The Missing Pieces of Us

by Fleur McDonald

  She wanted to talk to Skye—to hug her tight and tell her everything would be okay. Well, she couldn’t promise that. But she could hug her daughter.

  Walking out into the hallway, Lauren went to stand outside Skye’s door. The need to talk to her was so strong. She tapped a few times. Was the door still locked? She didn’t want to try the handle in case Skye yelled out at her to go away.

  ‘Skye?’ Lauren called. No answer. ‘Skye. I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I want to tell you that I love you. I’m sorry we’ve been arguing lately. I’m not sure why. We’ve always been good friends, haven’t we? What’s happened to get us so off track?’ She took a breath. ‘I know you’ve got all sorts of horrible emotions going through you right now. But please know I love you so very, very much.’

  Skye still didn’t say anything. Perhaps she was asleep. Perhaps she was wearing her earbuds with her music on full blast.

  Or she might just not want to talk, no matter what Lauren said.

  With a sigh, Lauren padded back to her bedroom.

  Chapter 22

  ‘You can stay for as long as you like,’ Angela said to Tamara.

  ‘Thanks, but it’s only going to be for a couple of nights,’ Tamara insisted as she walked down the path to the front door, holding her suitcase.

  Living in a motel room with paper-thin walls had had its drawbacks. Namely, neighbours who thought that screaming at each other, then having noisy sex, then screaming again was a fun way to spend an evening together.

  Tamara had thought hard about asking her mother if she could come over for a night or two. Well, she’d tried to think hard while using a pillow to muffle the moans of ‘harder, harder, harder!’ being shouted from the room next door.

  ‘It’s only for a couple of nights,’ she kept telling Angela, ‘until I find a new motel.’ But Angela was obviously still hopeful. And, if Tamara was totally honest with herself, she was feeling positive too. She wanted to give the possibility of a friendship with her mother a chance. If she was truly going to heal, she needed to mend her fences. Then she and Craig could start afresh. Maybe their relationship would be even better than before.

  Tamara lugged her suitcase down the passage to her old bedroom. She found it difficult—frightening, even—to walk down there for the first time in so many years. As she sat on the edge of the bed, so many memories crowded around her. She remembered lying there, listening for the sounds of her parents heading to bed; she would sneak out of the laundry door when she heard Evan’s snoring.

  Thankful that Angela was giving her the space she needed to unpack by herself, Tamara shut the door and began with the box containing her shoes.

  Soon, everything was in its place. She flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. The long crack in the plaster had grown a bit wider, and the shadows from the tree outside the window cast the same shade on the dirty white walls. As a child she’d slept in this bed with her arm tucked around a ragamuffin doll.

  Oh, the doll! She’d forgotten about it. What had happened to it?

  There was a gentle knock on the door. Tamara rolled her eyes but smiled at the same time. ‘Come in!’ she called.

  ‘Do you need anything?’ Angela asked, opening the door just a crack and putting her head through.

  ‘No, I’m all good,’ said Tamara, patting the bed. ‘Come and sit for a moment.’

  Angela hesitated before walking into the room and glancing around. ‘Looks like you’re pretty settled,’ she said.

  ‘Yep, just about there.’ Tamara paused. ‘Do you know what happened to that doll I used to have? A ragamuffin, with red wool for hair.’

  Angela smiled. ‘Wait right there.’

  Tamara swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She felt as though she was six again, waiting for her mum to come and check on her. But without the fear.

  Angela walked in with a box and held it out. ‘I kept quite a lot. After you’d gone, Evan wanted to throw all of your belongings out. But while he was at work one day, I snuck in and packed up the things of yours I wanted to keep. I’d always hoped I’d see you again.’

  After opening the box, Tamara saw the doll. She picked it up and held it out, like a mother holding a child. Then she sat it on her knee and hugged it close.

  ‘Raggedy Ann,’ she said, awed. ‘Where did she come from?’

  ‘I gave her to you the Christmas you turned three. I’d found her in a second-hand store and brought her home. She needed a good wash, but by the time I’d finished with her, she was as good as new. You loved her.’

  ‘I remember.’

  Tamara noticed something else in the box. She reached in and pulled out a book. ‘Oh, Tilly and Tessa! I loved this story.’

  Angela nodded, her smile shaky.

  Tamara put the book on the bed and checked again. There was a plastic sleeve with documents inside. Now, that wasn’t something she’d loved as a kid!

