Chapter 9 – Luca
There’s a photo album that sits on Simo’s bookshelf.
Regardless of how often he reorganises, the album never leaves its spot in the top-left corner.
Kids’ books go, classics move in, poetry collections push novels off the shelves, but the black leather album remains.
Dust never settles on it, so I know that Simo pulls it out regularly, but he’s never done so when I’m around.
The spine is embossed with five golden letters that form canyons in the thick leather. The only reason I know Simo’s brother’s name is because these letters spell it out. They’re the sole evidence that he ever existed. The rest of the house holds no signs of him, no pictures, nothing.
I’ve been lying on Simo’s bed like this all night, facing the wall with the bookshelf, the desk, the corkboard decked out in Simo’s memories.
My eyes dart from the selfie of us on a class trip to a couple of ripped tickets from the play we saw in Granada.
I didn’t understand a thing, but the costumes were pretty and so was Simo, his face glowing, captivated by the stage actors.
I haven’t slept, only pretended to when Simo climbed off the bed and shuffled out of the room an hour ago.
My phone lies in a bundle of clothes, but I haven’t touched it since I turned it off last night.
I didn’t want to hear from Dad. And when I saw that Mum had tried to call, I realised that she must have known about my not-dead grandparents, that she’d helped Dad keep up the lie. I wasn’t going to speak to her either.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it.
Opening the album, I mean. Whenever I’m in here, there’s a third boy in the room, one whose presence we can’t deny but don’t acknowledge.
The mere thought of prying into parts of Simo’s life he doesn’t offer willingly feels like betrayal.
And as it stands, I’ve got plenty of things to keep me up at night; I can do without adding more guilt to the mix.
A soft knock pulls my attention from the album to the door. Simo pops his head in. Only he would knock before entering his own room.
‘Hungry? My parents made breakfast,’ he says. I lift my eyebrows, which prompts him to enter fully and close the door behind him. ‘They’ve gone all out,’ he explains. ‘I’m not sure who they’re trying to fool with the pretend family harmony, but I’m not about to say no to the food.’
My stomach rumbles, and I get a whiff of fried eggs in the air that must have snuck into the room with Simo. It’s my body’s way of telling me I skipped dinner and need to eat, though I’d rather stay here, tucked away in Simo’s room, in Simo’s bed.
Hunger isn’t the only thing upsetting my belly. I haven’t seen Simo’s parents since the noticeboard message. There’s always something distant and sad about his dad, but it’s his mum who intimidates me.
‘Get up, lazy fart,’ Simo says, and throws an old soft toy at my head. He hovers by the door, and judging by the prominent vein on his brow, I’d say I’m not the only one who’s worried.
‘Can I borrow a clean T-shirt? And trousers? Mine have grass stains all over.’
‘This isn’t Sunday church,’ Simo replies, grabbing something from his dresser. He throws it my way and a second later I’m holding a pair of grey joggers in my hands. ‘You don’t need to try and impress my parents.’
I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing and decide not to ask.
All my concentration goes into pretending it’s perfectly normal that I’m standing in Simo’s room wearing nothing but underwear.
Which it sort of is. We’ve had more sleepovers than I can count.
Since I was a kid, Simo has woken up in my bed at least once every other week, more so recently, which also means he sees me undressed on a regular basis. And I him.
With forced composure I pull the joggers on, while Simo searches for a T-shirt. I shrug into it, and the soft white fabric envelopes me in his scent. The vein is proof of his impatience, but there’s something else in his mellow brown eyes that I can’t discern.
‘I’m allowed to wash my face though, right?’ I ask, to break the weird tension that’s rising between us. ‘And brush my teeth? Or do you think your parents will like me more with morning breath?’
‘You never have morning breath. It’s unnerving,’ Simo mutters, but he leads me to the bathroom and searches the cabinets for a spare toothbrush.
He hands it over and leaves me to myself, which is for the best. Not just because I can drop the fake coolness, but because my bladder has realised that we’re vertical again.
When I enter the dining room, I’m greeted by an array of foods so gorgeous that it belongs in a painting.
Pancake towers so fluffy you want to sleep on them, bowls overflowing with berries, their blues and reds bursting on my tongue in anticipation.
