The Daughter's Choice

by S. D. Robertson

  The dawning realisation that she’s been played, all of her life, is horrible. It makes her sick to her stomach, stifled and panicky. She can’t make eye contact with either of them.

  No one says anything for an eternity once Cassie falls silent. It’s only when Dave clears his throat, apparently about to speak, that Rose steps in and beats him to it. Digging deep and finding an inner strength, she jumps to her feet. ‘I need some time alone.’

  ‘Wait,’ her father says. ‘Please don’t storm off. Surely it’s better we talk this—’

  ‘No, not now. Not today. Just leave me alone, okay? This is all too much.’

  ‘But we need to speak to you about something else too,’ he adds. ‘It’s important. It’s to do with, er, Ryan.’

  Rose can’t deal with this any more. Without saying another word, she turns on her heel.

  She runs out of the hotel lounge, gasping for fresh air, head spinning …

  She’s been blindsided – trapped in a living nightmare – and all she wants to do is escape.

  CHAPTER 36

  CASSIE

  ‘That went well,’ Dave says, taking a seat in the armchair vacated by Rose.

  ‘At least she didn’t start shouting and screaming, making a big fuss,’ Cassie replies. ‘That was kind of what I was expecting. It threw me when she fell silent like she did. If you hadn’t turned up, I don’t know what I’d have done to snap her out of it. I was already considering that I might have to throw a glass of water in her face.’

  He frowns. ‘Don’t you think Rose has been through enough already today?’

  ‘It would only have been a last resort. She looked almost catatonic.’

  ‘It was a lot to take in. I only wish that was the end of it.’

  ‘So what now?’ she asks. ‘Should we go after her together?’

  He rubs his eyes, looking every bit as weary as Cassie feels.

  ‘Leave it to me for now,’ he says. ‘But keep your phone on, yeah?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d best go and see if I can find her.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll stay put, but do shout if you need me. I’ll be there in a flash.’

  He nods.

  She doesn’t envy him what he intends to tell Rose next. As he gets up to leave, she grabs hold of his arm and looks him in the eye. ‘You’re doing the right thing, even if it doesn’t feel that way. She’ll thank you for it in the long run.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Once he’s gone, Cassie exhales. Did that sound convincing? Fingers crossed it did. She was, after all, the one who argued the case for them making both of their big revelations on the same day.

  ‘You think so?’ he asked when they discussed it over the phone beforehand. ‘Really? It’s going to be one hell of a shitty day for her. What if she can’t handle it? What if she does something stupid as a result? I’d never forgive myself. It’s going to be very close to the wedding.’

  ‘Rose is your daughter,’ Cassie replied. ‘I don’t have any right to call her mine. You probably know her better than anyone: her mental state, what her reaction is likely to be, and how she’ll deal with it. So it’s your call. But my opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it’ll be easier to do in one go, like ripping a plaster off rather than peeling it away gradually.’

  Now, after getting to know Rose a little and having witnessed her reaction to the first incendiary announcement at point-blank range, Cassie is less sure.

  Part of her feels like she ought to have gone with him to find Rose, but she intends to respect his decision.

  So she sits tight, as she said she would, and when a waiter passes by, she orders some tea. The perfect drink in any crisis, right? That’s debatable – but going for more alcohol at this moment would feel inappropriate.

  She texts Ed for the first time since late morning: How are you, love? I hope you’ve got your feet up. You’d best not be overdoing things.

  He replies a couple of minutes later: Don’t you worry about me. I’m fine. The kids have me under lock and key. How are you, more’s the point? Have you told her yet?

  Cassie: Yep. She hasn’t taken it well. No surprise.

  Ed: Want to talk? I’m here if you do.

  Cassie: Not tonight. Still might be needed. I’ll call you in the morning. Love you. X

  Ed: Love you too, honey. Thinking of you. Chin up. X

  This trip is the first time in months that she and Ed have been apart. The ‘unforeseen things’, which she told Rose had stopped her from coming earlier, were all to do with her husband. Soon after Dave’s shock move to reinitiate contact with her, like a bolt from the blue, life threw them yet another curveball. There was an accident. Ed fell on to a concrete patio from the top of a stepladder while replacing an outside light in the garden at home. He fractured a vertebra in the process, aka broke his back.

  Following a scary evaluation period in A&E and several days on a hospital ward, he was sent home in a carbon fibre back brace meant to immobilise the injury, allowing it to heal. Thankfully, no surgery was required. The doctors said he’d been extremely lucky, escaping any damage to his spinal cord, which could have left him paralysed. All the same, he was in an awful lot of pain, and unable to do much other than rest and recuperate while pumped up on morphine. Initially, he had to wear his brace night and day, only briefly removing it to stand still in the shower while Cassie washed him.

  Now, well on the road to recovery, he’s allowed to remove the restrictive, uncomfortable brace in bed at night, finally enabling him to get some proper sleep. He’s reasonably self-sufficient again, hence why Cassie’s finally confident enough to leave him and come here to do this. Not that he’s alone. Between the four children and several other close friends and family working on a rota Cassie created, there will be someone with him in the house the whole time she’s away.

