She Chose Me

by Tracey Emerson

  How awful that she lives in such a dump. Only she doesn’t live here, not all the time. In the cabinet above the sink, I find a box of New You contact lenses. Dark brown, according to the label. The molten panic in my chest stirs. If Cassie is pretending to be Emma, she has method-acted the part to perfection. What kind of person would go to such lengths? Yet I’ve seen her with Mum and know the kindness she is capable of. According to Kegs, she risked her own safety to help Mum only hours ago.

  Back in the living room, I lift a pillow from the sofa bed and inhale the scent of Emma’s lemony shampoo. A piece of red material sticking out from beneath her duvet distracts me. Dropping the pillow, I reach under the bed covers and pull out my missing cashmere scarf. Identifiable by the white stub of the label I cut out soon after buying it.

  Other items come to my attention. The crystal hedgehog I gave Emma sits on the floor next to the bed, along with my long-lost phone. Beside them is a framed picture of Cassie and I on a bus. Cassie’s long hair is blonde, just like Dan’s. Did her blue eyes come from his side of the family too?

  I glance around the room, searching for what else this girl has taken from me. On the table by the window, next to a miniature Christmas tree, stands the Virgin Mary. Mum’s beloved statue, gold baubles dangling from her outstretched arms.

  How dare Cassie steal from me? From Mum? As well as anger, I feel guilt at her need for some reminder of me.

  A few hours after the birth, I crept into the room where she lay, cosy beneath a white blanket. Knowing we would soon be parted, I was desperate to leave her something but had nothing to give. I unfurled her tiny fists and planted a kiss in each hot, creased palm. A gift she could keep with her forever.

  I need more information about the person who could be my daughter. Clues that reveal who she is and the life she has lived. I search the dishevelled room, unsure what I’m looking for. When I spot a black suitcase wedged under the sofa bed, my hot ball of panic mutates into something cold and tight.

  I ease the suitcase out and unzip it. Inside lies an A4 exercise book with a glossy silver cover. I lift it out with caution, as though it might disintegrate into dust like some ancient manuscript. As I sit on the bed, the book falls open at the back, revealing a page of thick grey paper with a leaflet for the Museum of Childhood stapled to it. The same leaflet I received in the post and dismissed as junk mail.

  Pulse racing, I work my way towards the front of the scrapbook. There are pages filled with tickets for films and art exhibitions I remember going to. I even find the ID page of my passport. On and on I go, until a faded newspaper article stops me.

  MIRACLE BABY SURVIVES

  Body shaking, I read on.

  The baby girl abandoned five days ago in the car park of The Rose and Crown is still alive in the Royal Infirmary’s neonatal unit, despite suffering exposure. Baby Cassie, as the staff has named her, was discovered by Peter Wakely, the pub’s landlord, as he put his rubbish out on Sunday night. The baby, wrapped only in a white blanket, lay next to a public bin at the entrance to the car park.

  Baby Cassie. Emma Cassie Harrington?

  My body slumps, overcome by terror and relief. Relief at seeing the truth written down before me. Terror at what that truth means.

  I remember tucking my baby’s blanket under her chin and explaining in whispers that we couldn’t be together and that I hoped one day she would understand. I remember walking away and leaving her, my heart a bruised, pointless weight.

  I turn the page.

  POLICE LAUNCH SEARCH FOR CASSIE’S MOTHER.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out to find a Brentham number on the screen.

  ‘Hello?’ I talk in a low voice, despite being alone.

  ‘Is this Miss Walker?’ A woman introduces herself as Juliet, the staff nurse from the Stroke Unit. ‘I’m calling about your mother.’

  I cling to the scrapbook as Juliet informs me Mum’s breathing is worse. An oxygen mask is keeping her going. For now.

  ‘She’s very weak,’ Juliet explains, ‘and her condition is deteriorating faster than we expected.’ She tells me that Mum asked for me earlier but is unconscious now. ‘Come right away if you can,’ she urges. ‘Just in case.’

