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‘Doesn’t mean we’re not guilty. If he did what they say.’
If. . .
‘Because?’
‘Because we ignored what he was doing. Which means we effectively killed them too. They’d be alive if we’d acted differently.’
My mind goes to the pearl-handled penknife in my dresser drawer. Same place my mother kept the picture of the little girl who died, and the pin-pricked photo of my father.
Matty was more of a dad to me than Jame Brennan ever was. Jame, no ‘s’. An affectation to make him sound special. I laughed when I watched Silence of the Lambs. My father had the same name as Buffalo Bill. Jame Gumb. What is it about me and serial killers?
As usual, my mother echoes my thoughts.
‘Matty was a father to you, right from the start.’
I wipe my eyes on my sweater cuff. I don’t want anyone out here to see me crying. I have some pride.
‘He came to all my school shows,’ I say.
I could add, ‘unlike you’, but I don’t. He took time off work to be there. Sat in the front row with his ridiculous Nikon around his neck.
‘God, I was embarrassed. The size of that thing. The way he used to fiddle about with the lens, adjusting it to get the shot just right.’
She smiles. Her eyes are misty.
‘Him and his photographs.’
‘Remember all those pictures he used to take of you when you weren’t looking? How mad you used to get. You’ve got my bad side!’
‘Never mind all the randoms in the park.’
‘Human safari, isn’t that what he called it?’
‘People in the Wild.’
‘Yes, that was it.’
For a moment we’re reminiscing about a regular Joe we both loved. The person who made our lives whole.
But Matty wasn’t a regular Joe. And while he made our lives whole, he ripped others apart.
If. . .
‘We should head back,’ I answer. ‘It’s getting chilly.’
A man walks past in a deerstalker hat, gives me a funny look.
Let them look, Matty would have said. Screw ’em.
