The Secret Daughter (3 page)

I didn’t feel any better after we’d seen him. I had the blood drawn and then Ted and I went for lunch together, but we sat in near-silence in the café with my still-silent phone on the table between us.

It was going to be a very long week until our first ultrasound. I was confused about which to focus more time worrying about; should I concentrate on Mum’s welfare, or on finding out as much as I could about her issues and trying to help the baby?

Ted reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

‘Do you want
me
to call her, Bean?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She was so upset last night, I don’t know how to balance finding out all about this stuff with not upsetting her more.’

‘All of this stress can’t be good for you.’

I looked down at my plate. The chicken and mushroom pasta I’d ordered was now evenly divided into four quadrants but I’d eaten only a mouthful.

‘Are you saying that because I’ve barely touched my lunch?’

Ted chuckled.

‘Well, I’ve known you for nearly twenty years and I’ve never seen you too distracted to eat before.’

I smiled weakly and stabbed a chunk of chicken, then lifted it to my mouth. The sauce was decadent, laden with cream and cheese and bursting with flavour. I savoured the taste for a moment and felt my appetite kick in.

‘If we haven’t heard from her in the next few days, I’ll give them a call,’ I said, after a few quick mouthfuls of food. ‘Maybe Dad can explain it to me so she doesn’t have to.’

‘He seemed pretty spooked last night too. They must’ve had a nightmare time of it for them both to be so traumatised all of these years later.’

‘I don’t know how people survive losing . . .’ I started to speak, but my voice broke. ‘I just mean, it’s only been a few days, but I already
love
this baby. If anything happens to it . . .’

Ted reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

‘Let’s stay positive, Bean.’

When the afternoon passed with no response from Mum, I walked home from work and tried to fall into my usual routine. Ted’s car was in the driveway, and I immediately headed for the little office opposite our bedroom and planted a kiss on the dark hair on top of his head. He was on a call, a boring one judging by the news article he was reading on his computer screen. He pointed to the clock then held up six fingers, indicating that he wouldn’t be finished until 6 p.m. – another half an hour.

I put dinner in the oven, then changed into harem pants and one of Ted’s T-shirts, but was very happy to abandon my bra; my clothes had all become just a little bit too tight and I knew it had nothing to do with pregnancy and everything to do with too much indulgence over the summer.

At that time of the afternoon in autumn, the most comfortable place in our little granny flat was the dining room table. There I could enjoy the warmth of the dying sun and still watch the television all while working, or at least
pretending
to work. I laid out my lesson plans across the table and hit the power button on the TV remote. The oven timer counted down, but its audible tick was not enough to remind me that a meal was imminent; I opened packet of chicken biscuits on the table and promised myself
just one more
for at least ten minutes while the gameshow won the battle for my attention against my lesson planning.

When my doorbell sounded, I glanced at the wall clock: 5.43 p.m; prime door-to-door sales hour. As I rose and approached the door, I tried to ready myself to be firm, practicing the shape of the words
no thank you
under my breath. I could see silhouettes through the stained glass of the door and I grimaced as I reached for the doorknob. Two doorknockers? More than one usually meant the product on sale was religion, and I always felt particularly guilty cutting off that sales pitch. The motivation seemed so much more innocent.

When I realised that it was actually my parents on my doorstep, my natural reaction was delight and relief. A split second later, my heart sank when I realised that they had both been crying.

‘We need to talk to you, Sabina.’

There was an unusual defeat in Dad’s stance, and as I surveyed the way he held himself, it slowly dawned on me that they weren’t there to talk about the events of the previous night or my pregnancy at all. Surely, given the way Dad’s shoulders slumped, someone was sick or dying. My mother, standing next to him on the tiny porch to our equally tiny home, was all tension and fight – holding herself bolt upright and stiff, her brown eyes flashing with fire. She looked every bit the part of someone ready to go into battle.

‘Oh God. What is it?’ I was frozen. Maybe if I didn’t let them inside, I wouldn’t have to hear whatever it was they’d come to say. Dad motioned towards the cramped living area behind me.

