The Midnight Estate
by Charity Wilkie
A full day had passed since Marie escaped Rupert’s home in a moment of pure, desperate impulse, twenty-four hours of such
anxiety and terror that she felt like she was trapped in a fever dream. She was following Silas around blindly, obeying his
instructions without question, constantly looking over her shoulder and leaping out of her skin every time a door slammed.
Silas had driven Marie all the way to San Francisco the minute she left Rupert, eager to get her close to the airport and
far from their hometown as quickly as possible. No one in the city would recognize her—she’d only been there a few times in
her entire life. He’d taken her shopping right away. She now had new shoes with a tall heel and a suitcase full of clothing
she’d never have chosen in a million years. All bulky, in dark, severe colors—a much older woman’s wardrobe, clothes unlike
anything Marie had ever worn before. Silas took her to the salon where a stylist applied a temporary rinse to leave her hair
just a few shades darker, and then he gave her the string of pearls that had belonged to his sister. The string was plenty
loose, but even so, Marie felt it might choke her. She’d tried her best to match the style Maeve wore in the passport photo—bold,
thick eyeliner, and darker lipstick than Marie had ever dared wear in her life.
When the embassy opened the next morning, Silas and Marie were waiting on the doorstep.
He instructed her that she should remain mute and to try to look distressed, and she had no trouble at all complying with those instructions.
She trembled with genuine fear as he talked his way into an emergency visa for her.
“Our mother just died and as you can see, my sister isn’t coping well. I need to fly home as soon as I can but we have no
other family and I can’t leave her alone. Could you possibly help?”
Marie hadn’t imagined that this kind, somewhat awkward man would be a convincing liar. But then she saw the barely restrained
panic in his eyes and she realized that he was just doing exactly what he had promised to do—everything within his power to get her to safety.
The attendant’s gaze passed over her and then he said kindly, “I’m very sorry for your loss. Let me see what I can do.”
She’d never heard an accent like that before. Marie could barely understand a word the man said.
All of that was terrifying, but even so, it had nothing on her present situation, as she waited in a line at the airport.
Getting the visa was one thing but using it to board a plane with someone else’s passport was another altogether.
“Just hold your chin up high and be confident,” Silas said, but although his advice was probably sound, he seemed every bit
as terrified as Marie felt.
They were all but strangers six weeks earlier and now they were about to commit a crime together. Marie wasn’t sure what exactly
the crime was called but she did know that using someone else’s passport was a very serious kind of fraud.
Did it count for anything that she was trying to save her life, and a potential baby’s life at that? She couldn’t fool herself that a theoretical judge would be sympathetic—not if even her own brother couldn’t bring himself to be sympathetic to her plight.
Whenever she thought about it like that, Marie second-guessed herself.
Had it really had it been that bad? Maybe she was being impetuous and impulsive and irresponsible, all things Rupert had accused
her of being many times. Hysterical, as he and Irving would say. She couldn’t do a single thing right and Rupert was going
to be so disappointed in her and so angry. And now look at the mess she was in, about to board a plane with a total stranger—
No.
There was some scant trace of the headstrong child Marie used to be buried deep inside her. All she had to do was give that
spirit a chance to breathe and grow and it might become strong again.
And so, she and Silas, side by side, shuffled forward a little farther, towards the immigration desk at the San Francisco
International Airport.
“You definitely left your own identification papers at home, didn’t you?” he whispered suddenly. “No passport or driver’s
license with you?”
“I didn’t bring my handbag . . .”
“That’s a good thing. I just didn’t want you to walk up to that counter and accidentally hand over the wrong one!”
“But what will I do when we get there—”
“We’ll figure that out later. Let’s just get through this part first.”
Marie had Maeve’s passport in her sweaty hand but she kept thinking about the photograph inside and every time she did, she felt she might throw up. About the only thing Marie and Maeve had in common was the first letter of their first names.
Maeve was older. Curvier. Taller. Beautiful in a very specific way—even in that slightly faded black-and-white photo, her
eyes sparkled behind the frames of her glasses. Marie was wearing those very same glasses now, and that was the other reason
she felt so ill. Maeve had been terribly shortsighted, but Marie had perfect vision, so wearing the other woman’s prescription
meant the whole world was a distorted, bloated blur.
