Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the time on the microwave—somehow the last forty-five minutes had gotten away from her. Bugger it, she didn’t have time to worry about this right now. Still feeling sick, she grabbed her keys and handbag and headed out to the car. Maybe Josie would know something about the dress.
Realising she was now running late, she drove as quickly as she could to the beach and then praised the Lord when she scored a street park not too far from the popular café. Finally, something was going right. Hoping this was a good omen for the few hours ahead, she walked briskly to her destination.
The mouth-watering aromas of freshly baked pastries and brewed coffee hit her even before she entered the building but the moment she stepped inside she forgot all about them. Josie was already there, sitting at a table in the corner flicking through one of the free magazines. Rebecca wondered if she was actually reading it—she knew in her current state of mind, she wouldn’t be able to take anything in. With a deep breath, she tucked her mobile phone into her handbag and walked towards her, feeling as if she were entering a lion’s den. This was her and Robbie’s daughter. And she was beautiful.
Do not cry, she told herself as she got closer.
As if sensing her approach, Josie shot to her feet as Rebecca arrived at the table.
‘Hi,’ they both said and then stared at each other awkwardly a few—long—moments. What was the etiquette in this situation? As much as Rebecca yearned to wrap her arms around her long-lost daughter and hold her close, she didn’t think they were at that stage yet, but a handshake felt far too formal for flesh and blood.
Josie was the first to break the silence. ‘Do you want to sit?’ she asked, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the wrought-iron table.
‘Yes. Thanks. Sorry I’m late,’ Rebecca lowered herself into the seat, cringing at the sound of herself apologising again. ‘I didn’t mean to be, but I got caught up unexpectedly.’
‘It’s fine, I only just got here anyway. Lucky I managed to nab this table.’
‘Yes, good score.’ They both laughed nervously and although Rebecca hadn’t been planning on asking Josie about the dress right away, she felt the need to explain.
‘I was late because I noticed the wedding dress was missing from my walk-in robe and I tried to call Paige to see if she’d taken it, but I couldn’t get through to her. I don’t suppose she’s mentioned it to you?’
Josie frowned and then shook her head. ‘I haven’t spoken to her since Thursday, although we did message each other yesterday morning and she didn’t mention anything about the dress.’
‘Hmm.’ An uneasy feeling settled in Rebecca’s stomach. ‘I hope she and Solomon are okay.’
‘I know they had a fight, but she told me yesterday that they were good again. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe she took it to get dry-cleaned or something?’
‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted this meeting to be perfect and I’m annoyed at myself for being late. Let’s start again. Can I get you a drink and something to eat?’
‘Just a Diet Coke, please.’
‘Coming right up.’ Rebecca picked up her bag and went to place their orders at the counter. Despite the Saturday morning queue, the staff were accustomed to busyness and she didn’t have to wait long.
When she returned to the table she decided to get straight to the point.
‘I’m so sorry you found out about our relationship the way you did. I imagine you have questions for me and I promise to do the very best I can to answer them properly, but before I do, can I just say one thing?’
Josie nodded.
‘I do not have any ulterior motives in requesting that information. I know you know I’m sick and need a kidney donor, but that is not why I decided to find out about you. I was careless with the letter, but I never wanted you or Paige to find out that way and I planned to wait until after I had the transplant to make contact with you. Obviously discovering you were already part of our lives complicated things and I’m so sorry for any hurt I’ve caused you.’
Josie’s expression was very hard to read—Rebecca didn’t know if her daughter believed her or not.
‘I’ll never try to replace the mother you already had, but I’d love for us to get to know each other better and to have some kind of relationship. However, if that’s not what you want, I promise I’m going to respect your wishes.’
‘Thank you,’ Josie said. Then, ‘I do have a few questions.’
Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, Rebecca nodded. ‘Go ahead. I promise I’ll answer them all honestly and as best I can.’
‘How did you feel when you discovered you were pregnant?’
