Wrong Place Wrong Time

by Gillian McAllister

Jen stares at his expression. Maybe he is regretful, maybe not. She can’t tell. Jen can read almost everyone, but she never could read Todd.

“Todd,” Jen says. “Stop talking.” Tears are clogging her throat. This cannot be happening. She needs a stiff drink, to go back in time, to be sick. Her whole body begins to tremble out here in the absurd, confusing cold.

She always found motherhood so hard. It had been such a shock. Such a vast reduction in the time available to her. She did nothing well, not work nor parenting. She put out fires in both for what felt like a decade straight, has only recently emerged. But maybe the damage is already done.

How sinister it is to relive your life backward. To see things you hadn’t at the time. To realize the horrible significance of events you had no idea were playing out around you.

“Thank you,” Ryan says thickly. “I mean . . . in some ways, Kelly taught me a lot. I guess the best criminals do.”

Jen nods, turning back to Natalia, wondering what would happen if she imparted some wisdom here, knowing, as she does, what faces Natalia in the future. But knowing the future is worse than not knowing. Isn’t it?

The maternal habit of a lifetime, feeling guilty no matter which she chose.

“Jen,” Joseph says, repeating her name. Like somebody toying with her. “Jen.” “What?” “I have one question, before I leave.” “Okay?” “And that is – Jen . . . how could you not know?” Joseph cocks his head to the side like a bird. He’s mad, Jen finds herself thinking. He’s totally mad, this man who knows who she is. “Even I thought you knew.”

“Ask me what we did.” “What?” “Burglaries. Supply. Assaults. That’s what we did.” Joseph’s list of charges. Jen blinks, darting her head back. “But you’re in here, and he isn’t?” “Ah,” Joseph croaks. “Welcome to the gang.”

“Perfection,” Ezra says. Right there, at the cold port, Ryan loses his nerve. Imagine, imagine, imagine, is all he can think. Imagine if Ezra realizes who he is. Ryan may not be in danger of getting arrested, but he is definitely in danger of getting fucking murdered.

“You say he’s bad, right? This Joseph? Maybe it’s not about stopping his murder.” “Go on.” “Well, if you stop it, seems like you have another problem.” “Huh?” “Maybe it isn’t about stopping it but about understanding it. So you can defend it. You know? If you know the why, then you could tell a court that.”

“Another person just sort of makes life feel official, doesn’t it? Even if we just have beans on toast.” Jen knows exactly what he means.

most people who have betrayed or have been betrayed are irrational. It’s the single most important lesson she’s learned in her career.

“Sometimes,” he says gently, when she’s finished, “the emotions of living something the first time prevent us from seeing the true picture, don’t they?” He rubs at his beard. “If I could go back – the things in my life that I would just stand and truly, fully witness, if I knew how they were going to turn out . . .”

Banter can hide the worst sins. Some people laugh to hide their shame, they laugh instead of saying I feel embarrassed and small.

“Like the hindsight paradox,” he continues, when he’s bought the doughnuts. “Everyone thinks they knew what was going to happen. They said, I knew it all along! but, actually, they would say that no matter what the outcome. Because our brains are so good at considering every possibility. We’ve known whenever anything was going to happen.”

The hindsight paradox that this very person here teaches her about in a decade’s time: she thought she knew it would happen, self-blamed. Thought he’d killed because of a poor relationship with her. But he doesn’t. It was an illusion. And so this is the moment, the moment Jen realizes that it isn’t about this. It’s not about Todd’s childhood, at all. “Come here, Toddy,” she says. Immediately, he drops the balls of foil from the bin, and he comes to her, his mother.

“I’d always answer to my brother’s name,” Ryan had said in a low voice, thinking of the night, the night his brother got in too deep, owed so much money, so many favors. The night his brother tied the noose. They’d found him too late, by about half an hour, the coroner later said. He’d done it in the loft. He hadn’t wanted to be found.

Is Kelly actually Ryan?!

We only think of the bad things that happen, rather than those that, through fortune, pass us by.