It happened on her final day in Italy. Bronte was elated at the prospect of coming home and desperate to hold her children and her husband close. She made a secret pact with herself that she’d never leave them like this again. Her physical longing for them had turned into real pain, a constant aching, so that it was even getting hard to simply walk around the celebrated streets of Rome, where she had returned to catch the flight back to Sydney.

When she made her usual call to speak to the children before they went to bed, she planned to explain that mummy wouldn’t ring the next night because she’d be on her way home to them with lots of presents. When there was no answer, Bronte assumed that they’d all gone out. It was unusual at this time but …aah, Friday night, Paul has talked Tony into McDonald’s. She was surprised that Nonna had gone too… Maybe it’s Pizza Hut. When she tried again an hour later, a voice she didn’t recognize answered.

‘This is Bronte , who are you?’ The silence on the end of the phone was filled with tension. She repeated her name. ‘This is Bronte Romano. Do you mind telling me who you are, and what’s going on there?’

‘This is Detective Sergeant Peter Woods Mrs Romano.’

‘Detective? What’s happened, what’s wrong, where is my husband, is he there?’

Bronte’s first thought was a break in, a burglary. ‘Let met talk to him.’

‘I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone right now Mrs Romano.’.

Bronte could hear something in the background, a strange high-pitched sound, like a dog howling. She started feeling breathless, her mouth suddenly went dry. ‘What do you mean; why can’t he, is he hurt? Let me talk to Nonna, to his mother.’ Again the tense silence.

‘It’s not a good time right now Mrs. Romano. I’ll get someone to call you back in a few minutes. Can I have the number please?’

‘What is going on, the children, are the children there? Let me talk to my little boy!’

‘Mrs Romano, please, I’ll have someone call you and explain, but now is not a good time.’ With that he was gone, this Detective Sergeant Peter Woods.

Bronte tried to stem a wave of panic. Her every instinct told her that something was terribly wrong. That noise, that awful howling in the background… has some large dog come into the house and attacked the children? She knew it was an outrageous idea, but then she was hardly thinking straight.

 She pushed the number three on her global- roaming cell phone, but went straight to Suzie’s Martin’s voice mail. Frustrated, she disconnected without leaving a message. She started to sweat now, and could feel the migraine building in the back of her neck. While she was trying to fathom what to do next the phone rang and she pressed it to her ear tightly, without looking at the display.

‘Tony, Tony what’s happened? What are the police doing at the house?’ When there was no immediate reply, Bronte looked at the number on the screen. ‘Suzie? I was ringing to ask you to go over to the house. The police are there for God’s sake. They said no one could talk to me right now. Will you find out what’s going on, I’m going crazy here!’ Her literary agent and dearest friend was slow to answer. ‘Suzie?’

‘Yes Bron, of course. I’ll go to the house now. You just stay in the hotel, OK. Just wait there.’

When Suzie hung up Bronte went to the little bar fridge and poured herself a stiff, straight gin. She’d never tasted it like this before, but she hardly even noticed it going down. Then she did the same again. Apart from the burning it brought to her cheeks the alcohol had the desired effect and within a few minutes she felt less panicked.. Suzie will get back to me as soon as she can. She went and lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Then the house phone buzzed beside her.

‘Signora, you have a guest. A Signorina Bartolo wishes to come to your room.’

‘I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t know any Signorina Bartolo’. Bronte put the phone down and lay back on the bed. It buzzed again. ‘Federico, I told you I don’t wish to see anyone’.

‘Mi scuzi Signora, but the Signorina Bartolo say she is from your publisher’s Roman office and must see you um…immediatamente. She says it’s molto importante, uh important.’

‘Bronte sighed listlessly. ‘Alright Federico, I suppose you must send her up’. When Bronte opened the door an impossibly well-dressed, elegant woman of about thirty stood there. Bronte pulled the door wider and indicated for her to come in.

 ‘Signorina this is not a convenient time for me. I’d rather you had emailed or phoned with whatever query you have. I suppose it’s about expenses.’

‘No Signora , not expenses. ‘ Unexpectedly the woman went to the bar fridge. ‘Would you mind Signora, if I poured myself a little vino?’

‘Perhaps you would like one, a cool vino bianco? We could take them to the balcony.’

‘I don’t want anything Signorina. And I’d rather make this quick if you don’t mind. I’m expecting a phone call.’ The stranger took a deep mouthful of her wine and sat in one of the armchairs.

‘Please, Signora , please sit down. I have news, I have…’ she seemed to be struggling with the words. ‘I have news, tragico, bad news.’

Bronte was cold now and starting to shake. ‘From home, from Sydney?’ The young woman nodded.

 ‘Signorina Martin, she asked me to come. She said you should not be … not be alone when you heard about it. She did not want you to hear on the telephono and be alone.’

‘Tony, my husband, they said he couldn’t come to the phone!’

‘No, no not Antonio Signora, not your marito.’

Bronte tried to stand up. Somehow she felt it would be better to be standing up. But her legs refused to support her and she slumped back into the chair. ‘Paul?’ It came out as a whisper, as if just speaking her four-year-old son’s name out loud would signify catastrophe.

Now silent tears were coursing down the signorina’s strong, Roman face ; but she had a duty to perform, one she had not wished for. There was no one else. Suzie had said it must be a woman. ‘Paulo si… there was an accident, la macchina, the car, the Nonna was driving.. e morto Signora.’

Now Gina Bortolo was finding it harder to control the flow of tears and the words

came out slowly. ‘ Un auotobus, it didn’t see the low car. It was crushed between two…two autobuses. The Roman paused, the taste of pain in her mouth. ‘Sophia e morta Signora… tutti morti…all three dead.’ Bronte looked down at her hands, she couldn’t feel them, then her arms, then her legs. She was disappearing.

The next three days would remain a mystery to Bronte Romano forever. Then Suzie was with her and together they were boarding the flight back to Sydney, Bronte in a fog of shock and Suzie facing a double dose of jet-lag and terror at the prospect of revealing the rest of the story to her shattered friend.

 After Tony had been taken to identify the twisted bodies of his four year-old son, his fifteen-month-old daughter and his mother, he had gone home and quietly taken his life. Taping his mouth, he roped himself to a stone temple lion. His sister found him with the exotic guardian she had given them as a wedding gift, when she looked down to the bottom of the swimming pool the children had so delighted in.

“My darling forgive me.… Tony.”

Bronte did forgive him; she understood what he had done, because she too wanted to die. But she couldn’t forgive herself… It would never have happened if I hadn’t left them, to write, just to write. That was five years ago, and Bronte Romano had not written a word of her own since.