by Dani Atkins
Her face softened and then suddenly there was recognition. It was the moment I had come here for and I flew into her arms with a broken sob.
‘Maddie, Maddie, Maddie,’ she crooned into my hair. I was eight years old, crying in my mother’s arms; I was a child who knew with absolute certainty this woman would never leave me.
She leant back to look at me, her age-worn hands cradling my cheeks, her eyes drinking me in. ‘You grew up. When did you do that?’
There was no answer I could give that would make sense to her.
‘Have I been asleep? Is that what happened?’ she asked. Heartbreakingly I could see the clouds coming back, covering the fleeting breakthrough with forgetfulness again.
I kissed her cheek tenderly, trying to imprint the soft velvet of her skin into my memory. ‘No, Mum. You weren’t the one who was asleep. I was.’
Chapter 13
Chloe
‘Are we nearly there yet?’
‘Isn’t that supposed to be your daughter’s line?’
Ryan laughed and looked up at the rear-view mirror to glance at Hope, who was sitting on the back seat of the car, happily singing away to herself as she filled in a colouring book.
‘I was just wondering if we should message Bill and tell him that we’ve been delayed.’
‘Already done it,’ I said. I peered out through the windscreen at the unfamiliar countryside, or as much of it as I could see through the falling sleet. We had made the journey to visit Bill and Faye innumerable times, but today there’d been a serious pile-up on the motorway, and we’d been diverted onto roads we didn’t know, and were now running late.
I thought of the cakes carefully stored in the boot of the car, in a collection of tins and plastic containers. I’d spent the last two days busily baking for this visit, but if we didn’t get there soon, the residents of Faye’s home would be having them for breakfast instead of afternoon tea. Some people might have thought it strange, but I really enjoyed my visits to the care home to see the woman who felt like my mother-in-law – even though she wasn’t.
I’d had to cut back on my volunteering at the hospital when I’d first agreed to work for Ryan. I’d obviously continued to visit Maddie – taking her baby with me every time – but the hours I spent on the geriatric ward had sadly had to be reduced. And I’d really missed it. I’d missed the company; I’d missed reading to them; but most of all I’d missed the amazing stories they loved to share, of lives so very different to mine.
So, after Bill had made the agonising decision that he could no longer care for Faye alone, visits to the care home to allow Faye to spend time with her granddaughter had become a regular event, but they’d never been a strain or a hardship for me. Quite the opposite, in fact. And it has to be said, I was a huge hit there. I still remembered the first time we had visited, how I’d packed the car full of treats – much as it was packed today – and how Ryan had stood looking at the trays of chocolate brownies and cupcakes and had scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘I really don’t think Faye is going to be able to get through this lot.’ I’d smiled knowingly. ‘Ah, but all her friends at the care home will love them – and the staff too.’ He’d still looked doubtful. ‘Trust me,’ I’d said confidently. ‘These are my people.’ And I’d been proved right.
At first Faye had been understandably mistrustful of the woman Ryan had hired to look after her grandchild. She was nowhere near as welcoming as Bill had been, but I didn’t blame her for that. And then over the years, as the dementia had slowly shredded away the person she had been, she had softened and now greeted Ryan and me with equal enthusiasm. Not because she was pleased to see us, I knew that, but because of what we would be bringing with us: a delightful grandchild who was the image of her own daughter . . . and cakes. They were two very valuable currencies.
‘Does your phone say what time we should get there?’ Ryan asked, his concentration totally on the road. Despite the alarming way the tyres were skating upon the sleet-covered tarmac, Ryan’s grip on the wheel seemed remarkably relaxed and nowhere near as white-knuckled as mine would have been. He even found time to flash me a reassuring smile.
‘The worst that’s going to happen today is that we’ll be a bit late,’ he said confidently. I nodded, not doubting for a moment his ability to deliver all three of us safely to our destination, but unable to shake the nerve-tingling presentiment that something bad was going to happen.
I bent my head lower, peering at the phone in the poor light, cowardly hiding the concern on my face behind the swinging curtain of my hair.
