Page 65 of The Stolen Child

Lily and Zach glanced at each other.

‘She was sad?’ Lily asked.

Señor Alvarez looked at his wife in silent question, who nodded back.

‘She was not sad. She was happy with you, her child. But she was scared,’ he said.

‘Of what?’ Zach asked.

‘I don’t know. But she would not leave your side, even for a moment, for the first year you lived here,’ Señora Alvarez replied.

‘She hides,’ Señor Alvarez said, shrugging. ‘I say to my wife when she arrives with one bag and eyes that never stop looking over her shoulder, that she is running from something.’

‘Or someone,’ Zach added. ‘Mom had just left my father when she got here.’ His lips tightened as he said, ‘He was abusive to her. So you are right. She was hiding. From him.’

Lily nudged Zach’s leg with her foot. ‘But we are confused about when that was. Right?’

Zach turned to the Alvarezes again. ‘Do you remember what year my mom and I arrived here? It’s important to me to find out when.’ He licked his lips repeatedly as the Alvarezes debated this amongst themselves.

Señora Alvarez finally turned back to them both.

‘Sister Monique from the Benedictine Convent in Ronda drove you here.’

Zach’s eyebrows shot up at this information. ‘A nun brought us here?’

‘Si.’

‘From the convent here in Ronda?’ Lily asked.

‘Si,’ Señora Alvarez replied. ‘It was the year before the Olympics in Los Angeles. We all watched Luis Doreste and Roberto Molina win gold. For sailing. Oh, how we cheered! And I remember so clearly your mother saying that it was a double celebration, because it was also the anniversary of when you moved into the villa. And we cheered that too.’

Señor Alvarez nodded his agreement to this.

Lily picked up her phone and googled the Olympics in Los Angeles. She looked at Zach and said softly, ‘That was in July 1984.’

‘Si. Eso es correcto,’ Señora Alvarez agreed. ‘July 1984.’

‘Was I a little baby when I arrived here?’ Zach asked, imitating rocking a baby in his arms.

‘No!’ Señora Alvarez said with a laugh. ‘Big, strong boy.’ She showed them his height when he arrived.

Roughly the height of a toddler.

‘Are you a hundred per cent sure?’ Zach asked softly.

‘Si,’ both Alvarezes answered, looking a little bewildered by all the questions.

Zach turned to Lily, his face twisted in worry. ‘Why did Mom tell me we got here a year earlier, in 1982?’

PART THREE

Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small;

however small a spark may be,

it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.

Karma: Truth and Consequences, Gautama Buddha