I study Edward’s face for the truth of these words. ‘You had another brother?’
‘Older. Oldest,’ he clarifies, and the significance of this does not pass me by.
‘He was next in line, before you,’ I say, piecing things together. ‘How the hell do I not know this, Ed?’ I ask, as gently as I can, because this is definitely the kind of information fiancés should be sharing with one another.
Edward grimaces but my thoughts are gathering speed. ‘Wait, Ed, seriously how do I not know about this? I mean, there’s not even anything about this online. Nothing anywhere about another Holbeck son. I would have seen it. There’s no mention of a Bobby at all.’
‘I know,’ he says, almost to himself, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he will have to explain a lot more than he would like to. ‘That’s deliberate. Not my choice. It was kept out of the papers, the press. For the family, insurance, or investors, I don’t know. I was seventeen when it happened; I did what I was told. We all did. The investigation went through all the proper channels, then it disappeared. Press embargo. Favours called in; deals made. Things were easier to control back then, pre-internet, before everyone filmed everything, before everyone had a platform; it was easier to make things fade away.’
I shiver and pull my cashmere coat tighter around me. I know how easy it was for things to disappear back when we were kids. I doubt I would be sitting beside Edward now if that weren’t the case. The details of what happened the day my parents died were only a byline in the local papers, columns long pulped, facts forgotten by all except those involved.
‘Bobby was nineteen, a sophomore, at Columbia,’ he continues, trying to keep his voice in check. ‘He got into Yale too,’ he says with an unexpected chuckle, ‘but Columbia was closer to the New York apartment, and he wanted to stay close for Marcia’s dinners. That’s the kind of guy he was. He used to drive back to see us, too, at The Hydes on weekends. Always family first,’ he breaks off.
‘You were seventeen, when it happened?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. Matilda was fifteen, Ollie thirteen, and Stuart must have been, what, eleven? It messed with him the most, I think; Bobby loved Stu. He was a cute kid.’ He looks at me, his eyes full of regret. ‘We don’t talk about it, to each other, so it surprises me that Billy knew, that Lila was talking about it. After Bobby died, our parents sent us to see separate therapists. A therapist for each of us. I think they were scared we’d cross-contaminate, or something, if we all went together. Or maybe that’s how therapy works for kids, I don’t know. We just stopped speaking about him with each other after that. We had designated people to talk to and talking about it at home only made Mom cry, so it was easier to box it up. And time just passed. The years went by and it became the way we did things.’
‘How did he die?’ I ask as delicately as I can, still reeling from the knowledge that Edward could keep such a formative part of his life from me for so long. I push from my mind the thought that I am guilty of doing just the same because that is, of course, different. ‘Did he get sick?’
‘He was healthy, thriving, playing Varsity, grades impeccable; they always were,’ he answers, eyes cast out at the city rolling by. ‘But little things started to change. He switched from Economics to Law. In retrospect, there were signs. He became a little snappy, short-tempered – that wasn’t like him. Things between him and Dad became difficult. The pressure Bobby had on him to be the best, to toe the line. A grade-A student, popular, the guy who does it all and makes it look easy. Always cheerful, always thinking of others. We didn’t know until it was too late. The autopsy found traces of meds – we knew about the pain medication; an old football injury. That wasn’t the problem, but it had mixed with something else. He’d been cramming his work between football practices, at weekends, whenever he could fit in the time. It was just Adderall or something similar, but the drugs interacted. That’s what they call it when two drugs mix and poison you without you even realizing. Interaction. All those tiny shifts in personality, his sudden fear that it would all slip through his fingers, the anxiety, insomnia and, finally… a seizure. No one saw it coming. He wouldn’t have realized himself, why he suddenly felt the way he did. Why everything was becoming so hard for him. He must have thought he’d reached his limit. I can’t imagine how scared he must have been in the days before it happened.’