  Still she worries. But actually, if anything, Ed’s accident was one of the key things that spurred Cassie on to come here to meet Rose and tell her the truth. Experiencing that trauma – knowing how close Ed came to being paralysed – reminded her just how fragile life can be. And how important it is to live your life to the full, with no regrets, making time for what really matters, rather than sweating the small stuff.

  The accident also brought her, Ed and the children closer, emphasising the importance of family.

  So Cassie cast aside the doubts and fears she had about meeting her long-lost daughter and agreed to Dave’s request to tell Rose the truth.

  Now she’s done that, faced her demons, it is undeniably like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. And yet she’s conflicted, considering how it’s affected Rose. She must be so angry and confused, it’s no wonder she ran off like she did. Cassie hopes Dave has found her already, made sure she’s all right.

  If only there wasn’t more misery to come.

  Her tea arrives and, as she pours it, her mind drifts, pondering on the past, when things still had the potential to end up so differently.

  There was a pivotal moment when she almost turned back and didn’t go to Greece.

  Cassie’s fairly certain Dave doesn’t know about this. Otherwise, he surely would have mentioned it once they got back in touch. Deborah could still know, but Cassie suspects not. Her gut tells her that Dave’s father took to his grave what happened between the two of them that evening when she arrived by train at Manchester Airport and experienced major last-minute jitters.

  She’d only met Stephen in person on a handful of occasions, during which he’d always been civil but harder to like than his wife. Cassie had found him to be a cold fish: a man of few words, who shared only what he had to with the people around him. An astute businessman, by all accounts, she suspected he quickly wrote her off as a bad investment of his family’s time and effort.

  What neither he nor anyone else knew, however, was that she’d secretly had misgivings about relinquishing her baby ever since the birth.

  Other than a passing mention of second thoughts
, Cassie didn’t go into this with Rose today. Why? Because she’d left, regardless. To say more would have sounded phoney and pathetic.

  The truth was less clear cut.

  She had managed to stay fairly detached during the pregnancy, trying not to humanise or overthink the contents of her bump. That all went out of the window when she held Rose in her arms, smelled her scent, felt her tiny hands and the tickle of her warm breath against her own skin.

  Even as she whispered to her about leaving, when the two of them were alone for the first time in the hospital, a part of her wondered if she could truly go through with it.

  Later, each time she saw baby Rose, having already passed her into her loving father’s care, she felt a stab of guilt and longing.

  And yet her hard-wired aversion to most things maternal remained, alongside frequent flashbacks to her own troubled childhood.

  It felt as though for every moment of doubt she had about leaving, there was a memory to counter it: cowering on the threadbare carpet in her tiny bedroom, for instance, arms tightly wrapped around her knees, hearing her parents fighting; praying Mummy would be okay.

  There were so many miserable memories to choose from, no wonder they haunted her, constant reminders of why she had to get away.

  If she started to believe she could be a capable parent, she’d soon recall her mother’s good intentions. How she’d initially been fun, kind and loving, only for all of that to be sucked away by heroin, the drug she chose over her own daughter.

  There were lots more memories to support that: long nights spent alone in squalor, little or nothing to eat, afraid her mum might never return. Terrifying times she found her unconscious, covered in her own filth and impossible to rouse. Things no child should have to experience.

  And then, after finally being taken into care, that awful sense of not belonging anywhere – not being loved or wanted – which slowly hardened her heart until any last dregs of hope were finally drained away by her mother’s death.

  Such painful memories were near constant companions back then. So she fought to bury her feelings for Rose, hiding them from the world, sticking to the plan.

  Communicating her doubts to Dave would have been all too easy, but she couldn’t do that to him. She was still too conflicted. She was terrified of leading him on, giving him hope, only to then let him down again.

  Finally, alone at the airport, having declined his typically benevolent offer to wave her off, something happened. It was like her legs refused to take her to the check-in desk.

  Next she was fumbling around for change to use a payphone and calling his parents’ place, where he and Rose were still staying until their own house was ready. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but her heart was racing and it somehow felt right.

  Once she heard his voice, she was sure she’d know what to say.

  But it wasn’t him who answered. It was Stephen.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, thrown by this. ‘It’s Catherine. Please could I, er, speak to Dave? I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m on a payphone and I’m not sure how long my money will last.’

  ‘I thought you were leaving today?’ Stephen replied, monotone.

  ‘I, er … I’m at the airport now. That’s why I’m calling. Is he there? It’s important. I think I might have made a—’

  ‘He’s not here,’ Stephen replied as she heard what sounded like a door shutting on the other end of the line. ‘And even if he was, don’t you think you’ve caused him enough trouble already?’

  ‘Sorry? I—’

  ‘David and Rose will be fine. Please don’t mess them around any longer. Everything’s under control here without you. You go off on your precious travels, okay? Have a nice life. Goodbye.’

  He hung up, leaving her in no doubt that he did not want to hear from her again. If such a thing were to happen now, Cassie is confident she would challenge it, questioning his right to answer on behalf of his son. She’d ring back, find another way to contact him, refuse to take no for answer.

