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Chapter 18
Lili was about to get in the taxi and phone Hannah when she saw the message from Ray with the photo. She rolled her eyes and said to the driver, ‘Do you mind waiting a moment? There’s something I need to do first.’
‘No problem.’
Lili left the suitcases in the back of the taxi and reluctantly returned to Connie’s front door. She rang the doorbell.
When Connie answered the door, the surprised look on her face told Lili she thought she’d changed her mind about leaving.
‘I’m not staying. I just want you to look at this photo.’ Lili held up her phone. ‘Do you recognise them?’ She cast a glance back at the taxi. She was eager to leave and call Hannah, otherwise she’d have to check into a hotel, which she couldn’t afford.
Lili turned back to find Connie in tears. She said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Where did you get that photo?’
Lili told her about Ray and his assumption that she hadn’t been abandoned; that he thought something must have happened to her parents. Connie stood there open-mouthed, tears rolling down her face. ‘I took that photo on the beach in Benitses.’
Lili swallowed. ‘Are they …?’
Connie nodded her head emphatically. ‘Yes. It’s them. It’s your parents.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. It’s Sky and River.’
Lili stared at the photo. After all these years, she couldn’t quite believe that she was looking at the faces of her parents.
Connie burst into tears again.
Lili felt like doing the same, but she held it together just long enough to say, ‘What is it you’re not telling me, Connie?’
Connie wiped her eyes with a tissue, took a deep breath and admitted, ‘They left you in my care.’
Lili frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’ She was still staring at her phone, taking in the young, happy couple smiling back at her. Despite trying to keep her emotions in check, tears rolled down her cheeks.
Regardless of all the hurt, anger, and pain she had been avoiding over the years at the thought that they had abandoned her, she realised she had still wanted to meet them, speak to them, learn their side of the story. Now, she knew that would never happen. Lili took a deep breath. It was a bittersweet moment. There they were, their picture, their names. Her parents were real people, as opposed to the fictional characters she’d always imagined, but they were as gone from her life as they’d ever been.
‘They were going on a trip. I assumed it was somewhere on Corfu, but they did say they would be staying overnight. It never occurred to me that they were visiting another island.’
Lili looked up. ‘Are you saying that you were looking after me when strangers found me wandering alone on the beach?’
‘Yes … I … I left you in one of the beach huts we were living in. I wanted to go to a party that evening. I thought you were asleep.’
‘You left a three-year-old on their own?’
She nodded. ‘I am so sorry. When I discovered you were missing, I went to the police, and…’
‘Somebody had already found me, a tourist, and taken me to the police station.’
‘Yes,’ Connie mumbled.
Lili wiped her eyes dry and stared at her. All along, Connie had claimed she had been holidaying in the area when she’d heard about an English child wandering along the shore alone. So as a qualified social worker, she’d offered her services, accompanying Lili back to England when they couldn’t find her parents. But that wasn’t the whole truth.
‘You didn’t tell the police that I had been in your care.’
‘Look, I didn’t want to get your parents into trouble for leaving you with a virtual stranger. I was a social worker, so I knew where that sort of thing could lead.’
‘You mean,youdidn’t want to get into trouble.’
