Ideally, we’d hold a press conference, but Mum is refusing because pleading for your safe return would ruin her delusion that you’re sunning yourself in the South of France. I wish she’d talk to the counsellor. I did offer to hold the conference myself, but the police advised against it. It must come from our parents, or the media will make a scandalous drama out of it, probably pointing the finger at our family. So, until Mum and Dad change their minds, we don’t talk to the media.
Margot drove from London to deliver the printouts and help put them up around town. While we walked, she told me stories about your uni days I’d never heard before: the night you both dressed up in sun visors and Argyle jumpers to play pub golf, and Margot got so drunk, taxis refused to take her, but you walked her all the way home and put her to bed; the birthday Margot baked you a cake, accidentally using salt instead of sugar, and you were so desperate not to hurt her feelings, you ate a slice without complaint. As I listened, love for you gurgled up. I was trying to recall the last time I told you I loved you, but I couldn’t.
As Margot talked, I realised I could see you in the way she absently strokes her hair, the way she brings her hand to her mouth when she laughs, the way she bites the inside of her cheek when she’s thinking. Do people see you in me too? If you never come home, when our parents look at me, will they only ever see the ghost of you?
Margot was going to stay at a local B&B until after the lantern release, but I insisted she stay with me. Ethan has had to go away for work for a few days, and I like to host. But when we returned from putting up posters, lurking outside my front door was a tall man in dark trousers and a sweat-stained shirt.
‘Reporter,’ warned Margot as we neared.
He rushed forward, thrusting a Dictaphone in my face.
‘No comment,’ said Margot, taking my hand and pulling me along the path to the house.
‘Mrs Archer,’ he called just as I closed and locked the front door behind us.
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
‘Having a famous mother had its downsides too.’
‘Reporters?’
She nodded. ‘They were outside our house all the time when I was growing up. Elodie’s story is gaining traction. It’s good. It will get the word out and maybe even help find her. But it means more reporters will come sniffing. Just wait until they get hold of your email and number, then they’ll call, email and text. The nuisance trifecta.
‘I’ve spoken to Jack,’ she said. ‘He’s really beating himself up about not being there the weekend she went missing.’
I didn’t comment. Everyone adores Jack. Especially you. Years ago, when you were a know-it-all teenager crushing hard and I was your bitchy big sister, I told you he was possessive and weird, but you defended him, insisting he was just protective. Then I moved out and you moved away and your friendship with Jack was out of sight, out of mind. I think I lost you the day you met him because we weren’t truly close again until Noah died, were we? And then … well, you know what you did to ruin that.
By 8 p.m. that night, the park had a big crowd. I’d been wrong to worry that not many people would come to the lantern release because it was short notice and late at night. It was the same crowd you see in Crosshaven fields on bonfire night: circles of mothers jigging babies on their hips, trying to talk over their squawking offspring; groups of teens scrolling through their phones and giggling raucously, old couples huddling together in coats too thick for the evening summer heat. The difference was, I wasn’t anonymous in this crowd. I felt all eyes on me as I walked around the park, checking last-minute details. I avoided eye contact because I couldn’t stand to see any more pitying expressions. If they weren’t pitying, they were fascinated or, in some cases, accusatory. As though they thought I’d chopped you up into little pieces and fed you to the ducks before they arrived.
‘Good job you ordered that extra box of lanterns,’ said Margot, surveying the turnout. They were the expensive, eco-friendly kind that didn’t kill the turtles or burn down a neighbouring field. ‘We’ve run out of pens though.’
‘They’ll have to share.’
‘Saved you one.’ She handed me a Sharpie.
This was something I saw online – people scribbling messages on the lanterns before releasing them. I’d been thinking all day about what I’d write. But you’re the writer, El, not me. I thought about composing a poem because poems are always poignant, but I haven’t written one since primary school and all my brain could dredge up was ‘blue’ and ‘glue’, which are not words that inspire sisterly love or profound meaning.
‘Adaline!’ I looked over to see Ruby approaching with Tom.
God, El, she looks bigger every time I see her.
She pulled me into a hug, her hard pregnant belly pushing against the flat of mine. I don’t know what it is about pregnant women, but they make me a bit queasy. They have an actual person living inside them. Living off them. Like a parasite. One which expands their body and rearranges their organs and causes them to vomit and then, in a grand finale, tears through their vagina.
Months ago, when Ruby announced she was having a baby, I almost blurted, ‘Are you keeping it?’ because, for so long, that was the automatic response to a friend telling you they were up the duff. It doesn’t matter that we are adults with houses and husbands, I still feel the teenage terror from all those PSHE lessons, which drilled into you that getting pregnant will ruin your life and must be avoided at all costs. Then she whipped out her scan photo. I stared at the black and white nothingness of it and didn’t know what to say. Ethan stepped in, congratulating her and asking all the right things. ‘How far along are you?’ ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’ ‘Have you got a name picked out?’ He so desperately wants a child of his own.
‘Wow, this gathering is impressive,’ said Ruby. Then her eyes locked on Margot and I could see the spiky thought bubble forming above her head: New friend, Ada has a new friend. THREAT, THREAT, THREAT! and before she could attack Margot, I said, ‘Oh, Ruby, this is Elodie’s best friend. She’s been helping set everything up.’
She looked relieved. ‘Have your parents arrived?’
I shook my head. Mum was still refusing to participate in any event that supported the theory you were abducted.
A while later, Christopher appeared. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, you’d have no idea he was a police officer, which I suppose was the point. ‘How’re you holding up?’
‘Good,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure that was true. Rather than thinking about how I feel, I keep busy, not stopping until I’m so exhausted, I collapse into bed.
‘Is … Mr Archer here?’
I blinked, caught off guard. ‘No, Ethan’s away on business.’