‘My father wouldn’t allow my mother to pack anything away,’ Leandro said. ‘He couldn’t accept Rosie was gone. It was one of the reasons they split up. My mother wanted to move on. He couldn’t.’
‘And you got caught in the crossfire,’ Miranda said.
He dropped his hand from where it was covering hers, stepping away from her as if he needed space to breathe. To think. To regroup. ‘I was supposed to be looking after her,’ he said after another beat or two of silence. ‘The day she disappeared.’
Miranda frowned. ‘But you were only what—six? That’s not old enough to babysit.’
He gave her one of his hollow looks. ‘We were on the beach. I can take you to the exact spot. My mother only walked ten or so metres away to get us an ice-cream. When she came back, Rosie was gone. I didn’t hear or see anything. I turned my head to look at a boat that was going past and when I turned back she wasn’t there. No one saw anything. It was crowded that hot summer day so no one would’ve noticed if a child was carried crying from the beach. Not back then.’
Miranda felt a choking lump come to her throat at the agony of what he had been through—the heartache, the distress of not knowing—never knowing what had happened to his baby sister. Wondering if she was alive or dead. Wondering if she had suffered. Wondering if there was something—anything—he could have done to stop it. How had he endured it?
By blaming himself.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. ‘How can you feel it was your fault? You were only a baby yourself. You shouldn’t have been blamed. Your parents were wrong to put that on you.’
‘They didn’t,’ he said. ‘Not openly, although my father couldn’t help himself in later years.’
So many pennies were beginning to drop. This was why Leandro’s father had drunk to senselessness. This was why his mother had moved abroad, remarried, had three children in quick succession and had been always too busy to make time to see him. This was why Leandro had spent so many weekends and school holidays at Ravensdene, because he’d no longer had a home and family to go to. It was unbearably sad to think that all the times Leandro had joined her brothers he had carried this terrible burden. Alone. He hadn’t told anyone of the tragedy. Not even his closest friends knew of the gut-wrenching heartache he had been through. And was still going through.
‘I don’t know what to say...’ She brushed at her moist eyes with the sleeve of her top. ‘It’s just so terribly sad. I can’t bear the thought of how you’ve suffered this all alone.’
Leandro reached out and grazed her cheek with a lazy fingertip, his expression rueful. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry.’
‘I can’t help it.’ Miranda sniffed and went searching for a tissue but before she could find one up her sleeve he produced the neatly ironed square of a clean white handkerchief. She took it from him with a grateful glance. ‘Thanks.’
‘My father stubbornly clung to hope,’ Leandro said. ‘He kept Rosie’s room exactly as it was the day she went missing because he’d convinced himself that one day she’d come back. My mother couldn’t bear it. She thought it was pathological.’
Miranda scrunched the handkerchief into a ball inside her hand, thinking of the football sweater of Mark’s she kept in her wardrobe. Every year on his birthday she would put it on, breathing in the ever-fading scent of him. She kept telling herself it was time to give it back to his parents but she could never quite bring herself to do it. ‘Everyone has their own way of grieving,’ she said.
‘Maybe.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘Rosie’s room?’
‘Would you mind?’ she said.
He let out a ragged-sounding breath. ‘It will have to be packed up sooner or later.’
Miranda walked back to the villa with him. She was deeply conscious of how terribly painful this would be for him. Didn’t she feel it every time she visited Mark’s parents? They had left his room intact too. Unable to let go of his things because by removing them they would finally have to accept he was gone for ever. But at least Mark’s parents were in agreement.
How difficult it must have been for Leandro’s mother, trying to move on while his father had been holding back. The loss of a child tested the strongest marriage. Leandro’s parents had divorced within two years of Rosie’s disappearance. How much had Leandro suffered during that time and since? Estranged from his alcoholic father, shunned by his mother, too busy with her new family.
After the bright light of outdoors the shadows inside the villa seemed all the more ghostly. A chill shimmied down her spine as she climbed the groaning stairs with Leandro.