‘So how much longer until we get there, babe?’
I blinked rapidly several times, hoping that might help to clear my suddenly blurry vision. It didn’t. My voice sounded unnaturally chipper when I replied: ‘I can’t tell you, just now.’
‘Sure you can,’ Ryan joked. ‘I’m your husband. You can tell me anything.’
I ground the pad of my thumb against my right eyelid, which instantly improved the blur of my vision but probably did very little to improve my eye make-up. ‘Another twenty minutes, I think,’ I said, squinting at the screen.
Ryan’s eyes left the road for a moment, just long enough for me to see the concern in them. ‘Did you ever make that optician’s appointment you were talking about?’
For a moment I was annoyed. There’d been so much going on recently, it was hardly surprising that I’d let some non-urgent matters slide. And I had a feeling – a pretty strong one – that the problems I was having with my eyes were largely stress-related. But with Hope sitting right behind us in the back seat of the car, it was definitely not the time to be discussing why I might be feeling like that. ‘Things have been a bit . . . busy . . . one way and another recently,’ I euphemised. ‘It’s not been high up on my list of priorities.’
‘It will be when we have to trade in Hope’s new kitten for a guide dog.’
‘Are we getting a dog?’ Hope piped up from the back seat. Despite the serious undertones of our conversation, I couldn’t help but smile. That little girl of ours missed nothing at all.
‘I don’t think Elsa would like us getting a dog, not when we’ve only just got her,’ I reasoned to Hope, before swivelling back to look out through the windscreen.
‘I think you’d look very cute in glasses,’ said Ryan softly, with a slight sexy tease in his voice. ‘Like a proper librarian.’
‘I was a proper librarian,’ I defended, feeling a warm glow at the twinkle in his eyes.
‘That’s probably why your eyes are bad. Too many hours spent poring over books.’
‘Books don’t ruin your eyes, they improve your mind.’
He laughed, and was still doing so when the signpost directing us to the care home came into view. The subject of the opticians and whether or not I would look good in glasses was once again forgotten. For now.
‘She knows.’
I glanced back over my shoulder from my position halfway up the stairs, with Hope fast asleep in my arms. My eyes flared at Ryan, who saw me, gave a quick apologetic nod and strode into the kitchen to continue his phone call with Maddie in private.
Hope murmured something in her sleep, and a stab of unease cut through me. I’d been so anxious today that either Faye or Bill would accidentally reveal the truth to Hope about Maddie’s identity, that it hadn’t even occurred to me that someone else had already told her.
For the entire journey home I kept reliving the moment when Hope had stood in her grandmother’s room, looking at the two practically identical photographs in their silver frames and innocently asked: ‘Which one is me, and which one is Maddie my dead mummy?’
We handled it badly, I could see that now. There are lies you can get over. There are lies that you can sneakily sweep under the carpet, and then there are other lies that are so enormous they’re like giant boulders that come crashing down off a mountain to crush you. Someone gasped – that might have been me; someone groaned softly – I think that was Ryan; and someone el
se struggled valiantly to clear the army of frogs that appeared to be lodged in their throat. I imagine that was Bill.
‘Hope,’ I said softly, dropping down to my knees in front of her so that our faces were level. ‘Did someone tell you that about Maddie?’ I’d read countless books about child psychology, but nothing could ever have prepared me for this. ‘Did Maddie tell you that?’
Hope’s bright blue eyes, her mother’s eyes, filled instantly with fearful tears. There was a genuinely distraught expression on her face, which no child should ever have to wear. I glanced up at Ryan; he looked mortified. This guilt was ours, we were the ones who’d done this to our little girl.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy. I forgot it was a secret. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to tell you that I knew.’
I pulled her small body into my arms, shocked to realise she was trembling as if she had a fever. ‘It’s all right. Nobody’s cross with you.’
‘Who told you Maddie was your mummy, Pumpkin?’ Ryan questioned, his voice more gravelly than usual, the way it always goes when he gets emotional.
‘Francesca did,’ Hope’s voice was a terrified whisper. ‘At school. She said she heard her mum and dad talking about it after my birthday party. She said Maddie must be a ghost. She’s not, is she, Mummy?’