‘Can we come in?’

‘Ted,’ I called, as I opened the door to let them inside.

‘I'm still on the phone, Bean.’ The words floated down the hallway at me. Ted was sending me information, not expressing irritation at the interruption.

‘Ted.’ I said again, this time letting the strain and urgency slip into my voice. I saw Dad's broad shoulders rise and fall as he inhaled and sharply exhaled.

‘Let's take a seat,’ he said, and he slid his arms around my shoulders and directed me towards our living area. Dad's scent, of soap and spices and safety, wound its way around me and my eyes watered. As he sat me down on the couch he kissed the side of my head, and with that kiss he knocked the tears onto my cheeks. Mum sat stiffly on the edge of the other couch opposite us,
just
as she’d done the previous night. Ted stepped into the room.

‘What's going on?’ There was instant alarm in his bright blue eyes. My parents ignored him though, their gazes were locked on me.

‘I'm sorry to drop this on you, sweetheart,’ Dad said. His words were measured and calm, but for the red rims of his eyes this could have been any ordinary conversation. ‘I know this is going to come as a shock, but you have to believe that we have kept this from you only because we believed it to be for the best.’

Mum still hadn't said a word.

‘What . . . what is it?’ I felt the anxiety rising as bubbles in my throat and electric shocks down my arms. My thoughts were stumbling into one another. Cancer. It was probably cancer, and if they'd kept it from me for some time, maybe Dad didn't have long left with us.

‘Sabina,’ Dad's whisper was rough, and I felt the trembling of his arm across my shoulders. ‘You were adopted.’

There it was. Three short words, and my life fractured. I didn’t realise it yet, but that was the thick black line down the middle of my timeline: there would forever be a
Before
those words, and an
After
.

I really had no concept of that yet though, because my first response was that Dad’s statement was nonsense, in fact, it was
hilariously
far-fetched. I looked straight to Ted. He raised an eyebrow at me, mirroring my own initial reaction – total and utter disbelief.

There was just no way.

No.
Freaking
. Way.

Surely I’d have known, or at least, suspected. I wouldn’t share Mum’s brown eyes and Dad’s smile. I thought of the interests and habits and traits we shared in common – too many to recount,
far
too many to be coincidental. What a ridiculous statement. Was this some kind of joke?

I laughed. The sound started as the last burst of confidence from a woman who had known entirely who she was, and then when no one else laughed, it faded away to a confused whimper.

‘
Is
it a j-joke?’ I glanced at Mum, who was staring at the floorboards and now seemed defeated. The tension had drained from her and she'd visibly slumped. But no, this was not the delivery of a punchline – this was a truth long held behind a wall, and the wall had just collapsed.

I rose, away from my parents as if they were suddenly a threat, but I couldn't take my eyes off them, and so I found myself backing away blindly to find the comfort of my husband. Ted caught me and wrapped his arms around me, anchoring me. So many questions rushed at me at once that I couldn’t even organise myself to ask a single one of them.

‘Why would—but how—why would—and why—?’

The words wouldn't come. They never flowed when I was distressed; instead they stuck, as if the record of my language soundtrack had been scratched. I'd hit a word or a sound and circle back over it endlessly, until I found a way to still myself and to enforce a rhythm onto my voice. The gentle squeeze of Ted's arm around my waist slowed me enough to finish the sentence, but even when I managed to form it, my words sounded thin and high.

‘I don’t understand. Why would you keep this from me?
How
could you?’ Now the record of my words was playing, but the speed was too fast, and I sounded ridiculous and panicked even to my own ears.

‘We thought it was for the best,’ Dad said. I looked at Mum – my best friend, or so I thought. It suddenly struck me that she hadn't made eye contact since they arrived.

It was no wonder she’d panicked when I asked her about her pregnancy with me. She hadn’t actually
had
one.

‘How could it be for the best to lie to her for four decades?’ Ted's incredulity hung in the silence that followed his question. Dad pleaded with us for understanding.