A golden masterpiece of a tortilla topped with pomegranate seeds that sparkle like rubies, next to a saucepan filled to the rim with a rich tomato stew, eggs swimming on the surface.
Someone even added an arrangement of purple daisies to the table.
A broad man with a round, bearded face walks in from the kitchen, carrying a loaf of sourdough.
I can see the steam rising from the freshly cut slices.
‘There you are!’ Simo’s dad exclaims. Simo clearly inherited his eyes, brown and light like wildflower honey.
‘Good morning, Luca,’ a woman’s voice says, and I turn to Simo’s mum. She holds a jug of freshly made lemonade, and when she places it on the table, the ice clinks against the glass.
‘Morning,’ I repeat, and smile. I don’t have to fake it. It’s hard not to smile with food like this in front of me.
‘Now don’t you think this is a breakfast that would make your father’s customers green with envy? He’s not the only one who can cook, you know,’ Pedro says.
‘Dad!’ Simo scolds him.
Pedro wears a look of remorse and I realise that Simo has filled them in on everything that’s happened.
‘It looks incredible,’ I admit, and try not to let my face slip. We take our seats and for a minute we’re all busy loading our plates with more food than they can fit.
‘Have some shakshuka.’ Safa fills a small bowl with the tomato egg stew, then places it next to me. I pick up the spoon, thinking that she can’t harbour any grudges against me if she’s trying to stuff me with food. ‘My mother used to make this regularly.’
Simo stops chewing and stares at his mum like he’s hearing this for the first time.
‘Thank you,’ I say, remembering my manners.
Safa is a slight woman, her frame much narrower than her husband’s and son’s.
Despite her size, there’s a hardness in the way she holds herself, chin raised and back straight.
She’s tough because the softness has been whittled away.
I often forget that she’s a primary-school teacher.
I can’t quite imagine the strict woman in front of me around a bunch of small kids.
I do as I’m told, take a mouthful of the shakshuka and barely manage to hold in a moan. If red was a dish, this is how it would taste: succulent, earthy, and with a hint of heat.
‘And you’re right, I think my dad would fear for his customers if you decided to open a restaurant.’ The compliment prompts a brief smile from Safa.
‘We don’t get to cook for guests every day,’ Pedro says, sounding pleased.
‘You have me,’ Simo points out. ‘You never cook like this for me.’
‘There’s no point, is there? Dinnertime comes around and you’re nowhere to be found.’ Safa slices open an egg with a single stab of her knife, and the yolk erupts like lava.
Simo takes a furiously big bite of pancake.
He has a habit of making his parents sound worse than they are, though he wouldn’t catch me voicing that particular thought.
I mean, they’re not all hugs and love exclamations, but they’re not bad either.
Then again, I think we’re all biased when it comes to our families.
We see them in a light much better or worse than an outsider would.
Not entirely without reason; after all, an outsider has no idea what it’s like to grow up with them.
But our impression of family is warped because we look at them through lenses we’ve worn for years.
And sometimes we forget to take them off and see them not as a parent or child or sibling, but as themselves.
Maybe that’s an impossible thing to do, anyway.
Which is why Simo won’t give them the credit they deserve for raising my favourite person in the world.
Which is why I’ve put my dad on a pedestal and can’t cope with the fact that he’s fallen off.
Thankfully Pedro pulls me away from the edge I’m teetering on. ‘You enjoyed Granada, did you? Simo didn’t tell us much about it.’
‘It’s the best holiday I’ve ever had,’ I reply truthfully. It’s also the only holiday I’ve ever been on, not that I’m complaining. Despite the stupid noticeboard and family secrets, I never wanted to be anywhere but here. ‘And Simo loved it too,’ I add.
He chews longer than any pancake needs chewing, but with his parents’ eyes on him, expecting an answer, he swallows reluctantly. ‘I did like it,’ he confesses, clearly underselling it. ‘In fact, I want to go back. For a gap year.’
He wants what? I almost drop the spoon on its way to my mouth, barely avoiding a shakshuka disaster.
Pedro nods with happy interest, but Safa puts her knife down with a decisive clink. ‘A gap year? That’s news to me.’
Same here, Safa. I’m convinced Simo just made it up to annoy her.
