The tragedy Leandro had caused.
He looked out of the window that overlooked the garden at the back of the villa. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to go out there yet. It had once been a spectacular affair with neatly trimmed hedges, flowering shrubs and borders filled with old-world roses whose heady scent would fill the air. It had been a magical place for he and his sister to scamper about and play hide and seek in amongst the cool, green shaded laneways of the hedges.
But now it was an overgrown mess of weeds, misshapen hedges and skeletal rose bushes with one or two half-hearted blooms. Parts of the garden were so overrun they couldn’t be seen properly from the house.
It reminded Leandro of his father’s life—sad, neglected, abused and abandoned. Wasted.
How could he have thought to bring Miranda here? How long before she discovered Rosie’s room? He couldn’t keep it locked up for ever. Stepping in there was like stepping back in time. It was painfully surreal. Everything was exactly the same as the day Rosie had disappeared from the beach. Every toy. Every doll. Every childish scribble she had ever done. Every messy and colourful finger-painting. Every article of clothing left in the wardrobe as if she were going to come back and use it. Even her hairbrush was on the dressing table with some of her silky dark-brown hairs still trapped in the bristles—a haunting reminder of the last time it had been used.
Even the striped towel they had been sitting on at the beach was there on the foot of the child-sized princess bed. The bed Rosie had been so proud of after moving out of her cot. Her ‘big-girl bed’, she’d called it. He still remembered her excited little face as she’d told him how she had chosen it with their mother while he’d been at school.
It was a lifetime ago.
Why had his father left the room intact for so long? Had he wanted Leandro to see it? Was that why he’d left him the villa and its contents? Knowing Leandro would have to come in and pack up every single item of Rosie’s? Why hadn’t his father seen to it himself or got someone impartial to do it? It had been twenty-seven years, for pity’s sake. There was no possibility of Rosie ever coming home. The police had been blunt with his parents once the first few months had passed with no leads, no evidence, no clues and no tip-offs.
Leandro had seen the statistics. Rosie had joined the thousands of people who went missing without trace. Every single day families across the globe were shattered by the disappearance of a loved one. They were left with the stomach-churning dread of wondering what had happened to their beloved family member. Praying they were still alive but deep down knowing such miracles were rare. Wondering if they had suffered or were still suffering. It was cruel torture not to know and yet just as bad speculating.
Leandro had spent every year of his life since wondering. Praying. Begging. Pleading with a God he no longer believed in—if he ever had. Rosie wasn’t coming back. She was gone and he was responsible.
The guilt he felt over Rosie’s disappearance was a band around his chest that would tighten every time he saw a toddler. Rosie had been with him on the pebbly beach when he was six and she was three. He could recall her cute little chubby-cheeked face and starfish dimpled hands with such clarity he felt like it was yesterday. For years he’d kept thinking the life he was living since was just a bad dream. That he would wake up and there would be Rosie with her sunny smile sitting on the striped towel next to him. But every time he would wake and he would feel that crushing hammer blow of guilt.
His mother had stepped a few feet away to an ice-cream vendor, leaving Leandro in charge. When she’d come back, Rosie had gone. Vanished. Snatched from where she had been sitting. The beach had been scoured. The water searched. The police had interviewed hundreds of beach-goers but there was no sign of Rosie. No one had seen anything suspicious. Leandro had only turned his back for a moment or two to look at a speedboat that was going past. When he’d turned around he’d seen his mother coming towards him with two ice-cream cones; her face had contorted in horror when she’d seen the empty space on the towel beside him.
He had never forgotten that look on his mother’s face. Every time he saw his mother he remembered it. It haunted him. Tortured him.
His parents’ marriage hadn’t been strong in the first place. Losing Rosie had gouged open cracks that were already there. The divorce had been bitter and painful two years after Rosie’s disappearance. His father hadn’t wanted custody of Leandro. He hadn’t even asked for visitation rights. His mother hadn’t wanted him either. But she must have known people would judge her harshly if she didn’t take him with her when she went back to her homeland, England. Mothers were meant to love their children.