And oh God. They were at the front of the line.
“Good day for flying,” Silas said, greeting the attendant, who sat on a stool at a high counter. He opened Silas’s passport
and skimmed it, then checked the attached paperwork which confirmed Silas was an Australian permanent resident. Silas silently
reached to take the paperwork from Marie’s hand and passed it over the counter for her. His hands weren’t much steadier than
hers.
And this was it, she thought, the moment when their plan failed. She would be arrested and surely sent back to Rupert. Her
throat filled with bile and her knees were getting weaker by the second and she looped her arm through Silas’s just to hold
herself up and then—
“Have a nice flight,” the attendant said as he slid the second passport and visa and her plane ticket back across the bench.
Silas handed Marie the paperwork then excused himself to use the bathroom before they went to the gate to wait for the plane.
Marie took herself to the ladies’ room and was violently, relentlessly sick. When her stomach was empty, she left the cubicle
and stared at herself in the mirror. Blood vessels in her eyes had burst from the exertion.
When she left the restroom to find Silas at the gate, Marie couldn’t quite be sure, but she thought she could smell bile on his breath too.
He had warned her that the flight was long and arduous but she hadn’t quite understood what he meant: thirty hours in the
air, with four long stops to refuel along the way.
That meant four landings with descents that left Marie convinced the plane was about to collide violently with the ground.
Each time, she found herself panting and dizzy, gripping Silas’s hand as if he were her lifeline. And four take-offs—sheer
terror for Marie as the plane accelerated, and by the time the moment of lift-off came, she’d be whimpering through panicked
sobs.
Even when they were high in the air, the incessant cigarette smoke in the enclosed space left her feeling ill, gasping for
breath. She fantasized about opening the door to the airplane and sucking in the cool, clean outside air, and when she shared
this with Silas, he gave her an alarmed look and spent twenty minutes explaining cabin pressurization.
Marie tried to eat a few times but her stomach just wouldn’t have a bar of it. Throughout the entire trip she held nothing
down but water. The glamorous hostesses kept up a steady supply of sick bags.
Silas tried to distract her by talking to her about his family. He told her about his wife, Christine, and his son, Ernest,
and how much he missed them and couldn’t wait to see them. He told her about Maeve—stories about his sister’s kindness that
made Marie feel like it was an honor just to borrow the woman’s name.
She asked him sometimes what they would do when they landed.
“I’ll help you find somewhere to live,” he assured her. “Don’t worry, Marie. I’m not going to abandon you in a strange country without a way to survive.”
“Why are you doing all of this for me?”
“Oh,” he said, and then he cleared his throat and looked away. “It’s what Maeve would have told me to do.”
By the time the plane touched down in Sydney, Marie was so weak and exhausted she could barely hold herself up. Silas walked
her right to an airport cafe then sat her gently into a chair. He fetched her an orange juice and some dry toast, which she
ate in a weary, numb silence.
“Some people get terrible air sickness. But when Christine was pregnant, it was like she was airsick all the time. Do you
understand what I’m asking?” Silas said carefully.
Marie looked away, blinking exhausted tears away from her eyes.
“I haven’t seen a doctor but yes, I think . . .”
She couldn’t say the word—it simply would not leave her mouth. It had been too noisy and too crowded on the plane for a deeply
private conversation, but once the adrenalin of that experience at San Francisco airport had faded and Marie was in the air,
it had finally occurred to her that she was on her way to the other side of a globe with no plan, no resources, and entirely
at the mercy of a man she didn’t know from Adam. She was half expecting him to throw his hands up in despair and walk away
from her at the news that she was probably pregnant, one further complication to deal with. He’d said he would help her find
somewhere to live and a way to survive, but he’d already done so much.
Silas only reached across to squeeze her forearm gently.
“One last hurdle to jump before we’re through the airport,” he said, sounding almost as tired as she felt. “Should we get
this over and done with?”