Josie’s question surprised Rebecca—this was not what she’d been expecting. She smiled wistfully as her mind flashed back to that day.
‘Terrified,’ she said honestly. ‘But then I told Robbie and he wasn’t angry, he didn’t run for the hills. He made me believe everything would be okay. We planned to get married—I thought that would please my parents too—Robbie said he’d get a job and we fantasised about a future with our baby. We fell in love with the idea of you fast and with him by my side, I felt like I could conquer anything. I wasn’t even that scared about telling Mum and Dad.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m not sure how much Clara or Paige have told you about what happened next?’
Josie shrugged one shoulder. ‘Clara told me that Rob was threatened by your father, that he never wanted to leave you or let me be adopted. That the guilt and the regret drove him to drink and that he always wanted to find me. She told me that he tried to look for me and even asked for your help at one stage but that you refused to look. That you didn’t want to.’
‘It’s not that I —’ Trying not to show her anger towards Clara, Rebecca started to explain but Josie interrupted.
‘Paige told me you kept me a secret her whole life, so I guess that’s why you didn’t want to help Rob. That’s why you turned him away?’
Rebecca felt sick; she could tell Josie wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
‘Robbie hurt me when he abandoned us,’ she begun. ‘Whatever his reason—and I now know that this wasn’t his choice—he broke my heart. He left me with no alternative but to do as my parents told me was best. I felt so alone back then, I blamed him for losing you but I also felt ashamed and guilty about it all. Because of this I listened to my parents when they told me I should leave the past where it was. I thought about you constantly and of course I dreamed of finding you, but I didn’t think it was my right. There were many times I almost told Hugh, but I guess shame held me back. Not shame that I’d had you, but shame that I’d given you up. And the longer I kept the secret, well, the harder it became to tell.’
‘So you loved him?’ Josie asked.
‘Robbie?’
‘Yes.’
A wave of nostalgia washed over Rebecca as she thought of her first love. ‘Oh yes, I loved him so much.’ She swallowed, determined not to cry as she’d promised herself she’d keep it together in front of Josie. ‘I know people write teenagers off as not knowing what true love is, but I’m a fifty-year-old woman now and I can tell you that I genuinely loved your father. They say you never truly get over your first love and that’s my truth. He was sexy, smart, he made me laugh, he treated me like a princess and he was a hell of a talented musician. Paige tells me you’re interested in music too?’
Josie nodded as she sipped her drink through the straw. Then, ‘Do you wish things had been different? Do you wish you and Robbie had ended up together?’
Rebecca couldn’t help her heavy sigh. That might just be the most difficult question anyone had ever asked her.
‘Yes and no,’ she said eventually. ‘I wish I hadn’t lost you; I wish my parents hadn’t tried to play God; I wish Robbie hadn’t lived with such torture and turmoil; I wish I’d been braver and looked for you earlier, but I can’t wish Paige or Hugh away
. My life might not have been how I dreamed it would be at fifteen, but I’ve had a pretty good one and I hope you have too.’
‘I have—or at least my childhood and adolescence were good. Maybe if they hadn’t been, I’d have come looking for you myself, but my adoptive parents were the best. They weren’t musical at all themselves, but they supported my passion and dreams in that area and everything else. They gave me every opportunity I wanted. I couldn’t have asked for a better family.’
This brought a lump to Rebecca’s throat—it was good news, the best, but she couldn’t help the jealousy towards this other couple who had been blessed to bring up her and Robbie’s daughter. ‘I’m glad,’ she said simply.
‘Are things okay with you and Hugh now?’
‘I don’t know. We’re trying to make them that way again, but he’s hurt that I kept you from him. And rightly so.’
‘Did you really always think I was a boy?’
Rebecca blushed at how stupid Josie’s question made her sound. ‘Yes. I wasn’t allowed to hold you when you were born and I never thought to question what anyone told me. It was only when I saw that photo in your house …’ She paused to dig into her bag for the identical one, which she’d recently retrieved from the bank safe, and laid it down in front of Josie. ‘That I started to wonder. All my life I’ve scrutinised any males that were about your age, looking for something, anything that reminded me of myself or Robbie. Now I know why I never found anyone.’
