Page 82 of The Stolen Child

Sally felt her day unravel before she could stop it, before it was too late to pull it back together again.

‘Don’t be silly. Your friends are important to you, so they are important to me too. Of course they should stay.’

‘That’s my girl,’ Ian said, and he leaned in and kissed her, which got another rousing cheer from his friends.

Sally had spent her life dreaming of meeting a man like Ian. Someone who had made something of himself. Someone that she could make a home with. Start a family with. She’d finally done that. And she would not let a silly misunderstanding get in the way. Everything would be okay because Sally would make sure it was.

NOW

August 2023

Lily

Phibsborough, Dublin

Lily looked down at her sleeping son, who lay on his back, two hands above his head. His lips were pursed in a perfect pout while he dreamed. She hoped that for her little Ben they were only happy thoughts.

His vulnerability, as he lay there, caught her off-guard not for the first time. Robert had been almost the same age when he was snatched from their lives. Anger sparked through her as Zach’s mother’s face formed in her mind’s eye. Since her return from Spain, Lily had been unable to stop thinking about her. Before, the abductor was a faceless predator, but now it had taken shape and form in that of a sixty-five-year-old woman living in America.

She’d spent hours scrolling through Zach’s Instagram grid, searching for hidden secrets in his parents’ faces. Every snap only showed two parents who obviously doted on their children. Their faces were alight with pride as they stood, arms looped round their shoulders, laughing without a care for the camera.

Whether it was at Lake Champlain boating, in their backyard barbecuing, at their daughters’ weddings, beside a resplendent Christmas tree drinking eggnog, every shot showed a happy family life.

Their lives were like the gifts under their tree, wrapped beautifully with a big red bow. While Lily’s and her parents’ were discarded, broken and not quite right.

Lily backed out of the room stealthily to avoid waking Ben. Michael was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, his forehead creased in deep lines.

‘We’ve got a visitor. It’s Zach. He arrived a few minutes ago in a bit of a state.’

Lily hurried into the large family room, where she found Zach pacing the wooden floors.

‘It’s all gone wrong,’ he said, the second he saw her. ‘I kept thinking about what you said in Spain about not blindsiding my family. So I flew over to London yesterday to tell Issy.’ He ran his hands through his hair, then turned to face Lily. ‘She went ballistic. I’ve never seen her so angry. I thought she’d be on my side, but instead she rang Ally and Jenny. That was the worst group video chat I’ve ever had.’ He sighed again. ‘If you saw them, Lily . . . They were spitting fire at me one minute, crying the next, then back to angry again.’

His tanned face was tinged with splotches of bright red, and he looked so lost as he recounted his update that it made Lily’s heart ache.

‘Michael, will you get us all a drink? Anything at all. Zach, sit down beside me and take a deep breath. It’s going to be all right.’

‘It isn’t, Lily. Jenny said she’d never forgive me for doing this to our family.’

‘Do they believe you?’ Lily asked.

Zach shook his head. ‘Ally and Issy think I’m raving mad to even think Mom could do such a thing. Jenny kept staring at me, as if I’d murdered someone.’

Lily could only imagine what that must feel like for him. She had spent her entire life as an only child. This was new territory for her. But she wasn’t entirely surprised that his sisters hadn’t welcomed his news with open arms. Albeit that it was disappointing that they couldn’t see through their own fear to notice their brother’s pain.

Michael returned with a bottle of red Pinot noir and three glasses. They each accepted a glass and Zach took a deep glug.

‘Did you explain about the photographs and what you found out in Ronda?’ Michael said once Lily had quickly brought him up to speed on what had happened.

‘I tried, but they were not interested in hearing what I had to say.’

Lily shrugged. ‘When we are angry, it’s hard to listen, to understand. You need to give them time to recover from the shock and adjust to the possibility that you are right.’

Zach took another drink. ‘I tried to make them understand. But the thing that hurt me more than anything was that Ally and Issy won’t even consider that it’s possible that Mom could have taken me.’

Lily could see how hurtful that would be for Zach. Now at his most vulnerable, he’d never needed his sisters more. And she felt another ache twist her heart. Lily knew that there could only be more heartbreaking moments for Zach and his family, if he was right.

‘Jenny asked me if I’d had a good life. I said yes, of course I had. She said if that was the case the subject should be closed. If Mom did take me, so what? I should be grateful for the life she’d given me.’