‘It was a different time, guys. When you came to us, Sabina, we had been told that it would be better if you just never had to deal with it. And by the time society’s thinking on that changed, you were old enough that it just seemed too late. We thought . . .’ The sentence faded, and his lip trembled when he finished in a whisper, ‘ . . . we really thought you’d never need to know.’

‘So where . . . where did you get me?’ I had visions of being left on a doorstep somewhere, unwanted and unloved. I pictured driving rain and darkness and wailing alone and helpless at the coldness of it all, and the image was so vivid that for a second I wondered if it could be an actual memory.

Was I discovering an origin story for myself that was the polar opposite of the one I’d always known?

‘You were adopted from the maternity home where your mother worked.’

‘She-she worked there?’ I was confused. My mother? Who
was
my mother? Was it Megan, sitting in the crumpled heap before me, or the nameless, faceless woman who had given birth to me and then apparently abandoned me?

‘Yes. Oh, hang on, you mean – the woman . . ?’ Dad didn't seem to know what words to use either. ‘No, she was a resident at the home.
Mum
worked there.’

I looked at Mum. Had she really physically shrunk since her arrival last night, or was it a trick of the light? Her face was in her hands now. I wondered what she was thinking, and how this woman who had shared and overshared with me over so many thousands of hours over so many decades, could have decided time and time and time again to
not
mention this one, vital fact.

I was having an out-of-body moment, floating around on the ceiling while the conversation happened below me. We were no ordinary family – we were an
extra
-ordinary family – close-knit and open and honest and all round healthy. And, it now seemed, liars to our very core.

'Why are you telling me now?'

Even Dad seemed uncomfortable. He didn’t generally
do
uncomfortable, Dad was confident and strong, and he just handled things. Dad could talk to me about periods and boys and sex and which dress I might wear to the party, dealing with the awkward moments of parenthood with ease.

‘We knew Megan panicked you last night. She shouldn’t have told you about our problems, you didn’t need to know. But we understand how worried you must be that you might have inherited the same issues . . . we couldn’t let you spend your pregnancy worrying for nothing or, God forbid, stress yourself about it such that something terrible
did
happen.’

Later, much later, when the shock wore off and the truth sunk in, I'd return to this moment and dissect it from every angle. For now, I just had to cope, and that seemed difficult enough without critically analysing the information I was being drip fed. That was a blessing, because had I
really
understood that Dad was actually admitting to me that they were only telling me because they felt they had no choice . . . well, I think I’d have broken into a million pieces, right then and there.

‘Why did she give me up?’

Mum finally looked up. There were silent tears drenching her face.

‘It was a different time, Sabina. She was sixteen years old. Keeping you was never an option.’

‘Was this hospital involved in the forced adoption business that's been all over the news?’ Ted asked. He always laughed at my lack of interest in news and current affairs – but this was exactly why. This was the first time I'd heard the term
forced adoption,
and I'd rather never have heard those two words together. All of the implications of this rushed at me, but before I had time to untangle the jumbled mess of thoughts, Mum sobbed, and the sound broke me. I slipped from Ted's grasp and sat beside her, wrapping my arms around her slim shoulders. I had just discovered the biggest betrayal of my life, but I couldn’t bear to see my betrayer crying.

‘Mum . . .’ I didn't know what to say to her, and as strong as the shock and the confusion was, the urge to comfort her was still stronger. I rubbed the space between her shoulder blades, staring at the floor as I tried to wrap my mind around the enormity of the disclosure. The peculiar numbness of physiological shock was settling. I was standing in a glass cage watching a hurricane rage past outside.

Dad rose and crouched beside Mum, his arm meeting mine across her back.

‘Keep it together, Meg.’

He whispered; his words flat and desperate, but I caught them anyway. In his tone I recognised the one dissonant note that I’d always been aware was sounding in the symphony of our family. Ted could have said that same sentence and sounded both sensitive and sensible, but from Dad, it sounded like a command. Dad was passionate about our family, which was a very good thing nearly all of the time . . . except for those few moments when the passion went just a little too far, and he seemed controlling and demanding.