I want to make her feel better and worry less, but I honestly don’t know how to reassure her. Teaching at a secondary school has taught me that anything is possible with those not fully developed brains.
“I can’t believe we’re still dealing with bullying, generation after generation. How have we not evolved as a society?”
“I know.” Leesa sighs. “When they’re small, you worry about what you might do to them or what someone else might do to them. When they’re teens, you worry about what they might do to themselves or to each other.”
What you might do to them. There’s a huge part of me wants to ask her more. Maybe I’m not the only one who worries about hurting my baby. But instead I go for a platitude.
“You’re doing your best. You can only bring them up as well as you can and keep lines of communication open.”
She smiles. “And mostly cross your fingers.” A pause. “I’m thinking of getting Aoife on board. She’s the one who told me what was happening before…I could get her to kind of…take a look?”
“Take a look?” I push back my chair. “Here, let’s walk and talk. I think I heard Bella.”
Together we go upstairs to bring Bella down to the kitchen, and Leesa explains her thinking.
“I could get Aoife to look around Maeve’s social media, her friends’ accounts. Listen for gossip, you know?”
“The word I think you’re looking for is ‘snoop.’ ”
She bites her lip. “Am I a bad person?”
“Not at all—I would absolutely do it too. You’re trying to protect your child.” I look down at Bella in my arms. “Jesus, I’d do anything to protect this one. Whatever it takes.”
• • •
We decide to take fresh coffees to the back garden. It’s 17 degrees already, not hot by Mediterranean standards or even anywhere-but-here standards,but for Ireland, this is enticingly pleasant for ten o’clock in the morning. I set up a parasol to shade Bella and lay her on her back on a playmat. Leesa and I sit on loungers, faces to the sun. Unlike Greta, who is milk-white all year round and never lets a UV ray touch her skin, Leesa is a sun-worshipper and ardent tan-seeker. She closes her eyes, and I do the same, trying to stem my racing thoughts. It’s quiet at this time of morning. No lawnmowers yet, no paddling-pool shrieks. Just birds, and the distant hum of an occasional passing car. I’m starting to feel sleepy when Leesa asks after Greta and Jon.
No news from either of them, I tell her, the lie like a lead stone in the pit of my stomach. She chats on then about Greta’s Long Covid, Aoife’s aversion to sport, what she’ll wear to the Oakpark street party on Thursday, a documentary about diving, and whether or not she needs another pair of sunglasses. She already has eighteen pairs, I reckon, but that’s never stopped our Leesa. The nice thing is, she just sort of talks to herself, and as long as I hmm every now and then, it’s quite soothing.
After a while, the creak of her lounger tells me she’s on the move and I open my eyes. She’s sitting up straight, finishing her coffee, and says she’d better get home to log on for her shift.
• • •
It happens when I walk her to the door. We stand there chatting for a minute about Celeste’s family and friends, and who of them might have broken our window. It’s when I think of this, and Bella in her cot beneath the window last Tuesday night, that I start to feel uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have left her out the back on her own. Even if it’s only for a minute. I say a hurried goodbye to Leesa and run back through the house and out to the garden.
And Bella is there, of course she is, kicking on her playmat, exactly where I left her.
Only…I realize now, not exactly where I left her.
She’s not under the shade of the umbrella any more.
I’m confused for a moment, staring, then I stoop to pick her up. Her cheeks are red, her forehead too. She’s hardly got sunburnt in a few short minutes? Surely she’s flushed, not burned…But how could she have moved? She’s not able to roll over yet. Has the sun moved? It makes no sense. If the sun didn’t move, then Bella did. But she can’t. Which would mean what…someone moved her? I look around, holding her close, shielding her from the sunlight. Tall hedges line both sides of the garden, hiding high walls that divide our property from Greta’s on one side and Juliette’s on the other. At the back, giant evergreens give us privacy. There’s nobody here; of course there isn’t. This is not like the supermarket, where someone could have accidentally or deliberately moved her. This is our garden, enclosed by a gate on one side and going right up to the garden wall on the other. Nobody came in. This is on me, misjudging how quickly the sun moves. I kiss her forehead, and she starts to cry. Her skin is still red. Flushed or burned? Either way, common sense kicks in and I take her inside. Jesus Christ, I am the worst mother in the world.
48
Venetia
Tuesday
Venetia puts her key in the lock but doesn’t turn it. She leans her forehead against the front door, spent. Her elation, so high, so brief, has flattened, and grief has taken over. What did she expect? Nothing can bring Aimee back. But god, for a moment, it felt good to do something. To give Susan O’Donnell a shake. To poke her where it hurts. She thinks about the surprised look on the baby’s face when she pulled it by the ankles into the sun. Just a few inches, that’s all it took. A little burn for baby, a little worry for Susan.
Venetia turns now, sagging against the door, and stares down the front path toward the small gate and beyond to the street. People walk by, getting on with their days as though nothing has happened. As though her life hasn’t come to an end. She hates those people. She hates everyone.
The door behind her is pulled open and she stumbles back before righting herself. Felipe’s arm goes around her shoulder, steering her gently into the kitchen.
“Where were you?” He propels her into a chair.
She shakes her head.
