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‘Does she know?’ I ask.
‘I told her last night – the whole story – just like I’m telling you.’
Evie looks around, eyes wide, caught between panic and joy and grief. ‘Is she here?’
‘She’s waiting to see you.’
Murdoch kneels on the floor as though praying for forgiveness.
‘After Addie was born, Agnesa got a job at a local primary school, working as a teacher’s assistant. She had better English than most of the teachers. She was learning how to drive and I promised to buy her a car when she got her full licence.
‘What ah’m trying to say is that she made a good life for herself here. And she was happy in her own way. She sewed. She tended the garden. She read books. She wrote diaries. Ah’ve kept them. They’re yours.’
Opening a drawer in a dark bureau, he removes a photograph album and several notebooks. Each has a famous painting on the cover: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Hans Heyerdahl and Woman with a Parasol by Monet. I think back to what I told Derek Posniak. Follow the stationery.
I open the album because Evie doesn’t look like she has the strength to turn the pages. The ten-by-eight prints are neatly laid out, held in place by photo corners. In one Agnesa is dangling her feet over the side of a dinghy. In the next she’s pushing a toddler on a tricycle, or feeding ducks at a pond, or standing in front of the ruins of a castle, dressed in a man’s winter coat that is two sizes too big for her.
The past and present are at war in Evie’s mind, but her smile and her tears tell me which one is winning the battle. She is looking at her sister and seeing her for the first and last time.
33
Evie
Outside, there is a battle being fought by the seagulls, who are bickering over who gets the chimney and who gets the valley of the roof. It ends when they launch off in unison and swoop down to the beach.
Cyrus is holding the photo album. I touch each image with my fingertips. Agnesa is older but the same, beautiful but more grown up. I want to be angry at her for not coming to find me, but she thought I was dead.
A new page. More pictures. A birthing suite, and a newborn covered in gunk is being weighed and swaddled in a blanket. Agnesa looks exhausted but happy. Tucked under her chin, the baby has one finger pressed against her cheek, as though deep in thought, contemplating her future. My pose. My dimple.
Murdoch’s phone has been on silent, but the screen lights up. He picks it up, reads the message and puts it down again on the coffee table. Then he walks to the window overlooking the sea. Two people are waiting at the bottom of the steps to the cottage. Addie is with her aunt, who is holding onto her shoulders, as though trying to stop her from climbing.
Addie waves nervously. I wave back. She’s wearing red shorts over a blue one-piece swimming costume. She turns, seeking permission from her aunt. Moments later, she’s running, taking the steps two at a time. I open the front door and meet her on the path. I think she’s going to fly into my arms, but she stops suddenly as though unsure of what happens next.
‘I’m named after you,’ she declares, ‘but nobody calls me Adina.’
‘Do you know what it means?’ I ask.
She shakes her head, hair swinging.
‘Adina is a Hebrew name, meaning delicate.’
‘I’m not very delicate,’ she says.
‘Neither am I.’
‘Can I hug you?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
I expect to flinch when her arms close around me, but it doesn’t happen. I relax and hold her and smell her wonderful girlish smell of deodorant and pool chlorine. She steps back. Her legs are thin and tanned and her bare feet milky white. Her face is a prettier version of mine – with a small nose, brown eyes and a high forehead.
‘You’re too young to be my auntie,’ she says, making it sound like a challenge.
‘You’re too old to be my niece,’ I reply.
‘And we’re almost the same size.’
‘You’re going to be taller.’
