Page 23

NOW

August 2023

Lily

Phibsborough, Dublin

The rest of the week went by in a blur. Work became a blessing because Lily could forget about Zach when she was with her clients. Or should she say Robert. It was so confusing. After their chat on Wednesday afternoon, she decided two things. One, she liked him. And, two, she believed he was genuine in his belief that he was her brother. So Lily promised him that she would help him discover the truth.

It was Michael who said out loud what they were all thinking. The only way to prove or disprove Zach’s theory was to initiate a DNA test. Michael offered to research how to move this plan forward. There were many online options for testing, but Lily felt uncomfortable about that route. After a few phone calls, Michael found a clinic in Dublin they were both happy with. Michael made an appointment for them the following Monday afternoon.

Since then, Lily and Michael had done little else but discuss their next steps. Should they tell Kimberly and Jason? Or wait until the DNA results came in? Both had pros and cons, and neither of them could make a decision.

So Lily decided to visit the one person she trusted as much as her husband. Her grandfather Kevin. Or Gaga as she called him. He lived in a retirement village outside Dublin in the foothills of the Wicklow mountains. Over the past ten years, Gaga had found it increasingly difficult to cope on his own. He was eighty-nine years old. But, in typical Gaga fashion, he had done something about it. He sold his home and bought a two-bedroom bungalow in a gated community that gave him – and his family – the comfort of knowing he was looked after. With twenty-four-hour CCTV and a twenty-four-hour nurse call system, he was safe. But he also had freedom in his bungalow, with all the modern bells and whistles he needed for independent living.

Leaving Ben with Michael, Lily drove to her grandfather’s house, where they planned to have dinner together. It was a bright summer evening, and Lily found Gaga watering his window boxes, draped with bright peonies in every rainbow colour.

‘How do you get them like that?’ Lily said, walking up behind him. ‘My baskets at the front door are pitiful in comparison.’

‘Pasta water,’ Gaga said, putting down his watering can and turning to give Lily a warm hug. ‘Next time you make pasta for dinner, keep the strained water and pour it on your flowers. It’s full of vitamins and minerals to nourish them – trust me. And free!’

‘I’ll remember that.’ Lily linked arms with her Gaga, and they walked into the bungalow. ‘Does that mean we’re having your famous pasta bake for dinner?’ Lily asked hopefully.

‘It sure does. Chorizo, tomato, onion and lots of cheese. It will be ready in forty-five minutes. I’ve a bottle of Tempranillo breathing out on the patio. Let’s have a glass while we wait for the bake to finish.’

‘One small glass for me, Gaga. I need to drive home today.’

‘I miss the days when you could have a couple of drinks and not worry about the Gardaí pulling you over and bagging you.’

Lily decided to avoid debating the dangers of drunk driving. She’d leave that for another day. She sniffed the proffered glass of red appreciatively. Gaga always bought good wine. Lily took a sip and savoured the plum and blackcurrant notes that danced in her mouth.

‘Why don’t you cut straight to the chase and tell me what’s wrong?’ Gaga said.

Lily raised an eyebrow at him. ‘What are you, a mind reader?’

‘You always visit with Michael and Ben. If you come alone, it usually means you’ve got something on your mind that needs mulling over.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and asked quietly, ‘Is it Jason? Has he gone a bit funny after that TV interview?’

It was a fair question. Lily’s dad had form. The highs of the possibility of a breakthrough typically led to a spectacular low when things got quiet again.

‘Yes and no,’ Lily replied. She’d rehearsed what to say to Gaga all the way over on the drive. But nothing felt right. How did you tell someone news as big as this? ‘A man has come forward claiming to be Robert.’

Her grandad’s face blanched and his hand shook, sending droplets of red wine falling onto his white T-shirt. He placed his wine glass on the table and said in a voice strained with emotion, ‘Tell me everything.’

Lily went through the past few days’ events with him, sparing no detail. Her granddad listened without interruption, nodding along as she spoke.

‘Are you okay, Gaga?’ she asked in concern when she’d finished bringing him up to speed.

He raised his glass of wine to his lips. He took a sip, then put the glass down. ‘I never thought we’d see this day.’

‘Me neither,’ Lily answered. ‘We don’t know that it’s even him . . .’

‘But you think it is,’ her grandad stated. ‘I can see it in your face when you say his name.’

Lily was surprised that he said that, because she wasn’t sure she knew what she thought. Most of the time she felt sick with fear when she thought about Zach.

‘You came here to know whether you should tell Kimberly and Jason.’

There was little Gaga missed. While his body had slowed down over the past couple of years, his mind was as sharp as ever.

‘Should I wait until the DNA test comes back? Or tell them now?’ Lily asked.

‘It’s a tricky situation, but, for what it’s worth, I think you have no choice but to speak to them about it. It will be another week or so before you have DNA results. You can’t keep them in the dark that long. They won’t forgive you for it.’

‘What if it isn’t him? What if we all get our hopes up again, only for them to be dashed.’

‘What if it is, though? I never believed he was dead. I wasn’t sure we’d ever find out where he went, but over the side of that ship, no.’