  I tell her I’m on my way and hang up. While scrambling to my feet, I drop the scrapbook on the bed but quickly snatch it up again. I’ll need it as evidence later.

  ‘Bad news?’ says a voice behind me.

  I turn. There she is in the doorway, still dressed in her care worker uniform. Watching me with bright, blue eyes.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ she says.

  ***

  My mother looked startled when I appeared. Strange, seeing as she was the one breaking into my bedsit. Emma’s bedsit.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ I said in my normal voice, done with Emma and her stupid accent.

  ‘Hello, Cassie,’ she replied.

  ‘You know who I am then? How did you find out?’

  ‘I spoke to—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said, and it didn’t. After leaving the hospital, I’d walked round the town centre, thinking things through. The whole Emma charade couldn’t go on. I’d resolved to come clean with my mother so we could start again, and now I had to go through with it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, as I grabbed a chair from the kitchen area and propped it under the door handle.

  ‘Safety measure,’ I explained, ‘lots of break-ins round here.’ I winked so she’d know I wasn’t too angry with her.

  She took a step forward, but retreated when I planted myself between her and the door. The cover of my scrapbook glinted in the weak sunlight filtering through the window. I should have been cross with her for snooping around, but instead I felt glad she’d had a chance to catch up on my history. Our history.

  ‘I was going to call you later and invite you to my place in London,’ I explained. ‘It’s much nicer than here.’ My mother glanced around the room, her distaste obvious. ‘It’s Emma’s place,’ I said, ‘and she’s gone now.’ I pulled off Emma’s Parka jacket and tossed it aside. Underneath I still had on my care worker tunic and leggings. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in what she wears.’

  My mother stared at me like I was mad. Not surprising, given the state of me. ‘I know the whole Emma thing was a bit over the top,’ I said, ‘but you don’t have to worry. She won’t bother us again.’

  ‘I liked Emma,’ my mother said.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Who didn’t like Emma? Christ, even I liked her some of the time.’

  ‘Cassie—’

  ‘Was that the hospital on the phone?’

  ‘Yes. I have to go there. Now.’

  ‘How’s Grandma?’

  ‘My mum’s very ill.’

  I glanced away. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  The slither of smoke beneath Len’s door. The realisation of what was happening behind it. Ignoring the fire alarm on the wall in front of me. Break Glass Here. Walking away and entering my grandmother’s room.

  ‘She’s in the best place,’ I said. ‘They’ll be looking after her.’

  Unfolding my grandmother’s wheelchair and placing it next to her bed in preparation. Lowering myself into the armchair and crossing my legs. Waiting.

  ‘Her nurse has advised me to come as soon as I can,’ my mother said.

  Waiting for the smoke and flames to build and for the smoke detector in Len’s room to trigger the alarm. Waiting for greater danger so that my rescue of Grandma would appear more heroic and my mother would be more grateful.

  ‘You have to let me go and see her,’ she said, inching towards me, displaying none of the gratitude I’d hoped for.

  Noticing for the first time the filth beneath my nails, I took my scissors from my tunic pocket. ‘What?’ I asked, as my mother backed away again.

  ‘Nothing.’ She pressed the scrapbook against her chest, as if to protect herself.

  ‘I wonder if that’s soot?’ I slid a scissor blade beneath my thu
mbnail and scraped the blackness out.

  My mother cleared her throat. ‘Cassie, I—’

  ‘When the alarm went off I got her out of there straight away.’ Almost straight away. First I’d followed the sound of the alarm and pushed open Len’s door. Monstrous plumes of smoke filled the corridor. That’s when everything started to go wrong. It took me longer than predicted to lift Grandma’s bony body into the wheelchair. Longer than predicted to steer her through the darkness.

  ‘You acted very bravely,’ my mother said.

  I did my best. Pushed the wheelchair as hard and fast as I could. Each time Grandma gasped for breath I wanted to cry.