  But at that time, she was a different person, too young and taken aback to find the strength to stand up to Stephen. What he said was certainly a shock to the system. There were tears, but once they’d passed, she chose to take the phone call as a sign not to change course after all. She continued on her way to Greece, doing her utmost to leave her doubts behind.

  Regrets? What would be the point? It may not have worked out well, anyway, had she stayed. Besides, if she hadn’t left when she did, she wouldn’t be the woman she is today. She wouldn’t be Cassie. She’d almost certainly never have met and married Ed; been mother to Rory, Niall, Niamh and Shauna.

  That said, did Stephen’s intervention play a role in keeping her away, out of Dave and Rose’s lives, for so long? His harsh words definitely came back to her at moments when she wondered how the two of them were getting on. When otherwise she might have been tempted to reach out. However, it would be dishonest to put all of that on him. It was more about the definitive nature of her exit. She was supposed to be dead, and that felt irreversible from her end, increasingly so as the years passed.

  She did nearly send a letter once to test the waters. It was around the time when she formally adopted Ed’s children as her own, which was no coincidence. She wrote it, put it in an envelope, addressed it and even added a stamp. But she just couldn’t bring herself to send the damn thing. She ended up, somewhat dramatically, burning it in the fireplace instead.

  The problem was, she knew that Dave could have contacted her at any point over the years, had he wanted or needed to. That was why she’d given him her email address and maintained it, as promised. But no email had ever arrived – and that spoke volumes. Until eventually one did, long after she’d written off the possibility, leading them to where they are today.

  Cassie has no intention of ever mentioning her phone call with Stephen to Dave, Rose or Deborah. The man was long gone and, with hindsight – right or wrong – he was a parent acting in what he considered to be the best interests of his family. Also, what benefit would the knowledge be to anyone now, other than perhaps to make Cassie look a little better? With no proof, it could actually backfire, appearing to be a lie.

  No, her lips will remain sealed.

  CHAPTER 37

  DAVE

  It takes him a while to track her down, but after asking a few of the hotel staff if they’ve seen her, he eventually discovers Rose at a quiet spot in the grounds.

  She’s sitting on a long wooden bench next to a large fish pond, staring into the distance. If she’s aware of him approaching, she doesn’t let on, but she doesn’t appear surprised when he sits down on the far end of the bench, not daring to place himself any closer. She doesn’t look at him or say anything, so he takes the initiative.

  ‘I’d ask you if you’re okay,’ he says, ‘but it’s a stupid question. Your head must be spinning. I wish I could have told you all of this myself much sooner. In fact, I wish there’d never been a need, because you’d known the truth from the start. That lie has eaten away at me for years. I almost came clean and told you more times than you can imagine, but … I was torn. There was the promise I made to your mother, for a start, which I never took lightly. Plus I couldn’t see how it would be good for you to discover this without your, um, mother being around to explain. I was afraid it would scar you at a time when you were still forming your own sense of identity. Not that any of this justifies the lie. Of course it doesn’t. I’m attempting to give you some context, that’s all. I love you so very much, Rose. All I can do is apologise and hope that one day you might find it in your heart to forgive me.’

  He stops talking, hoping Rose might respond.

  She doesn’t. She continues to look forward, eyes clouded over.

  Dave desperately wants to take her hand or put his arm around her, but he knows his daughter well enough to sense that’s not a good idea. He waits in silence.

  Eventually, after a good few minutes of quiet, Rose says in
a cold voice: ‘Who else knew the truth before me?’

  ‘Only me and Catherine – Cassie, I mean – plus your grandparents and Aunt Bridget. That’s it, as far as I know.’

  ‘Uncle Joseph?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of, although I suppose Bridget might have told him. They weren’t together at the time. There’s no way she’s told your cousins, if you’re worried about that. Absolutely not. It’s not like any of us were talking about it behind your back either. There was an implicit agreement not to discuss it. After your mother left, it was barely ever mentioned again. Nana found it especially hard to accept. She only agreed because I insisted and gave her an ultimatum.’

  ‘What about all of this, today? It must have taken some arranging. I had no idea you were such an accomplished liar.’ She pauses then asks: ‘Was Cara in on it? I just tried to call her, but her phone is turned off.’

  ‘No, absolutely not. I wouldn’t do that to you or her, Rose. I asked Cara’s dad to help me out, that’s all. And I didn’t tell him why, other than saying it was a surprise I had planned for you ahead of the wedding.’

  ‘A surprise?’ She gives him a flinty stare.

  ‘I had to say something, Rose.’

  ‘It makes sense now why you never had any pictures of my supposedly dead mother to show me: a good way to keep the truth buried. So, tell me, was that a lie too, about her not liking to be photographed, and then the fire?’

  Dave almost admits what he did so many years ago, deliberately burning those photos. But he can’t bring himself to say the words. Not now, anyway. Not in the knowledge of the other news he’s about to break to her.

  ‘She genuinely didn’t like having her photo taken, Rose,’ he says instead, swerving an actual lie. ‘Ask her yourself if you don’t believe me.’