Broken Country (Reese’s Book Club)

27. 1968

1968

In my favorite photograph, Bobby is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, bottle-feeding an orphan lamb. I’ve looked at it so often it has become incarnate to me now—this is the Bobby I see whenever his name is mentioned, even though I knew him at six, seven, eight, and nine. I used to keep it loose and uncovered in my handbag, transferring it to coat pockets sometimes, until the photograph began to look creased and worn. Frank bought me a little leather holder for it and now the photograph resides permanently in the macramé bag I take everywhere.

It’s an unwieldy thing, this bag, crammed with treats for Hero, a library book I have waited months for— A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin—a clutch of shopping receipts, binoculars, a half-eaten packet of Marie biscuits, and a pair of Leo’s balled-up socks from when he walked home barefoot through the long grass.

“You know you could probably just about squeeze the kitchen sink in,” Frank says, surveying the detritus laid out on the floor.

I take the bag into the courtyard and shake it out, getting rid of every crumb. The photo is missing. I cry out in dismay.

“What’s happened?” Frank is beside me in a moment.

At first, I’m too distressed to answer. I’m turning the bag inside out again, retrieving my book and flicking through the pages, looking, looking.

“The photo. It’s gone.”

“It can’t have.”

Frank takes me into his arms but I’m too tense to return the embrace. I hear the note of anguish in his voice as he tries to reassure me. We didn’t take enough photos of Bobby, we didn’t understand photos would be the only thing we’d have left.

“Let’s be methodical about this. Can you remember the last time you saw it?”

I’m embarrassed to tell Frank the truth. I look at it every day. At Meadowlands, whenever Gabriel and Leo are out of the room. When I’m cooking supper. Or filling the bath or hanging out the washing. I see it and, also, I don’t. The photo is a kind of talisman, my reminder that Bobby existed.

“Yesterday.”

“Then we’ll be able to find it. I’ll look upstairs.”

The doorbell rings while I’m in the middle of emptying a drawer of the dresser, a pointless exercise because not once have I ever kept the photograph in there.

Gabriel and Leo are on the doorstep. My mind is fraught, it’s only with effort I manage to be civil. “Hello,” I say. “Would you like to come in?”

Gabriel shakes his head as I had known he would. After Jimmy’s outburst in the pub, I tried to reassure Gabriel it meant nothing, just a bit of silly drunkenness, that was all, but I don’t think he believes me. The line I walk, going between my home and his, grows ever thinner, it seems to me.

“Leo has something to tell you.”

“Uh-oh. That sounds ominous.” I look at Leo to encourage him but he slides his eyes away, refusing to meet my gaze. “It can’t be that bad. Come on, the suspense is killing me.”

The two of them look so serious, Gabriel with an expression I can’t quite read. I think he might be angry.

Leo shoots his hand out in front of him, uncurls his palm to reveal the little leather photo holder. “I took it from your bag.”

He looks ashamed, staring down at the ground but, for a moment, the flood of relief is so great all I can do is clutch the photo to my chest. I feel the weight of tears rising in my throat. “I was going out of my mind. I thought I’d lost it.”

“I’m sorry,” Leo says.

“Nowhere upstairs,” Frank says, then he takes in the scene on the doorstep.

“Ah, you found it? Kind of you to bring it back. It must have fallen out of Beth’s bag, she’s been so worried. We both have.”

I think Gabriel is going to let Leo get away with it and I’m glad—no need to humiliate him any further.

But Leo cries: “It was me! I stole it. I wanted it. I like looking at Bobby.”

I see the shock on Frank’s face as he takes in what Leo has said. “I see,” Frank says. His voice is neutral but he is looking only at me.

“Anyway,” I say, hurriedly, “we’re making far too much out of this. The photograph is safe, and Leo has apologized.”

The minute the door has closed behind Gabriel and Leo, we stand inches apart, looking everywhere but at each other.

“The photo stays here in future. Let’s not lose it again,” Frank says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, not sure what I’m apologizing for. It feels like everything.

“He was our boy,” Frank says, his voice breaking. “And he’s gone. Why should they have anything to do with him?”

“Frank—” I reach out to grab one of his hands but he shifts away from me.

“You knew what you were doing when you took that job. You refused to listen to me when I said it was a bad idea. How the hell do you think it’s going to end?”