  ‘I had to save her,’ I said. ‘She’s my blood.’

  ‘Emma. Cassie—’

  ‘I tried to see her at the hospital, but the staff didn’t let me.’ I slid the blade beneath the nail of my index finger.

  ‘Please put the scissors away,’ my mother pleaded. Her fearful expression reminded me of Isobel after I’d slapped her.

  ‘Fine, if you’re going to make such a fuss.’ I put them back in my pocket. ‘That stuck-up nurse said it was family only. How do you think that made me feel?’

  ‘I had to be sure who you were. That’s why I came here.’

  I nodded at the scrapbook. ‘Now you know.’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  At last. My mother and I together with no more lies between us. Everything out in the open. ‘As soon as I found you, I wanted to tell you who I was.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  Her question irritated me. Why focus on the details when we should be thinking about the big picture?

  ‘Then I decided it would be easier if we got to know each other first,’ I explained.

  ‘Cassie, we need to talk.’

  I pointed to the sofa bed. ‘Have a seat, we’re not in a rush. You must have well loads to ask me, as Emma would say.’

  She remained standing. Her lips twitched, as though trying to hold back the questions that jostled behind them.

  ‘The Mother’s Day cards,’ she said eventually, ‘you sent them?’

  I nodded. ‘Did you like them?’

  ‘What about the mug?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, exasperated. She must have known I’d come looking for her one day? ‘And the necklace.’

  ‘The silver heart?’ Her face paled. ‘You did take the photographs?’

  I sighed and confessed but pointed out my good deed in getting her away from that dreadful John. ‘He’s back with his wife, by the way,’ I said. ‘I saw them together this morning.’

  She opened her mouth to interrogate me further, but I got in first by admitting to sending my father a Christmas card.

  ‘I like him,’ I said. ‘His family seem nice too. I’m sure we could all get on if we gave it a go.’

  Her fingers tapped a nervous beat on the cover of the scrapbook. ‘Dan Thorne is not your father,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’ Her words dismayed me. How could I have got it wrong? ‘Who is my father then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why? Was he a stranger? Did you have a one-night stand?’

  ‘I don’t know because I’m not your mother.’

  The first prick of emptiness at my core. Black and cold.

  ‘Becoming a mother after twenty years must be a shock,’ I said, ‘but—’

  ‘I’m not your mother.’ She held up the scrapbook. ‘This proves it.’

  Hot angry blotches ignited my cheeks. ‘You had a baby. You told me so.’

  ‘Yes. I had a baby girl twenty years ago.’

  ‘You didn’t keep her. You admitted it.’ She muttered something inaudible. ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I had her adopted.’ Tears shimmered in her eyes. ‘I had my baby adopted.’

  The emptiness began to spread. ‘Someone did adopt me,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t abandon my baby, Cassie.’ The ease with which she lied took my breath away.

  ‘Grandma said you killed your baby. I told her you’d almost succeeded.’

  She came out with some crazy story then about having a termination and my grandmother not approving and the operation not working, and lo and behold there she was still pregnant seven weeks later. How stupid did she think I was?

  ‘I never told Mum about the pregnancy,’ she said. ‘I wanted to make my own decisions about my child’s future.’ She told me she’d moved to Edinburgh to keep the pregnancy secret and had rented a flat and lived there using her dad’s life insurance money. As if adding details like that would make her story more believable.

  ‘It was the loneliest time of my life,’ she said. ‘I was five months pregnant and had to contact social services to start the adoption process.’

  She broke down then. To be fair, she was quite an accomplished actress.

  ‘Talk about denial,’ I said. ‘You’re my mother. You gave birth, then you wrapped me in a blanket and dumped me.’

  She opened the scrapbook and held up a page containing one of the newspaper articles. She pointed to the picture of me in hospital, a wrinkly, red-skinned creature with plastic tubes trailing from my nostrils.

  ‘This is not my baby,’ she said. ‘This is a picture of you in Canterbury Royal Infirmary shortly after you were found in a nearby village.’

