Chapter One
‘I think we should move,’ James announces one evening after I come down from putting Skyla to bed.
The suggestion is so out of the blue that I have to ask him to repeat himself, and as I do, my voice comes out strangled.
‘I think we should move,’ he says again, pulling down two wine glasses from the hanging shelf.
‘Absolutely not.’ I shake my head furiously. My cheeks flame, head starting to pound. I punch at the screen of the baby monitor angrily, watching as it fills with an image of our little girl splayed out on her tummy in the cot. I stare at it until the screen turns black.
‘Darling, please. Think about it.’ He looks at me with tearful eyes. ‘We’re getting mined out here. Picked apart.’
He glances out of the window. The nights are becoming lighter, and from our apartment we can see the quay still bustling with life.
The change in season isn’t welcome. If anything, it serves only as a reminder of the time that has passed without Robin.
James is right, though. The media and the public have been like vultures since Robin’s disappearance.
At first, I thought it would mellow with time, but if anything, it has only become worse the longer our daughter remains missing.
People are getting angrier, their need for answers almost as strong as our own.
We have been ostracised, shamed, tormented.
It has been hell, and it shows in our faces, which reflect off the glass on the sliding doors leading to our small balcony.
‘I doubt it’s going to be any different elsewhere,’ I say as he selects a bottle of Chablis from the wine rack.
‘The news isn’t only shown in Bristol. Our faces are everywhere.
Everyone knows who we are now.’ I press the screen on again and find our daughter has already shifted, her arm at a different angle, but she’s still there. She’s still there.
‘I know that,’ he says. ‘I’m just sick of it here. I can’t leave the house without people staring at me. Taking pictures. Trying to talk to me or shout. It’s doing my head in.’
I swallow a mouthful of wine and nod. I know what he means.
I can’t even go to Tesco Express without being harassed these days.
Even if I shove on a hat and dress as inconspicuously as possible, it’s like they’re waiting.
We have become part of some sadistic witch hunt, and I’m not sure how much more of it I can take.
The screen returns to black, and I immediately click the button so I can keep watching our daughter sleep.
James comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. Very gently he prises the screen from my hands. ‘Stop,’ he soothes.
I exhale, trying to stop the itch to reach for the screen again.
It has become my obsession in recent weeks.
I’ve had this primal need to have eyes on Skyla at all times.
To know her every move and make sure she’s okay.
It’s a comfort I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have again.
The aftermath of having a wound that can never be cauterised.
We sway in the kitchen for a moment, the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat slowly calming me.
‘I wish people would just leave us alone,’ I say.
‘I know,’ James sighs, keeping me close.
‘It’s like, I couldn’t leave the house without someone saying something about the twins before. “Bet they keep you busy!” or “Got your hands full!”’ I sob. ‘After Robin disappeared, I started getting these fucking grating comments like, “You’re missing one!”’
I don’t have to tell my husband about the horrified looks that followed as the people recognised my face and who I was. They regretted their remarks instantly, but it was too late to take them back.
Changing from the double buggy to a single was a knife through my heart, but it was the only thing that stopped the comments. No one tends to say something to you when you only have the one baby to take care of.
‘I hate them,’ I whisper, wishing there was a way to escape all the people trying to kick us while we’re down.
But there’s not — and all we can do is keep taking the blows, not fight back, not give anyone a reason to think for one second that we are angry people.
One wrong move and we’ll be labelled aggressive, violent — it’ll all be used against us in the media.
My eyes burn and I rub them with my thumb, wishing the world could simply see us for who we really are.
Human beings. No one ever sees us as that any more.
We are, to the majority of people, monsters.
At least in their eyes. Rumours have spread like wildfire, stories about how we killed our own daughter.
Even the people who think we didn’t hurt our daughter intentionally have it in for us, think we’re covering up the truth when the truth is we don’t know any more than they do. They just refuse to believe it.
‘It’ll be good for us,’ he says, after a while. ‘A fresh start.’
‘With what money?’ I scoff, and this seems to make him wince. It’s a low blow. He hates discussing our finances, because they aren’t good. Not any more.
I look out to the floating harbour, wishing I could take back my words.
He doesn’t deserve me bringing him down.
I wish I were the type of person who could just let him live in his own fantasy land, in a place where we can afford to move somewhere else, anywhere else.
It’s only fair. He lets me live in my delusions every day — and yet I feel the need to shatter his illusions.
‘We can’t stay here forever,’ he whispers, brokenly.
The sad thing is that I know he’s right. We can’t afford this apartment any more, but I’m terrified to leave it.
‘We have to stay,’ I say. ‘What if one day Robin comes home, and we aren’t here?’
‘She’s not a cat, Bella,’ he sighs.
‘But she could, right? She could come home one day.’ My voice cracks and before I even finish my sentence, James has crushed me to him.
I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking. That just before she disappeared her speech was growing by the day.
We’d just started teaching her to say the number of our apartment.
Twenty-eight. The street name was harder, and her words would come out sputtered, but she was learning.
Will she remember that if someone ever asks her where she lives, the way we would?
Will she remember the name of the address we used to try and teach her to say in case she ever did disappear — all the while never thinking she actually would.
We were the stereotypical family who took every measure to protect our children but always assumed it would never happen to us.
But isn’t that every parent’s mindset? No one would ever wake up one day and think, my child might be abducted today.
Aren’t we all then guilty for thinking nightmares like that impossible?
Yet I have learned that they are very possible, and I’ll never throw caution to the wind again.
I hate that I’m still clinging on to the hope that Robin will just suddenly appear one day. But how can I not? I am her mother, maybe not by blood, but in every way that it matters. If I lose hope, I fail her. Don’t I?
‘We can’t move, James. We can’t.’ I speak into his chest, my voice muffled, but I stand my ground and my words are firm.
‘Okay,’ he says, his shoulders dropping. ‘Okay.’
His hand glides down my back tenderly and I let him hold me as tears fall between us. We don’t speak about moving again for a very long time.