuckle.

“What’s she like, these days?”

The sudden banality of the question knocks me sideways, I give a little laugh of my own, at the mental shift he’s asking me to make.

“She’s…I dunno – she’s just like always.” I stop. I remember her from the diary. How immature she sounded then. That isn’t the woman I know as my mother. “She said once how having me made her grow up in a hurry.” I risk a glance back up at his face. This seems to be what he expects to hear.

“I bet it did.” He shakes his head again, with something of a grin this time.

“So what’s she up to? She working?”

We’re really doing this, this line of questions.

“She runs a chain of pharmacies, we have three of them.”

“Nice.” He absorbs this without further reaction.

“I’m not…without regret, you know?” he goes on after a moment.

“I’ve wondered whether what happened that day contributed to what Jason did.

I don’t understand how exactly. Karen told me she never said anything to Mandy, but maybe she did?

Or maybe Mandy guessed, found out? Told Jason?

And that somehow flipped him out? I don’t know.

He was wound pretty tight. All of us knew that.

” He breathes quickly, pulling himself back in his chair.

“What I’m telling you, Ava, I carry a burden of guilt over that, and I always will.

But at the same time, if Jason was the kind of dude to beat his girlfriend to death, then perhaps it was always gonna happen, just a matter of time?

Either way. I’ve chosen to focus on the other thing.

There were three people saved that day. Not just the baby, but Karen. And me.”