  Emptiness filled me, pushed at my ribs, threatened to split me in two.

  ‘I had my baby in mid-July,’ she said, ‘but you were born in the February.’ She fixed a false smile to her face. ‘I understand why you want to find your mum, but I’m not her.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I don’t know why your mother left you, but I bet it was hard for her. I left my baby at the hospital with a social worker, but it still felt like I was abandoning her.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I repeated.

  A buzzing noise filled the room. My mother reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

  ‘That’s the hospital,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you dare answer it.’

  She hesitated. ‘My mother is very sick. I have to go to her.’

  ‘No.’ I dived forward and knocked the phone from her hand. She screamed and backed away, stumbling as her calves met the sofa bed. Back she fell, onto the mattress, the scrapbook tumbling to the floor. ‘This is our time,’ I said. ‘We’re meant to be getting to know each other.’

  ‘Please. We can talk later, but my mother needs me.’

  Tears gathered in my eyes, threatening to embarrass me. ‘I need you,’ I said. ‘I’ve always needed you.’

  ‘That’s enough.’ My mother stood up. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘No.’ I launched myself at her and we collapsed onto the bed. She had to stay. We had so much more to talk about.

  ‘Stop it, Cassie,’ she said, as I entwined myself around her. ‘For your own sake.’

  I only wanted to get close to her. As close as possible. My legs encircled her torso, pinning her arms to her sides. My arms hugged her neck tight.

  ‘Don’t go.’ I pressed my cheek against hers, no longer able to hold back the tears. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Stop,’ she wheezed, sounding all breathless. I held her tight. I’d have climbed inside her if I could.

  ‘I wanted to get to know you,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’

  She bucked against me, writhing this way and that until I couldn’t hold her in place any longer.

  ‘Ow,’ I said, as she tore my arms from around her neck, ‘you’re hurting me.’

  She didn’t care. She tossed me aside like litter before lurching off the bed.

  I only wanted to talk to her, and now she was abandoning me again. Shirking her responsibilities. How could I make her listen?

  My eyes fell upon the Virgin Mary. The mother of all mothers gazed at me with her serene expression, and I knew what I had to do. Dashing across to the table, I picked her up by her neck.

  My mother had almost reached the door by the time I got to her.

  ‘No,’ she screamed,
as I grasped her coat and dragged her backwards. Balance lost, she fell to her knees.

  Before she could look up and put me off, I raised the statue high. Then came the Virgin’s mighty downward swoop.

  Mary, Mother of God, landed with a crack against the side of my mother’s skull. Then, her work done, she shattered into pieces, falling to the ground along with my mother’s body.

  59

  Thursday, 14 September 1995

  Royal Edinburgh Hospital

  Shortly after the birth, my mind and body still stretched to their limits from forcing her out of me, a familiar wailing sound filtered through the walls of my flat, keeping me awake at night. When I did sleep, I found her tiny hands waiting and soon they intruded into my waking world. A glimpse of them curled around my bedroom door. A flash of them on the arm of the sofa. Now and then I caught whispered questions. Why didn’t you want me? Why did you give me away?

  I’d had my long hair cut short in the hope she might fail to recognise me and leave me alone. I ate little and monitored my falling weight. I knew my body was a devious entity, capable of hiding terrible secrets and in need of constant surveillance.

  The day I had the episode, I woke to find her sitting on my bed. She looked about three years old. She had Dan’s blonde hair and my brown eyes, and she giggled as she watched me pull on my clothes and grab my handbag. I ran to Haymarket station and bought a ticket for Perth, but once the train had crossed the Forth Rail Bridge, I jumped off at Aberdour to fool her. Yet there she stood on the platform, a teenager this time with an accusatory expression on her face. I ran across the bridge to the opposite platform and took the next train back to Edinburgh, only to find her waiting at Waverley station. She followed me all over the city to the castle esplanade before chasing me down the Royal Mile and into one of the dark passageways that led off it.