  ‘Last night,’ Angela said, ‘you told me you weren’t sure if you wanted to look for your birth mum, so I didn’t say anything about these documents. But here they are. I want you to have the option to read them, whenever you wish. Over the years, when it’s been possible, I’ve done some research. I wanted to bring it to you, but I just didn’t know how to approach you until Evan died.’

  Tamara’s heartbeat sped up. Now that it was here before her, she couldn’t wait to read everything. Slowly, she pulled out the ageing paper from the plastic. The words swam in front of her eyes. Blinking, she refocused and started to read.

  Dear Mrs Thompson,

  Thank you for your enquiry. We have provided the following information.

  The Departmental records have been searched and the following information was recorded:

  Name: Tamara Grace Thompson

  Born: King Edward Memorial Hospital, Subiaco, Western Australia

  Date of birth: 1 March 1973

  Records state that the child was born without complications at 2:56am and weighed 3628.74gm. Length was 46cm and her Apgar scores were 7 and 8.

  Birth mother was twenty, single and studying at the University of Western Australia. She had been in a long-term relationship with the birth father. He didn’t want to continue the relationship when informed about the pregnancy.

  It was the birth mother’s wish, at the time, not to have any contact.

  As of today, the ninth of May 1997, the birth mother hasn’t requested to be put on the Contact Register.

  Yours sincerely,

  Flora Dune

  Tamara let the letter fall to her chest, taking another piece of paper from the file.

  Non-identifying particulars of mother:

  Age: Twenty

  Birth place: England

  Marital Status: Single

  Education: Completed Year 12

  Occupation: Student

  Health: No known hereditary diseases. Wears glasses.

  Family: One of three children. Parents are both deceased. Father had a stroke when he was 56. Mother died of natural causes.

  Physical description:

  Height: Five foot nine

  Hair: Red

  Eyes: Blue

  Build: Medium frame

  Complexion: Very fair

  Tamara turned the page over, searching for more information, but there was nothing. She re-read it, drinking it in like a woman dying of thirst.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get more information, Tam,’ said Angela. ‘The agency is very strict.’

  Tamara swallowed. ‘I just think it’s amazing you went to this much effort. And I’ve learned more about her tonight than I thought I’d ever know.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll keep looking?’

  ‘I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like she wants to find me, does it? Otherwise she would have put her name on the contact register. She’s what? Sixty-three? She might be dead. Anyway, she’s not going to want some long-lost daughter turning up. I reckon I’ll leave it.’

  ‘I’m happy to answer any quest
ions you have,’ Angela said softly.

  Tamara gazed at the shadows of leaves on her bedroom wall. The wind outside was tossing them around, and they looked like long fingers trying to reach out and hold on to something. A bit like Angela, she thought.

  ‘I wonder what was it like to give up a baby back then?’ said Tamara.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Angela thought for a moment before saying, ‘I’ve read quite a bit about this in recent years. For a while I didn’t care why your mother had given you up. I was just pleased we had you and I had the option of keeping you. But after you’d left, I understood more of what she might have been feeling—if she was made to give you up. I’ve read horrific stories of unwed mothers back then being forced to sign adoption papers while they were still in labour. One woman was deprived of sleep until she signed them. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture!’ Angela placed a hand on Tamara’s shoulder. ‘I have the books in the spare room if you’d like to read them. They’re hidden under the bed.’

  Swallowing hard, Tamara tried to organise her feelings.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

  A few seconds later, her phone beeped with a text, and Angela got up from the bed. ‘I’ll leave you to finish what you’ve still got to do tonight. Sleep well. See you at breakfast.’

  ‘Good night,’ said Tamara. ‘It means a lot to me that you kept some of my things.’

  Picking up her phone, Tamara saw that the text was from Craig. He’d asked her out for a drink on Sunday. Smiling, she didn’t have to think about the answer: ‘Yes.’

  Chapter 23

  ‘Oh. My. God. Skye, you did it!’ Adele cried, running from the bus and falling into step beside her.

  Skye’s stomach constricted. How does she know? How could she know? Nah, she couldn’t know. Don’t be ridiculous! Play it down.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Skye asked, trying hard to make her voice sound neutral.

  ‘Um, what do you think I mean? Can’t believe you did it with a fuckboy, but you’ve done it. What was it like?’

  Skye stopped and looked at her, devasted. ‘How the fuck do you know that?’

  ‘It’s all over school! Billy told Kirk, Kirk told Trent, Trent told Paige, and she told me.’ Adele looked really happy to be delivering the news.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Skye said.

  ‘What? No, I’m not. I know you did it.’

  Skye shook her head. ‘Billy wouldn’t have told anyone.’

