SYLVIE PLAYS ON her bed with her LEGO. She still seems white and subdued. I go to stand on the balcony, staring out at the sea. I keep seeing all the fear in her face at the quarry.
I think, Karen was right, we should never have come. It’s happening just as she predicted: Sylvie seems even more desperate now, just getting deeper in. We’re putting her through all this pain, but to what end? There’s nothing certain, nothing clear, nothing but hints and guesses. Most likely we will never reach the heart of the mystery.
The rain is easing off now. There are glints of light in the sky. I turn to watch her through the glass, my small pale child, with her quiet, decorous movements and the silk hair that shadows her face, and it suddenly seems so clear, so obvious, to me. So simple.
I go back into the bedroom, kneel beside her.
“Sylvie, I’ve been thinking, sweetheart. I guess we shouldn’t have come here—that it was stupid to come. It’s time to go back home again.”
She turns to me with a puzzled frown, as though she can’t make sense of this.
“Sweetheart, this isn’t working, is it? It isn’t helping you, really. It’s only making you miserable. I’m going to take you back home.”
Her mouth is a thin, tight line.
“I’ll talk to Adam,” I tell her. “See if we can get a flight to London tomorrow.” I smile at her lightly, encouragingly. “Sylvie, let’s go home.”
Her eyes are on me, cool and clear.
“I’m not going back to London,” she tells me. “You can’t make me.”
“But sweetheart, if you’re unhappy here . . .”
“I don’t like London,” she tells me. “I don’t want to go back to London.” She stares at me. She’s tiny and fragile and utterly implacable. “London isn’t home.”
I hate it when she says that.