Prompted by the disapproval in her voice, he digs in deeper.
‘I need to live there at least for a bit if I want to be fluent. And I do want to be fluent. It’s embarrassing that I could barely talk with my own cousins. So, yeah, I’m doing a gap year.’
He’s riling her up. And it seems to be working, because now I know where he has that forehead vein from.
Its twin is appearing on Safa’s brow. Simo doesn’t usually talk back at them, at least not when I’m around.
Also, he’s stretching the truth more than a bit.
He soaked up his dad’s language like a sponge, and by the end of the holiday he held entire conversations with his family.
Not to mention that his cousins’ English was so flawless I never dared to use the Spanish sentences I’d prepared in order not to look completely ignorant.
I failed at that, obviously. But my Duolingo streak is uninterrupted ever since.
‘We didn’t save money for university only for you to waste it on a party trip to Spain.
Gap years are for rich kids.’ Her words are sharp and precise.
I see her glance my way for a second, but her anger overrides her sense of propriety.
I try to disappear behind the vase of daisies, uncomfortably aware of my presence in this home that isn’t mine.
Simo keeps quiet for the rest of the meal, which doesn’t last long.
The Lorcas have lost their appetites, and as soon as we’ve cleared the table, Simo pulls me back into his room.
I decide it’s better to keep quiet than to appear like I’m agreeing with his mum.
Best to resent our parents together than resent each other.
Simo straddles his desk chair and disappears into his phone, and since I prefer mine in its dead state, I fall back on to the bed and stare at the ceiling.
I could make a start on the assigned reading, but books never take my mind off things.
When my thoughts become too loud, I bake, but I can’t exactly do that in the Lorcas’ kitchen and my own is currently enemy territory.
It’s easy to empty my head when I focus on following the steps of a recipe.
There’s something calming about throwing ingredients together, mixing them with my own two hands.
It’s hard to feel bad about life when you’ve created something that’s pretty to look at and makes your mouth water.
‘Would you be mad at me if I brought up your grandmother?’ Simo says, bursting the daydream.
He lifts his shoulders, as if he’s trying to brace himself for my reaction.
But the truth is, he would have to commit a serious crime for me to get angry with him.
And even then, I’d still help him cover it up.
‘It’s just, I have intel on her that you might want to hear. ’
‘But you don’t even know her.’ I prop myself up, confusion rushing through my veins.
‘No, but it turns out Dad does. When I mentioned your, um, falling-out, he kind of connected the dots. He’s one of only two estate agents in town, and when a property like Hidden House sells, it doesn’t go unnoticed.’
I’m trying to digest the fact that he’s sat on this information all through breakfast. I know he’s only trying to protect me, but I’m starting to feel stupid for being left in the dark while Simo, his dad and likely his mum too know more about my grandmother than I do.
‘Don’t make me drag it out of you!’
‘I’m sorry! I’m trying to help, even if I’m doing a bad job at it. I’m hardly an expert at diffusing family drama.’ He gets up and sits next to me on the bed. ‘Ready?’
I close my eyes and focus on his leg touching mine.
When the nagging impatience has subsided, I face him again.
He is serious and beautiful. The confident arcs of his eyebrows, the way his freckles mingle with the pockmarks, the soft upswing of his nose.
If baking offers moments of escape, Simo anchors me in the present.
‘OK. Tell me.’
He hesitates, then he holds out his phone. I take it, but he doesn’t let go. We’re both holding on to it, and maybe to each other.
Several versions of her look up at me; photographs from galas and functions.
‘Secret CEO: The Female Face of the Brandenburg Brand’ beneath a picture that shows her cutting a ribbon with oversized scissors, ‘Thirteen Women in Power Suits’ reads another, next to ‘Brandenburg Christmas Gala Turns Twenty’.
There are a whole bunch more, on fiscal years, business growth, and bagels, of all things.
She’s younger in most of them, but the haircut is the same, the long fringe framing a heart-shaped face.
And always by her side a man who, at first sight, I believe to be Dad.
It’s the same face, down to the dip in the chin and wavy hair.
The real difference lies in his expression.
Where Dad’s eyes hold warmth, this older version of him looks on to the world with cold calculation.