‘But you’d decided to look before you saw the matching photo.’ Josie pushed the image back across the table, accusation in her tone. ‘If not because you needed a kidney, then why?’
‘Have you ever been diagnosed with a serious illness before?’ When Josie shook her head, Rebecca continued. ‘It’s pretty frightening. And it’s exactly as the books and movies say—it makes you look back on your life with a fine-toothed comb. I started thinking about what I’d achieved and what things I regretted. I could only think of one regret, but it was a pretty damn big one. You.’
Although she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, she couldn’t help the tear that escaped and she didn’t try and brush it away.
‘Suddenly I couldn’t think about anything else. I was supposed to be worrying about my health but all I could think about was my son, well, you know … I knew I had to come clean and I knew I had to find out if you were okay. That’s honestly all I need to know. If you don’t want anything else from me, I’ll accept that, but please, tell me, are you okay?’
Josie
Josie took a few long moments and another sip of her drink before answering Rebecca’s question.
‘Yes, I’m okay.’
She could see the relief on the other woman’s face. ‘Good. I’m glad.’ Rebecca did this weird sniff-smile thing. ‘Is there anything else you want to ask me?’
‘I’d love you to tell me more about Rob.’ She hadn’t wanted to ask Clara too many questions because although Clara had been fantastic about all this, she knew she carried a lot of pain where her ex-husband was concerned and wasn’t sure she’d be unbiased anyway. And although Brenda had given her wonderful insights, she got all melancholic whenever she talked about her son, so Josie didn’t want to raise the topic of Rob unless she did. As One Track Mind was together long before the internet, in this instance, Google hadn’t been much help either.
Perhaps this woman could even have something that might give Josie a clue as to where Rob might be.
Rebecca blinked. ‘Sure. What do you want to know?’
‘I dunno.’ Josie shrugged. ‘What did he eat for lunch? Aside from music, what was his favourite subject at school? Did he have any favourite movies? I’ve seen his collection of LPs, but which singer or band inspired him?’
Rebecca laughed at the rush of questions and then sucked in a quick breath before replying. ‘Vegemite and cheese sandwiches with egg.’ She made a face. ‘It’s what he brought to school every single day and I thought it was disgusting. I refused to kiss him unless he brushed his teeth afterwards, so he ended up bringing a toothbrush to school.’
Josie couldn’t help smiling.
‘Sorry,’ Rebecca said, ‘perhaps a little too much information. Now what did you ask next? Oh, school. Well, he wasn’t bad at maths and science but he was really, really good at woodwork. The teacher tried to convince him he should become a carpenter, but he was so gung-ho about being a rock star that he wouldn’t consider anything else.’
‘Paige mentioned you were a singer and played the piano—if Robbie was a couple of years older than you, he would have been in a higher grade at school; did you meet through your music?’
Rebecca nodded. ‘Yep, although the country school we went to wasn’t that big and he only lived down the road, so I knew him before then. But when Robbie and his mates decided that the way to success was to have a female singer in their group, they called auditions. I already had a crush on him—pretty much every girl in the school did—and so I saw this as my chance to a) become a star and b) get the guy. And let’s face it, at fifteen, the latter was way more important to me.’
‘And they chose you?’
‘Yes. The rest of the guys were a bit immature—always cracked obscene jokes around me—but Robbie was serious about his music and gave them what-for whenever they became a bit inappropriate with me. He started to walk me home after band practice and we became friends first, but we became much more than that pretty fast.’
Josie didn’t know if Rebecca realised it but her eyes lit up whenever she spoke about Robbie—it was clear to see how much she’d loved him and she couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her husband. ‘Was the band One Track Mind?’
