Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff Page A

are both trying to take all this in and Gil looks at me questioningly. I shrug and wonder how much he sees and whether he thinks Matthew has been here recently. I have as many questions as he does. Maybe Matthew is having an affair with Lynda and just visits occasionally? Is she the reason he disappeared? And, if so, where is he now?
    I look around. Bowls and saucepans are cordoned off in the kitchen corner with the tiny old-fashioned gas cooker. On the other side, corduroy cushions are piled next to a collection of duck decoys, two ancient folding chairs, and piles of books. It’s just one rectangular room, divided into sections that confirm the idea that more than one person lives here. The partition wall at one end must have a bed behind it, and a large gray sofa takes up most of the middle of the room along with a small desk pushed against the wall and a scarred leather armchair. The floor is almost entirely covered by an old Persian rug, faded and threadbare. Lynda has arranged a bunch of lilies of the valley in a glass by the window and the sweet smell of it fills the house. She must have picked them before the weather turned psycho.
    Lynda slides half a carrot cake onto a large blue-and-white plate and says she’s glad we’re there to help her eat it.
    Despite it being the wilds of northern New York State, you wouldn’t know it by the sound of our little group of three representing Scotland, Lancashire and London.
    So he’s disappeared, Lynda says thoughtfully and then looks up at Gil, a bit hesitant. He’s done it before, you know.
    What?
    Gil frowns. No, I didn’t know.
    After Owen died. He walked out of the hospital and no one heard from him for two days. I guess under the circumstances you might expect a person to do something crazy.
    Gil looks suitably shocked. Well, he says, yes. But it wouldn’t be everyone’s choice. Especially when it meant leaving Suzanne alone.
    How horrible, I think. What a cruel thing to do.
    At the inquest, he couldn’t account for those days, couldn’t remember where he’d been or what he’d done. We were still in Scotland; it was reported in the local news. Available online to all ex-girlfriends and stalkers.
    I look at Gil.
He’s disappeared before and Suzanne didn’t mention it?
Gil’s expression hasn’t changed.
    It must have been so terrible for him, Lynda says. I always thought he was the world’s kindest man.
    Unless you’re his wife, left alone for two days with a dead son. I refrain from saying this out loud.
    Lynda’s tone changes again. When you say disappeared, Gil . . . has he run away
to
somewhere?
With
someone? How do you know he’s not having an affair or—?
    Dead, she means.
    Oh, says Gil, I’m pretty sure he’s alive. I’m guessing he just needed to be away for a bit. You know what he’s like.
    Lynda looks doubtful. Yes, but to walk off like that without a word. Not even a note? She frowns. Making everyone worry. Dragging you over from London and all.
    We’d planned the visit some time ago, Gil says.
    Lynda stares at him, puts her hand on his arm. But that’s even worse. Surely it’s not just coincidence?
    You think he didn’t want to see me? After all this time? Gil shrugs. He sounded pleased when I said we were coming.
    It can’t be coincidence, Lynda says. But why wouldn’t he want to see you?
    Lynda’s right, I think. It doesn’t strike me as the act of a rational man who just needs a bit of space, which is how Gil interprets it. People who need to get away don’t drop everything and disappear just when their long-lost friend is coming three thousand miles to visit.
    Has he been in touch with Oliver? Gil asks.
    I don’t think so.
    Gil addresses me now. Lynda’s brother, Oliver, he says, pleasantly and for my information (as if we were not just four seconds ago discussing his oldest friend’s strange-possibly-desperate behavior), and Matt were at university together. That’s how they met. Oliver introduced them.
    I was living