I should have known something was wrong. The nightmares she’d woken from twice this week, and the feeling that something wasn’t quite right now all made sense. I’d thought she was coming down with something. I’d even bought two extra bottles of Calpol in readiness. How could I have missed the signs? I was a bad mother . . . except I wasn’t at all, not really. And now everyone knew the truth. I wasn’t Hope’s mother, I never had been. Maddie was.
Maddie
‘She knows,’ said Ryan, his voice dark and solemn at the other end of the phone.
‘Oh my God. How did that happen?’
‘Some kid at school overheard her parents talking. And she told Hope.’
‘Oh my God,’ I repeated. There was a good chance that I might keep saying that for hours, and still be no further forward. ‘Is Hope all right?’
Ryan’s sigh sounded as though it was being ripped from him. ‘To be perfectly honest, Maddie, I don’t know. She seemed more upset that she’d forgotten she was supposed to be keeping it a secret, than anything else.’ There was a long moment of silence and then he gave a small sharp laugh that held very little humour. ‘Oh yes, and apparently she thought that you were a ghost.’
‘I’m a what? Why would she think that?’
The question didn’t need to be asked though, not when I thought about it. Of course Hope would think I was a ghost. Why wouldn’t she, when everyone she loved and trusted in the world had told her that I’d died?
‘We’ll work this out,’ I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel.
‘We have to,’ said Ryan, and for the first time since he’d revealed the lie he’d told our daughter, I felt sorry for the torment he was going through. ‘Because I don’t know how we’re going to live with ourselves if we’ve done something to screw her up. She could end up with trust issues . . . she could end up hating us—’
‘That won’t happen. We’re three intelligent and caring adults, who only want what’s best for her. We’ll work this out.’
Ryan’s voice sounded suddenly younger, more the man I’d met and fallen in love with than the man who was now Chloe’s husband. ‘I hope you’re right, Maddie. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.’
I was dressed hours before Ryan was due to collect me. I’d accepted his offer of a lift, knowing we’d need that time to discuss how to handle the conversation with Hope. I imagined he and Chloe would have spent much of the previous night strategising.
When the buzzer went on my door, I glanced at my watch, pleased to see that for once he was actually early. That was a new departure from the Ryan I remembered.
‘I guess you couldn’t sleep either?’ I said, as I pulled open the door, only to find the wrong man waiting on my doorstep.
‘As a matter of fact, I sleep like a baby – I always have,’ admitted Mitch with a sheepish expression. ‘But I imagine you were expecting it to be someone else?’
I looked at the empty hallway behind him. Ryan wasn’t late – at least not yet, so it was irrational to feel irritated that he wasn’t the one who had knocked on my door.
‘Sorry. I thought you were Ryan. I’m going round to his house this morning.’ Ryan and Chloe’s house, reminded a voice in my head. She wasn’t a walk-on character in this play, she had a leading role, and I should be trying much harder to remember that.
‘Oh, okay. Well, I won’t stay then,’ said Mitch, and then flushed as we both realised that I hadn’t actually invited him to do so. I blushed almost as deeply as him. It was becoming contagious.
‘Mitch. I’m so sorry, that was terribly rude of me. Please, come in,’ I said, stepping back into the flat and holding the door wide open in invitation. He shook his head, and seemed suddenly uncomfortable standing on the threshold of a property that was actually his, rather than mine.
‘No. Another time, maybe. I was only calling round to see if you’d had any more trouble with the pipes after last week.’
‘Pipes?’ I said, distractedly, and then shook my head in amazement that his visit the previous week had completely slipped from my memory. ‘Sorry. I’m not with it this morning.’
Mitch’s warm brown eyes – bear’s eyes, I told myself stupidly – crinkled at the edges in concern. ‘Are you feeling all right, Maddie? You’re not sick or anything?’ There was genuine anxiety in his voice, which I found quite touching, because I remembered him telling me once that he wasn’t very comfortable around sick people. And sick was definitely something I was feeling right then . . . it was how I’d felt every single minute since the night before, when Ryan’s telephone call had shattered the illusion he’d been forcing me to live.
