‘I know you. We are … family,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s look inside the building over there.’
Marie looked where he pointed. The place gave her the chills.
‘Are you a police officer?’ Marie asked. ‘They look like the glasses that motorbike police wear on TV.’ She looked at the building again. ‘I don’t want to go over there. Where are my children?’
The man’s shoulders slumped.
‘Did you take them?’
‘Maybe Jack has taken them to get ice-cream,’ the man said.
Marie whipped around, fast. He wasn’t prepared. ‘Jack wouldn’t do shit for my kids. Who are you?’ and with a quick swipe, she knocked the glasses from his face.
‘You’re him!’ she said. ‘I’d know those eyes anywhere.’
***
He signalled for a nurse. His mum was crying and yelling and telling him to leave. Each time he’d come to visit, he’d had to find a new disguise – a way to mask his eyes. Was it the glasses, though, or something that he’d said?
Maybe next time, he could do something different, and they could just hang out, like they used to. He’d have to speak to the nurse again and see what she suggested.
‘Bye, Mum,’ he said, as the nurse took her inside.
