“I do like to listen to the ocean,” she says, smiling. “It helps me sleep.”
My heart stings. It’s something we always said—the Bianci women need to be able to hear the ocean when they sleep. For a moment, I am unbearably sad that she will never know she even is a Bianci. “I know,” I manage in an upbeat voice. “That’s why I thought of it.”
“Thanks, Mummy.” She hugs my waist.
“Let’s go check out the greenhouse, shall we?”
But Simon calls up, “Mari, darling, can you come down?”
I take Sarah’s hand, and we head down the stairs. A woman with a video camera on her shoulder and another wearing the coiffed hair and suit jacket of a television reporter are standing in the grand hallway. The camera blinks red, recording, as it tilts itself upward to Sarah and me, coming down the sweep of stairs. “What’s going on?”
Simon, looking highly pleased with himself, introduces them. “This is Hannah Gorton and Yvonne Partridge from TVNZ. They’re here to do a feature.”
My heart freezes so hard I think it might shatter. “Nice to meet you,” I say, walking toward them to shake hands. Then I turn back to Simon. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course.” He follows me into the pantry, out of earshot.
“What are they doing here?”
“I told them they could come.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I might have wanted some better makeup, you know!”
“I knew you’d resist, and it will be good for publicity.”
“Why do we need publicity?” A frantic terror of revelation bangs around in my chest. “I don’t want our private lives made public!”
“It’s just business. We’re going to want to sell the other parcels at the best possible price, and this will generate excitement,” he says with a firmness I know will not budge. He’s a lovely man in a thousand and one ways, but when he decides on something, he is immovable. “And it’s only a half hour.”
“What other parcels?”
“I told you—to make this profitable, we’ll be developing the lower levels of the land into housing.”
“I don’t remember you talking about that.” Pressing my fingers to my temples, I try to calm down. It’s true that in the land-starved suburbs, housing parcels will make a mint. “But why do we have to put our lives on television?”
He presses his palm into my shoulder. “Come on, now. It’ll be right.”
For one long moment, I feel the two sides of my life in direct conflict. I feel them both on either side of my heart, pounding against each other. If I let him have his way, my face will be out on the internet again, increasing the danger that someone will recognize me. But I can’t argue with Simon when he makes up his mind on something. I may as well slam my head against granite. And if I’m too resistant, he’ll wonder why.
Shoving my fears down, I say sharply, “Fine,” and push his hand away, then stomp back into the other room. With effort, I plaster a smile over my face and laugh in a way I’ve learned to do, and I let them film me in the lounge and the halfway horrible kitchen. After a little while, I let go of everything but this—showing them the exquisite stairs made of kauri wood and Australian blackwood railings, the master bath entirely tiled in the Art Deco fashion, and the amazing windows with their views of the harbor, islands slumped across the horizon.
And as we do another walk-through, I find myself falling more and more in love, feeling as if Sapphire House might be the reason for everything. The children tear through the rooms, and it’s all I could ever want.
I’m meant to be here. It was fated.
Looking at Simon across the room, so hearty and cheerful, I wonder what would happen if he knew everything. My terrible reputation as a teen, my reckless, reckless behavior, my—
My gigantic lie. Eyeing my beautiful husband in his crisp shirt and jeans, with one foot kicked out in front of him and his shoulder on the wall, I wonder what it would be like to confess it all. To be fully myself with the man I love more than I thought myself capable of. It’s lonely to carry a secret.
But as he smiles his honest, open, loyal smile, I know the truth. I can’t confess. He would hate me. He would never, ever speak to me again.
So I do the interview, putting on my cheeriest face, my not-quite-Kiwi, not-quite-US accent, and show them around Sapphire House. I’m captured again by the story, by the tragic love story back there in the past, by the startling, thrilling fact that I can restore it.
In the end, the reporter says with a smile, “Thanks, Mari. I think that’s it.”
“My pleasure,” I say, but the words hurt my throat, as if they have corners. When this airs, my face is going to be splattered all over TVNZ. It will be on the internet.
Anyone could see it.
Anyone.
It is the worst danger I’ve faced since I arrived, and it puts everything—everything—at stake.
Before we go, I head up to the attic to look for artifacts from Veronica’s life. It’s draped with cobwebs I sweep away with a broom I brought for just this reason.
Sarah has come with me, too, and I put her to work opening boxes while I make notes on the contents. The attic is mostly barren, with a few boxes of odds and ends, none of which looks particularly interesting. A few hold clothes, and we’ll want to explore those more carefully, considering the era. At last, far away in the back, are two smallish boxes that prove to be the bound diaries Helen filled. I bend over and pick one out at random. The date is 1952. I dig deeper and find one from 1945. The other box contains later entries, and I’m not as interested in those. “Give me a minute, kiddo.” I sit on the floor next to the box and take them all out. They’re not in any order: 1949 is next to ’55, but that seems to be the latest.
The earliest, frustratingly enough, is 1939. “I wonder where the rest of them are.”
“There’s more boxes over here,” Sarah says. “And look! Baby clothes.”
Frowning, I jump to my feet. The clothes are tucked into a wooden cradle, covered with a dusty sheet. The clothes are all for a newborn or just a little older and don’t appear to have been used at all. Someone must have had a miscarriage. My heart aches a little, lifting up tiny sweaters and rompers.
Sarah’s already lost interest in the clothes and opened a few more boxes. They contain any number of things but nothing I can really use to get the answers I need. Where are the other journals? I need the 1930s.
Maybe she hadn’t started keeping them until she moved here.
I mark the two boxes of journals and a third box of scrapbooks with an X for Simon to bring down.
Then I remember the stacks of plastic containers holding magazines, down in Helen’s room. Maybe there will be something there. “Come with me, Sarah. I have an idea.”
Chapter Fifteen
Kit
When I was seven and Josie was nine, Dylan taught us to surf.
I remember the first lesson clearly, because I had Dylan to myself for once, a very rare occurrence. I woke up in the tent, and Josie was gone. Dylan was sprawled flat on his back, hands crossed on his chest, and Cinder snored beside me, but Josie’s sleeping bag didn’t even look touched. I crawled out to pee. The morning was thick and overcast, the ocean restless below it, and I waded into the lapping waves, letting the cold water ripple over my arches and ankles. We swam most days, Josie and I, and this was how I kept myself ready—wading in as high as I could, then dashing back out, wading in, dashing out. Cinder must have heard me, because he scrambled out of the tent too and started running in and out with me. He found a long weathered piece of driftwood and tossed it to me. I laughed and picked it up and threw it back toward the beach. He was a retriever, but he didn’t love actually swimming unless he absolutely had to. Once the water reached his chest, he always ran back to the beach, barking.