Page 128 of The Island of Lost Girls

Larissa keeps her shoulder turned as she speaks. ‘Mediterraneo? That’s what you’ve called it?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s going to be beautiful. Far better than this place will ever be.’

‘I’m glad for you,’ she replies. ‘Shame you had to sell your family to get it. By the way, you’ve forgotten to button your shirt. You’ll get a chill.’

‘Larissa—’

‘What?’

‘You’re still my wife.’

‘In name.’

‘You could still be – I’d be ready to forgive you.’

Larissa picks up a plate and hurls it at his head.

‘But what will we do?’ asks Mercedes. ‘Mama, we can’t live.’

‘You want to go with him? Do you?’

Thirteen years old. Old enough to leave school, but it’s a lot of life she’s learning. ‘Mama … ’

Larissa won’t look at anyone. She just works and works, an automaton. Chopping and cooking and serving, her table smile switched off the second she comes indoors. ‘Go on, then,’ she says, ‘if that’s what you want. Just go. I won’t stop you.’

‘Mama, I don’t … why are you angry with me? What did I do?’

‘Why would you stay with me anyway?’ she replies. ‘There’s nothing, with me. Nothing.’

‘We can go up the hill,’ says Mercedes. ‘At least they can’t kick us out of there. We’ll work it out. We will.’

‘This is it,’ she says. Despair makes people dramatic. ‘I have literally nothing. Without this place, I have no purpose.’

‘You have me,’ Mercedes says, and her voice sounds very small, in her ears. As if she’s pleading from miles away. I know I’m a poor substitute. How can I replace the beautiful one? How can I ever fill the hole where the shining star once shone? ‘Mama,’ she says, and bursts into tears. I’m only a kid, she thinks. I’m only a kid.

As if a switch is thrown, Larissa snaps awake. Sees her daughter, goes to her, wraps her in her arms. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t listen to me. You’re everything, Mercedes. You’re everything. We’ll find a way.’

But her arms around her feel wrong. Everything feels wrong. Mercedes doesn’t want to be held any more.

Sleep is something she remembers. A distant memory. There is no sleep, alone in this room, Donatella’s things still all around her. When she gets into her sister’s bed, she can still smell her. Find hairs on the pillows, feel the dent in the old mattress where she used to lie.

I want to die, she thinks. I cannot live like this.

Guilt eats her, from the inside out. How did I not know? How did I think she meant she was just leaving? I could have stopped her. I could have saved her. She’d have hated me, for a while. But she would still be here. It’s all spoiled, now. It will never be better.

I have to save my mother. This house is all she’s ever known, since she was Donatella’s age. This house, the restaurant, these people. How can he own us like this? How did it happen? We’re just slaves, really, from the day we’re born. All the trappings of freedom, but none at all, in reality. Our lives are his, to dispose of as he wants, and she’ll never be forgiven for showing him who he really is.

What do I do? What do I do? I can’t let them take it away, I can’t. But a hundred thousand American dollars? It might as well be a billion. It might as well be the whole of the ocean. I’d give anything. Anything to save her. Anything. I would give up my life. But who has a hundred thousand American dollars?

And she sits up in her sister’s bed and takes a breath. Because she knows who has the money. And how she will persuade him to loan it.