Hard. Heavy. Long. Real long. ‘Okay… I married you because I loved you… love you, I mean. Happy?’
‘Happy? Are you serious? How could I ever be happy when there are three people in this marriage? Though in our case the third one happens to be a goddamn ghost.’
Cooper clenched his jaw. Felt the pulse on his temples. Decided to focus on something else. ‘I know I didn’t turn up to Cora’s party and I’m so sorry, but I know you, Maddie, and I know this isn’t just about that.’
Bitter and angry and hurt and sad and trying her damnedest not to cry, she spoke evenly. ‘You’re right. You promised me, Tom. You told me no more searching. No more disappearing. Remember?’
‘And I didn’t… I haven’t.’
‘Oh come on. I’m not stupid.’
‘Jesus, Maddie. If this is about Eritrea, I was just doing my job. Don’t make something out of nothing.’
‘Sounds a bit like our marriage.’
Cooper rubbed his face. Tried not to be drawn in. Felt irritated as hell. ‘Look, you need to get some sleep. Why don’t we go check into a motel? We can talk in the morning on our way home.’
Maddie picked up her keys from the side. ‘You know something, Tom? When we got together five and a half years ago, my daddy warned me about you. He told me not to do it. Told me you were going to hurt me.’
Iced. ‘Oh come on, Maddie, Marvin’s never liked me. I was never good enough for his precious daughter.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It is and you know it.’
‘What I know is I’ve become one of those women I never thought I’d become.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The woman who thinks they can change the guy. Tries to save him but ends up drowning themselves. But you know what, no more… ’ She paused to sweep the mass of brown curls out of her face. She glanced down at nothing in particular. A faraway look in her eyes. ‘I’m leaving you, Tom.’
‘What? Oh come on, Maddie, don’t make this a big deal.’
‘You still don’t get it. There really isn’t any other way. And you know what? It hurts so bad because I love you so much, but I can’t go under with you. Not anymore. Not this time. I gotta think of Cora. The irony is I was always so afraid to lose you. But then, I don’t think I ever had you in the first place, did I?’
With the pills making it difficult to concentrate, Cooper said, ‘Maddie… come on. You’re looking into things too deeply. You don’t have to be like this.’
‘I do and you know I do. Remember the first two years of us being together? You were gone. Never there. Too busy looking for her. Have you any idea how that felt? Do you?’
‘What did you want me to do? Leave her? Let her rot in some godforsaken place? You knew her, and you also knew how I felt about her. I loved her.’
Maddie stepped towards Cooper. Her body weary from the pain which lay heavy. ‘Yeah, I know, but she wasn’t here and I was. And I loved you, Tom.’
‘You make it sound so simple. You knew how I felt about Ellie when we got together, but you still went ahead with our relationship.’
‘I knew how you felt about Ellie when she was alive, and I also knew about the guilt you felt surrounding the accident. But Jesus Christ, Tom, not for one moment did I think we’d have a ghost in our marriage.’
‘Why do you have to say stupid things like that?’
Maddie stared at him blankly. ‘It’s really never occurred to you that she could’ve drowned that day has it?’
‘You know it has. That’s why I stopped looking for her.’
‘No, you stopped looking for her because everybody told you to. Told you to let it go.’
‘And that’s what I did. I let it go.’
‘No you didn’t, you just hid it well… I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘For God’s sake Maddie, you’re the one who needs to let things go.’
There was a heavy silence before Maddie eventually spoke. ‘I do. At least we agree on something. So that’s why I’m going to go now. But tell me one thing. Why now? If you really did let it go. Her go. Why all of a sudden can I see it in your eyes that you still think she’s alive? Why after all this time start searching for her again?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Maddie turned and walked towards the door.
‘Goodbye, Tom.’
Ten minutes later, on a deserted stretch of dirt road, Maddie pulled up the ’54 Chevy truck Cooper had bought her last Christmas, and stepped out into the cool of the Colorado night and, looking up to the starry sky and to the silver moon, her legs gave way under her and she fell to the soft earth and cried. Weeping. Hurting. Anguish cutting into her shredded heart. Deep and painful cries and howls coming from her very soul.
Managing. Just. To go into her pocket, she pulled out her cell and dialled.
‘Daddy, it’s me. I need you to come and get me.’
The sunset, a blended color wheel of powder pinks and eggplant purples, splashed with intensity across the Congolese sky, seemed to go unnoticed by the elderly man resting on the isolated red clay shores of the Congo river. The heated mounds of rotting, stinking rubbish now cooled down by the evening air gave the man a place to sit, alongside the raw sewage which flowed down the bank as if from a mountain spring. It was the only place of solace, a sanctuary of quiet away from the squalid living conditions of the Kitchanga refugee camp, home to the displaced, the desperate, where diseases ran through like the east winds.
The old battered truck pulling alongside, its load covered with blue tarpaulin, went similarly unnoticed by the man, untroubled by its presence. It was nothing to do with him. It certainly wasn’t unusual for the locals to park their vehicles, to take the rest of the narrow road on foot, rather than risk the hazards of the crumbling tracks, risk being another casualty of the snaking and twisting river.
Unperturbed, and grateful for the peace, the elderly man continued to relax, not bothering to turn round at the sound of the men walking towards the water. It was only when he felt the coarseness of the thick rope, pulling and dragging him backwards, tightening his airways, dragging him through the clay that he tried to turn. Escape.
He heard a gruff voice, words fused by putrid-smelling breath.
‘Stay still. Do not struggle, my brother, it won’t do you any good. It’s too late… Arrête de lutter. Stop fighting.’
