Chapter 27

The truth of it was when the time for Kayla came to go to the local archive, she was extremely glad of the opportunity.

She had loved being with her big brother and sister of late and felt what the three of them were going through could only bind them together tighter than they had previously been. But there was also such a thing as space, and she had begun to feel the need for that as well.

Especially since the breakfast. Seeing her big brother so vulnerable had been unusual and almost frightened her, though she had hidden it well. It was just so unlike him to be that way, and it had brought home to her the enormity of what they were doing.

This was going to change who they were she thought to herself. There would be no going back from it.

But as they had discussed, before they did anything, what they needed was the facts. And some thing solid to stack all this on.

So, she was off to the archive as she had said.

A glance at the map had told her it was not too far from the pier and so she walked by the water to get there.

It felt peaceful there to her - she could look at the sights and get to know the town. She saw a mother walking out with her baby. Gulls eating what ever they could find. A group of fishermen surrounding one another, clearly having some sort of celebration- she thought she heard something about a retirement. A courting couple sharing an ice cream.

And as she was about to turn right, the street that would lead to her on errand, there was a man.

And she did not know what it was about him, but it stopped her in her tracks.

He was tall and looked strong, with blond hair reaching his shoulder. He wore jeans and a denim waist coat. But his most defining feature was the patch over his eye.

And it was in that moment her imagination must have got the better of her, for she thought he looked as if he was dangerous, and he had secrets.

And she did not think she had ever seen anyone as beautiful in her whole life.

That was when the worse thing in the world happened to her for, she found she had stopped in her tracks – quite literally she had stopped walking- and now he was looking right at her.

And when he did that she felt as if - as if she was naked.

Kayla shook her head for none of that could be true from a man she had literal just met. Who she had not even met actually much less. They hadn't exchanged any words at all.

She didn't know his name. She was as little to him as he was to her. He wasn't beautiful, didn't have secrets and was probably as soft as a puppy.

It had to be the stress of absolutely everything that was going on in her life right then.

Before he had a chance to ask her why she was being, well – weird quite frankly - she followed the path she had been bound to take when she had left that day.

She had to forget him and concentrate on what her task was.

X x x

Kayla had never used a micro fiche machine before that day, and she had to admit once she got going it was quite good fun and really rather interesting.

Once she had found the news paper she thought she wanted, she loaded it into the machine and begun to look for any mention of what had happened to their family all those years ago.

As she looked through the local newspapers from the late 1960s to begin with, she couldn't deny she kept getting distracted from the headlines by the adverts which seemed as if they were ancient.

Adverts for clothes and washing machines and TVs which must have seemed so wonderfully new at the time the news papers came out.

It was stepping back into a past world for her.

But as her time in the library passed, the searching became less fun.

And at all times her eyes were pealed for the word 'Brady.'

There was a certain peace in her when she couldn't find it. It was as if none of it had happened. But of course that could not last because…it had.

The first time she read it, their surname, she swallowed, blinked and looked back to check she had read it right. And yes she had.

She felt mildly sick as she gathered her courage…

But she knew from what she was about to do there was no coming back from… Here it was, the truth of it and she was going to have to square with it no matter what.
Yet she had come this far… so she read and then she read some more.

And the more times she read it, the more her heart broke. And it was not long until tears trickled down her cheeks.

Desperate search for fisherman's family

No news of the young Brady Family

Father Shawn Brady's desperate appeal as search continues…

Shawn Brady. That was her father's name.

he had gone through hell.

From everything she read she begun to understand he had not given his consent for them to go to Greece. Not that he had known that was where they were. He had not wanted them to go. He had wanted them home with him…

None of this was ok.

There were grainy, unclear pictures of him in the papers as well as ones of three children who had to be herself and her siblings.

When he made his appeals for them, he asked that his wife and children were returned safely to him and if any one was holding them not to hurt them. He even pleaded on behalf of his unborn little one…

So he had known about Bo and wrongly assumed… or had been allowed to wrongfully believe he was his father.

And as time went on and there was still no news of them, she could feel his heart ache through the articles.

It was palpable.

It all just felt as if it was desperate and she knew there was no end in sight for him, no balm to be applied to his grief. She swallowed as she remembered that to that very day, he had no idea what had become of them.

It wasn't right.

And to Kayla, it was also devastating as she began to understand the affect her mother and Victor's decision had had.

Had they known, she thought to herself, that they were not going to just break his heart but his soul as well..

The one thing she understood by the end of the day was that her father had not given his consent for them to leave. And that the loss of his children had broken him utterly.

As long as she lived, she did not think she was going to know what he had been through, or understand how they had put him through this.

But it convinced her throughly for the first time she'd done the right thing when she had left her mother and stepfather.

Wherever he was and what ever he had a done since that dark period in his life, nothing was ever going to convince his daughter that he did not deserve to know what had happened.

Because he did.

It took months and months for the mentions of them in the paper to come to an end. The mentions of them tiled off with a whisper rather than a bang. There was no news. No conclusion. Just a reluctant silence that said there was nothing else to report. She thought he had done well to keep them in the news for as long. As he had.

But of course, they had not come home. And so on the end things moved on.

She wiped her eyes and try to step outside the situation once more which was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do. Kayla reminded herself that she had come here on a fact finding mission. So she got out her pen and paper and wrote as many facts as she could down.

Anything that could help them find… him.

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