Lily looked at him in surprise. ‘Why are you so sure of that?’

‘Look at the situation logically. Robert was six months younger than your Ben. There is no way he managed to unlock the cabin door, leave, make his way up to the top deck, climb onto a railing over six feet high and then fall overboard. It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘But they found his cuddly toy up there.’

‘That they did.’ He took another sip of wine, then said wearily, ‘If Robert drowned that night, then he was murdered. I can’t allow myself to think about that. Because if that happened, then Kimberly or Jason . . .’ He stopped, shaking his head to throw the thought away.

Lily gasped as she felt fresh dread claw at her insides.

‘You know your parents better than anyone. Is there any scenario you can see where they killed Robert? Either on accident or purpose?’

‘No!’ Lily said without hesitation. Her mother had her neuroses, but she loved her children. And why would her father give his life to finding the truth if he knew it? ‘My parents did not kill Robert.’

‘Exactly. So it is more likely that someone entered the cabin and took him.’ Gaga topped his glass, but Lily held a hand over the rim of hers to stop him from doing the same for her.

‘If this is Robert, then we can finally find out what did happen that night. And my son can finally have some peace. His life has been on hold for forty years. It’s time his pain ended.’

They sat in silence for a moment, each thinking about Jason and the miserable life he’d curated for himself since Robert’s disappearance.

‘Will you come back to Dublin with me? I could use your support when I tell Mum and Dad.’

‘Of course. I’ll stay with Jason and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. You could ask Kimberly to stay with you.’ He pulled a face and Lily mirrored it.

‘Great,’ Lily said, feeling guilty that the notion of being under the same roof as her mum wasn’t appealing. ‘She’ll say no, though. We’re too noisy for her and her work. She’s always on the phone to clients.’

Her grandfather rolled his eyes. He’d never been a Kimberly fan. ‘She had begun to show interest in the business before Robert disappeared. But when we got back from Spain she threw herself into it. And maybe that’s good, because Jason lost his way, unable to let Robert’s disappearance go.’

‘It’s understandable that they both threw themselves into something to take their minds off their pain,’ Lily said.

‘Maybe. But they didn’t do right by you. Either of them,’ Gaga said gruffly.

‘I had you,’ Lily replied softly.

‘Always,’ Gaga replied, and for a moment they locked eyes with each other as they remembered the countless times it had been just the two of them, while Lily’s parents hid themselves away from life.

‘I’m scared, Gaga.’

‘Of what, love?’

‘That if this isn’t Robert we’ll lose Dad too. He’s worse than ever, with this over-zealous need to find out what happened. He’s lived with all the unresolved trauma for forty years. We all have, but for Dad it’s developed into an obsession.’ Lily ran her hands through her hair, sighing deeply. ‘It’s robbed him of so much. For his sake, Dad needs to stop searching and start living. He needs Zach to be Robert.’

Gaga put his glass down. ‘We’ve talked about this many times over the years. Jason has always been hard on himself. As a kid he never stopped making lists and was such a perfectionist. We worried about him, because he put so much pressure on himself.’

‘Which is why he succeeded so early with his business. His attention to detail,’ Lily added. ‘But what was once a manageable need for order has now taken over his life.’

‘Do you have a photograph of him? This Zach fella?’ Gaga asked, his brow furrowed with deep lines.

Lily nodded mutely, pulled out her mobile and opened the photo stream. ‘Swipe to the left. There are about a dozen photographs I’ve downloaded from his Instagram account. With his family in Westport, mostly.’

Lily watched her grandfather’s face as he scrolled through the images. She could see the wonder and hope in his eyes, which glistened with emotion. He clasped his chest and let out a strangled sob. Lily moved around the garden furniture and knelt at Gaga’s side.

‘It’s a lot. I know,’ Lily said with understanding.

‘It’s just . . . I never thought I’d see him again. And I loved that little fella. He might not have been my grandson in blood, but he was in every way that mattered.’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stroked Lily’s cheek gently. ‘With you, we loved you before you arrived. The excitement of knowing you were on the way. But with Robert it was a little more complicated.’

‘How so?’

‘When your dad told me that he’d met a woman and they were getting married, I was shocked and a little sceptical. It all happened so fast. He’d barely mentioned he was dating, and the next minute they were engaged. A single mother from Scotland, that I knew nothing about, and she had a son. I wished your nana was still alive, to get her opinion.’

‘What made you so worried about Mum?’ Lily asked, sitting back in her chair again.

‘I was afraid Kimberly was a gold digger after Jason’s money. And I felt she was hiding something from us. She always seemed on edge.’

Lily’s throat constricted with emotion at the word ‘hiding’. Her grandfather was a good man who had lived in service to his son and, in turn, to his granddaughter. She trusted his judgement.

And Lily had felt more than once that her parents were hiding something. The more she delved into Robert’s disappearance, the more frustrated and frightened she became. She hoped with every part of her that Zach was Robert so that the truth of what had happened to her brother might end the pain of so many. But she couldn’t shift a nagging feeling that this truth could cost them all dearly.