‘No.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘Aside from Robbie and me, no one else was really serious about a music career. I’m not sure what happened, but a few years later he appeared on the scene with a new bunch of guys. No token female this time. Guess they realised boy bands were a better bet.’
‘So you kept track of him?’
‘I wouldn’t say I kept track of him, but every radio station was playing that song. It was hard not to follow his progress. I really thought they were going places after “Lost Without You, Baby” hit the charts, but then they just seemed to fade away. That was Robbie’s worst nightmare—being a one-hit wonder.’
And he wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for you.
‘He and Clara suffered a number of miscarriages.’ Josie decided not to mention the stillbirth. ‘And Robbie fell into a deep depression; she thinks it all stemmed from when I was adopted.’
‘I know,’ Rebecca whispered. ‘It breaks my heart to think of him like that. He was always the life of the party, but he was never one of the ones sneaking alcohol into said parties; he was too driven. What happened to him is a tragedy and I’ll never forgive my parents for what they did.’
‘Me neither,’ Josie said, but she didn’t add that she wasn’t sure if she could forgive Rebecca either. Not only for turning Robbie away when he came to her in desperation, but also for allowing her parents to have their way in the first place. She tried to put herself in Rebecca’s position—being fifteen and pregnant—but she couldn’t imagine ever giving up a child, not when she so desperately wanted one. No matter how many times Rebecca told her she was young, heartbroken and coerced into the adoption, it didn’t change the facts.
She had allowed others to take away her baby.
And that was something Josie would never have done. Having felt another human growing inside her, having experienced the agony of losing that life, she knew she would have fought until her last breath to keep her baby. Even if she was only a child herself.
Perhaps, Rebecca had actually been relieved to be rid of her.
‘Paige told me about the campaign you’ve launched to search for Robbie,’ Rebecca said. ‘I think it’s a great idea. I shared the page and I can’t help thinking about what else we might do. Perhaps we could hire a private investigator?’
We? Th
at sounded expensive and Josie wondered if Rebecca was planning on funding it; if so, how would her husband feel about that? Even if she liked the idea, there was no way she and Nik could afford one and she didn’t think Brenda had a wad of cash stuffed up the chimney.
‘And …’ Rebecca paused a moment as if unsure of what she was about to say. ‘I could ask my father if he knows anyone in the police force in the missing persons unit. I think he kind of owes us a favour, don’t you?’
Rage and resentment erupted like a volcano within her and almost burst right from her mouth. That was the understatement of the century!
Somehow she swallowed the urge to tell Rebecca she could shove her despicable father where the sun don’t shine—that this was too little, too late—but maybe that would be cutting off her nose to spite her face. She didn’t want anything to do with her biological grandfather and she couldn’t understand why Rebecca would want that either, but if he did have any kind of police power or could at least find out what they were doing on the case, how could she turn that down?
‘You’d do that?’
Rebecca nodded rapidly. ‘Of course. I haven’t spoken to him since I confronted them about your gender, but I’m willing to do anything I can to help find Robbie. I’ll go see Dad this afternoon.’
‘Thank you,’ Josie said. ‘And thanks to Paige and your husband, I got a call from a producer at This Is Sydney. She was super enthusiastic about doing a piece on missing persons and Brenda and I are being filmed next week for it. If someone has seen him or knows where he is, hopefully this will spur them to get in contact with us or the police.’
Rebecca blinked. ‘Hugh helped you?’
‘Yes, Paige asked him if he could put the word out at his work and someone got in contact with me almost immediately.’
‘That’s great news,’ Rebecca said, although her voice wavered a little. ‘And it’s lovely you’ve connected with Brenda. And Paige. She speaks very highly of you.’
‘Yes. They’re both great,’ Josie said, feeling uncomfortable with where this conversation was going. Although Rebecca had said she didn’t expect anything from Josie, she could tell from her biological mother’s tone that she hoped they too might be able to play happy families. And while this conversation had been enlightening in many ways, she simply didn’t feel any desire to repeat it on a regular basis.
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