‘Mum?’

Ben’s voice pulls me back to the present. ‘Yes?’

He’s standing at the open patio door. ‘Dad says dinner’s nearly ready.’ He tilts his head to one side. ‘Mum, are you OK?’

‘Of course! Why?’

‘You look sad all the time.’

I shake my head and gesture to him to come over for a hug. ‘I’m not sad, pet, I’m fine. But thanks for asking.’ I kiss his ear. ‘Now, grab the ketchup and let’s get the table set.’ I look at him sideways as he extracts himself from the hug. ‘That is, unless you’d prefer some … puréed broccoli on your burger?’

He shrieks in mock horror and I tickle him, prompting squeals of laughter.

‘Stop! Stop!’ he says breathlessly and I do. ‘Do it again!’ he says immediately, just as he always does. Nine-year-olds get so much joy out of the simplest everyday interactions.

And suddenly Lila’s on my mind again. Lila who never got to be nine. Lila who never got to go to school like my kids do. Who never got to make friends or play video games or eat barbecues.

God, I need to sort this out, I think, pulling Ben back into my arms for another tight hug.

Mark is calling us outside for burgers. I send Ben for the ketchup and glance at my phone one last time before dinner. There’s a reply from Deep Dive already.

I don’t like the phone. Let’s meet in person. Blackrock Park tomorrow at 11?

There is only one answer. And it’s either the solution to everything, or a huge mistake.

30

June 1985

TALL CHURCH CANDLES FLICKERED on the altar as the smell of incense rolled across the pews. The sermon was about rich men getting into heaven. Mary watched as the parishioners listened. They didn’t see themselves as rich men. They didn’t think this sermon was about them. But they’d put ten pounds in the collection plate and walk outside to get into their Volvos and BMWs and go home to their more than comfortable five-bedroom Edenvale houses with their gardeners and nannies and cleaners. What was that, if not rich? On Mary’s lap, Lily squirmed, and beside her, Robbie pretended to listen to the priest as his eyelids slipped ever lower. Susie and Tom sat in the next pew, with the three younger children in tow; fidgeting and nudging and pushing and whispering. No Cynthia today. Even Susie couldn’t justify paying a babysitter to come to Mass. On the other side of the aisle, Ines and Victor sat a few rows ahead. Ines in a pink coat, not unlike Mary’s, her hair pulled back in a tight, dark bun. Victor, as always, in a suit, his back stiff like his wife’s. Rigid, tense people who never seemed to relax. Cora, head bowed, sat quietly beside her dad.

Outside, blinking in the sunlight, Susie and Tom Stedman joined Mary and Robbie on the steps of the church.

Tom clapped Robbie on the back and kissed Mary on the cheek, pulling her close, enveloping her in the smell of his cologne.