Everything happened at double speed after that. Rea wrapped a blanket around Stella and held her in her arms, while George made tea. No matter how big the crisis was, there was always tea, wasn’t there?
The Gardaí arrived, quickly followed by an ambulance. Luca went with Stella to the hospital and kind nurses checked her over thoroughly. They did a blood test, to screen for drugs.
She gave her statement to a detective, who had been at her house on more than one occasion previously. Matt had been brought in for questioning and he was currently detained in the Gardaí station. A team of forensics were at Stella’s house.
They kept her in overnight, giving her fluids, as she was so dehydrated. Luca insisted on staying overnight, sleeping in a chair beside her bed, keeping guard.
The following morning, she was discharged. George collected them. And before she knew it, Stella was back in Rea’s, sitting on the couch with her arms wrapped around her once more, a blanket over the two of them.
‘I don’t know what to do now,’ Stella admitted.
‘You’ll stay here with us, until you work that out,’ Rea said.
‘You’ll be safe here,’ George added. ‘Luca and I won’t let him near you.’
Charlie came in with two plates of sandwiches and tea. ‘You need to eat something, honey,’ he said, hunkering down low in front of her. ‘You’ve gone so thin.’
‘There was none of her before, but days with no food to speak of …’ Rea said, tutting, pulling the blanket up higher, pulling her in tighter to her.
Stella accepted the cup of tea, smiling at the china. ‘I get the good teaset, I see.’
‘You’ll always get the good set here,’ Rea replied.
‘Close the door there, Luca. There’s a draft coming in, she’ll catch her death,’ Rea said and, to her horror, Stella started to cry.
‘Oh hush now, what is it?’ Rea asked.
Charlie moved over to the other side of her, ‘You’ve been through so much, you have a good cry.’
‘My mam used to say exactly that,’ Stella said. ‘You’ll catch your death … I miss her so much. I miss her, I want my mam.’
‘Oh sweetheart,’ Rea held her close.
‘Where is your mam and dad? Your family?’ Charlie asked. ‘We can call them for you. They’d want to be here.’
‘You can’t call them.’ Stella said.
‘Why?’ Charlie asked.
‘They’re dead,’ Stella answered, tears falling once again.
‘Both your parents?’ Rea asked and she nodded slowly in response. ‘I have nobody.’
‘Yes you do,’ Luca’s voice cut in, gruff with emotion. ‘You have us.’
‘All of you have been part of the happiest time of my life since they died. It’s felt like … like I have a family again.’
‘That’s because you do. Friends are the family that we choose ourselves, that’s what I always say,’ Charlie said.
Rea took Stella’s hands between her own, ‘Stella Greene, you are family to us. Don’t ever forget that. Sometimes people are put in our path for a reason. The day you knocked on my door, looking for help, well it was one of my lowest moments. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. But then, like an angel, you appeared. You saved me.’
‘And you have all saved me too.’
‘When did your parents – when did they die? How long have you been on your own?’ Rea asked.
‘Ten years ago, almost. They died on St Stephens Day in 2004,’ Stella replied.
Time stood still then for Rea, George and Luca, as they looked at each other, then back to Stella again. Luca found his voice the quickest. ‘Elise died on that day too.’
Stella’s eyes darkened, confused by this coincidence.
‘How did your family die?’ George asked.
‘They died in the Boxing Day tsunami, on Patong Beach,’ Stella whispered and saw shock register on each of the faces of the Brady family. ‘Don’t tell me …’
Rea nodded, unable to speak, and she reached out for George, who fell into the seat beside her.
‘What’s going on?’ Charlie said, not understanding any of this.
‘Elise was there too. She died on Patong Beach,’ Rea answered him, never taking her eyes off Stella.
Luca slumped back onto his chair. Charlie walked over to his side and sat on the edge, wanting to give him support. He looked shell-shocked.
‘Elise went to Phuket for Christmas. I couldn’t go, I was working. My boss wouldn’t give me the time off,’ Luca said.
Shock vibrated through Stella.
Luca continued, ‘The ironic thing is, he gave me the time off to go and search for her, when she went missing.’
Charlie placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it.
‘I searched for weeks. Until I finally admitted that she was gone.’
‘You never found her body?’ Charlie asked.
His question was met with silence.
Stella looked at Luca, locking eyes and saw reflected in them the pain that she lived with every day. If he had spent weeks over there, looking for Elise, he had seen it all. The makeshift morgues, the decaying stench of the unclaimed dead, the apocalyptic devastation, the horror, the never-ending horror.
He nodded, as if he had been inside her head, reading her very thoughts.
‘I think one of the reasons why I found it so hard to admit that Elise was dead was the fact that we didn’t get to bring her home, to bury her, to say our goodbyes,’ Rea added.
‘I just can’t imagine that,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
George said, ‘We spent the first year convinced that they would find her. We’d say she has been washed up on some small island, with memory loss. Or with islanders who had no English and no way of getting her to civilisation. We played the “what if” game till we exhausted every possible scenario.’
‘In my dreams, she comes home. In my dreams, she never left us,’ Rea said.
Charlie walked to the kitchen to grab the brandy bottle from the dresser, and five glasses. He poured them each a drink and then sat down again, this time beside Stella. The room was filled with deafening silence.
‘And your parents died over there too?’ Charlie eventually asked, gulping down his brandy.
‘Not just my parents. My brother Eli too,’ Stella said.
‘Sweet divine,’ Rea cried.
‘Your whole family?’ Charlie asked, his voice raised two octaves higher.
‘Sometimes I think I died there too,’ Stella whispered. She felt their eyes on her, questioning. ‘Or at least the person I used to be. She’s still over there, lost too.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Rea said.
‘I could never understand why I survived and they didn’t. I should have drowned with them. And ever since that day, I’ve felt like I’m still underwater, trying to breathe, to escape. I thought at first Matt had come to rescue me. But I was wrong. He had his foot on my head, pushing me under the water, all the time.’ Stella stood up, shaking the blanket from her. She turned to look at them, ‘Why did I survive when thousands died? Why me?’
‘Why not you?’ Rea replied, standing up to join her. ‘You survived and you are here in this world for a reason. For one, you helped me.’
‘Can I say something?’ George said, standing up to face Stella. ‘I know I haven’t known you as long as Rea, but I can see how special you are. And I promise you this. Your parents are rejoicing that you lived. And they live on through you, through every wonderful, kind deed you do. That’s their legacy. And all they want for you is that you live fully. Not half-live, fully live, embracing the shit out of this beautiful world. I know that parts of it are cruel. I know that things happen that make us want to weep. But there is beauty in this world and you are part of that.’
Stella thought about the past ten years of her life and realised that she had swapped the walls of the ocean for walls of fear. They had trapped her, holding her back, punishing her for surviving.
Luca stood up and turned to face Stella, ‘You said a moment ago that you used to be someone else. What did you mean by that?’
‘I wasn’t always called Stella. Back then, I used to be Skye Madden.’