‘I was terrified. Afraid she’d remember something. Afraid someone would spot a resemblance, afraid someone would put the very disjointed pieces together. But nobody did. Until now.’

‘Shit. Sorry.’

‘Indeed.’ Ruth unclasps her hands and sits forward. ‘And this is where we need to have a very serious conversation.’

I shrink a little in the chair, suddenly seeing the Ruth Cavanagh who terrified Rowanbrook children back in the day.

‘Liz must never find out.’

I swallow.

‘Do you understand?’

‘But doesn’t she have a right to know? Morally? Ethically?’

‘Maybe. But right now, she has happy childhood memories of a mother who loved her, a strong woman who brought her up on her own after her husband walked out on her, back in Canada. Does it help Lizzie to know that actually her father was an abusive monster, and that her mother resorted to kidnapping to save her? That her mother endured years of beatings, and that she cut herself off from almost everyone she knew, to give a better life to her daughter?’

I shake my head.

‘Believe me, it’s not a comfortable thing. Knowing this secret, keeping it from her. It’s not right. But it’s more right than wrong. And it’s the price I pay for what I did. Now it’s the price you pay. For all your searching. Can you handle that?’

‘I can.’

‘And the ghosts are gone. Your house is your own. Your family can enjoy it, should enjoy it – make it the happy home it should have been for Mary and for Liz. For Lily, I mean.’

‘No, for Liz,’ I say softly, my throat tight. ‘Lily is gone. Thank you.’

I get up, smile a silent goodbye, and walk out of the room. It’s late evening now, and the kids are waiting in their forever house. I’m ready to go home.

68

Six weeks later

‘I DON’T GET WHY we’re having another housewarming,’ Emily says for the hundredth time. Mark and I exchange glances. Mark knows why. I meant it when I told Ruth I’d keep her secret, but spouses are excluded from such promises, I’d decided. Especially spouses from whom too many secrets had been kept already. And Mark won’t tell. Now it’s his turn to play a part: for the kids and for his parents and for everyone else in our lives, he’s acting just as he always does. With me, he’s wary. Distant, at times, after all the lies. But he’s trying to build back trust, and for now, that’s all I can ask.

‘Because first time round,’ I explain to Emily, ‘I was obsessing over Lily Murphy’s disappearance, and now I’m not. And we’ve painted the rooms and the house isn’t gloomy any more, and that seems like an excuse for a do-over,’ I tell her, earning her an eye-roll. But Emily doesn’t really mind – parties mean endless bowls of crisps and unobservant parents and unmonitored screen time, so she’s happy.

I decided against making jugs of Aperol Spritz this time, and instead, people are helping themselves to bottles of beer from an ice-filled bucket. Mark is flipping burgers on the barbecue, in the company of Liz Landry’s husband. Ellen is sitting on her own on the bench at the end of the garden, staring up at the house next door. Her childhood home.