‘Not in the way you mean,’ I said, reaching out and touching his arm lightly. His forearm felt as solid as a small log. ‘Hope has discovered the truth. She’s found out that I’m her mum.’
Mitch’s lips pursed and a long soundless whistle blew from them. I felt the tail end of it touch my face, as soft as a spring breeze. ‘Phew. That’s big,’ he said, succinctly summing up the dilemma we found ourselves in, in three words.
‘It is, rather.’
He was silent for a moment, considering. ‘But it’s a good thing. I never could understand why you were all keeping it a secret.’ Somewhere deep within his thick beard I saw him draw in his lower lip, and there was a definite increase in the pink of his cheeks as he added brusquely: ‘Although obviously it’s none of my business.’ It wasn’t, but perhaps talking to someone who wasn’t involved was something I should have done right from the very beginning. ‘All I will say,’ said Mitch, battling on despite his heightened colour, ‘is that from my experience with Sam, the one thing I’ve come to realise is that kids are far stronger than you think they are. They can deal with all kinds of things, in ways far more mature than adults do. They can handle separation, divorce . . . even death. As long as you tell it to them straight. As long as you’re honest with them.’
His eyes met mine, and there was apology in them, but for once his skin colour remained normal. He didn’t need to say anything more, it wasn’t necessary. Because being honest with Hope was the one thing that hadn’t happened; not from Ryan, not from Chloe, or her grandfather, and ultimately not from me either.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ said an achingly familiar voice from somewhere unseen. Mitch stepped hastily to one side to reveal Ryan, who’d been totally hidden behind him. It was odd seeing them together like that at my door. Ryan was tall, muscular and extremely fit, and yet he seemed oddly diminished in the hallway beside Mitch.
Ryan didn’t say anything further until we were walking down the pavement towards his car. ‘Who was the guy? The one who looks like Hagrid?’
The sudden urge to rush to the defence of a man who w
as probably strong enough to uproot small trees with one hand took me by surprise. ‘That was my landlord. His name is Mitch, and was that Harry Potter jibe really necessary?’
Ryan was instantly apologetic. ‘Sorry. Chloe and I have just started reading the books to Hope, so I guess the characters are on my mind. I apologise. I wasn’t trying to be rude.’
‘I’m not sure that comparing someone to a hairy giant could ever be anything except derogatory.’
To be fair, Ryan did appear genuinely contrite. ‘I guess I was just surprised to find him there, that’s all.’
‘He’s a good friend,’ I said, promoting Mitch to a status he didn’t know he’d achieved. But as we drove the short distance to Ryan and Chloe’s home, I realised that I hadn’t been exaggerating; well, not that much. Mitch did feel like a friend, and right then I certainly felt in need of one.
‘Will I have to go and live somewhere else?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’ Ryan’s reply was faster than a bullet, shooting down Hope’s concerns and my secret fantasies with marksman accuracy. ‘This is your home. This is where you live, where you’ll always live . . . with Mummy and Daddy.’
Hope took a moment to think about this, and then looked up with the question we should have been expecting.
‘Which mummy?’
It was a very good question, but not one that any of the adults in the room were capable of answering. This whole situation was all so new, so unchartered, that no one had thought of discussing it on a formal, or even legal basis. Words like custody, visitation and shared care were a language none of us spoke. At least not yet.
My eyes went from Ryan to Chloe, and the sight of the woman I thought of as my enemy fighting back tears shook me far more than I cared to admit. Perhaps that was what made me jump in headfirst with my own reassurances. I reached across their kitchen table to take Hope’s small hand in mine, while a separate part of me quietly marvelled that even our fingernails were the same shape. ‘Well, I’ve only just moved into my new home, so right now there isn’t a bedroom pretty enough for you to stay in. But maybe, in time, you could help me pick out some things you like, so that when you feel ready you could come for a sleepover sometimes, or maybe for the whole weekend. But only if you want to. No one is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.’