  ‘How the fuck do I know then, you dickhead?’

  Skye silently turned her back on Adele and walked off, her heart beating fast.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Adele called.

  Ignoring her, Skye kept her head down and went straight to the toilets. Sitting on the loo, she got her phone out. ‘You told people?’ she texted him.

  She waited for an answer. The screen remained blank.

  Not wanting to leave the cubicle, Skye weighed up her options. She could go to class and pretend nothing had happened—or she could wag school. She wanted to run home, hide in her room and never come out.

  How could Billy do this to her? He’d said that he loved her.

  Adele’s voice echoed in her ears. ‘Fuck, you’re naive.’

  Tears slipped down her cheeks. ‘Billy,’ she whispered.

  When the bell rang, Skye knew she didn’t have a choice. She needed to go to class. Swallowing hard, she picked up her bag and headed into the bright sunlight.

  A group of girls walked past and stared at her curiously. She ignored them, keeping her head down as she walked towards her English classroom. The sound of laughter was coming from there, but Skye felt as if she’d never be able to laugh again. What a betrayal. It had all been a lie. Every little misgiving she’d had, every little fear that it had all been a joke—they’d all been right. He’d used her.

  She walked into the classroom and the laughter stopped instantly.

  ‘So the teacher’s daughter isn’t such a good girl after all,’ one of the boys called from the back row.

  Skye stared at him. What the hell was he on about?

  ‘Truth or dare, Princess.’

  ‘What?’

  He started up a cruel chant: ‘Skye and Billy, pashing in his car, Snapchat, Snapchat! Ah! Ah! Ah!’

  Skye’s mouth dropped open. She turned and ran, her long plait thumping behind her. She raced to the school gates and then kept running. She had no idea where she was going, but she wasn’t staying at that school.

  ‘Shit, Skye, what’s wrong?’ Tamara stared in horror at the girl in front of her. She dropped the hangers she’d been holding and rushed from behind the counter to get to Skye, who stood weeping in the shop doorway.

  ‘Billy,’ she sobbed.

  Tamara reached for her. ‘Come on, come back to the storeroom. It’s okay. We’ll sort something out.’ She had no idea what had happened, but it must be bad for Skye to turn up here, out of the blue. Why wasn’t she at school? And who was Billy? Probably some lowlife scumbag who’d rejected Skye. God, the shit that teenagers had to go through.

  ‘Calm down,’ Tamara said in a soothing voice. ‘It’s all okay. What happened?’

  Skye hiccupped and tried to talk, but a fresh flood of tears started.

  ‘Billy . . . Photo . . . Everyone will know,’ she wailed.

  Tamara realised that she wasn’t going to understand anything until Skye had stopped crying, so she held her tightly against her chest and stroked her hair. Soon, the crying subsided and Skye pulled away, rubbing her swollen eyes.

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ Tamara said.

  Skye told her everything, starting from the bad news about her mum’s results and ending with Billy showing the Snapchat photo to his mates.

  Tamara stared at her, fury burning in her chest. ‘Oh, Skye,’ she said, keeping her voice very soft, ‘that’s the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard. Billy’s in serious trouble.’

  Shaking her head, Skye waved her hands. ‘It’s too late, Tam. And it’s all my fault, anyway.’

  ‘Now, you listen to me and you listen well, Skye. This is not your fault. It’s a terrible form of bullying. A normal person wouldn’t do anything like this.’

  ‘Yeah, they do,’ Skye interrupted. ‘It happens all the time. I just didn’t think he’d do it to me. He told me he loved me.’ A fresh round of tears started.

  ‘You can stay here for the day, okay? You’ll be safe. I won’t let anyone in to see you. But we’ll need to tell your dad what’s happened, once you’ve heard from him about your mum, then he can call the school. Okay?’

  ‘Tam?’

  ‘Yes, sweetie?’

  ‘I wish Mum wasn’t sick.’

  Tamara’s heart broke. ‘Of course you do, sweetie.’ She gathered Skye into her arms again and hugged her until the tears stopped.

  Hiding in the Angelic Threads storeroom, Skye kept going over everything, every tiny detail, about Billy. How could she have been so stupid? All her senses, right from the start, were telling her something wasn’t right—that he was pretending.

  That’s why I couldn’t believe he was interested in me, she thought. I wish I’d trusted my instincts.

  She lay on the floor and looked up at the ceiling. She could hear Tamara’s happy voice talking with customers, bringing them the clothes they wanted and ringing purchases up on the till.

  Skye wished that time travel was possible. But she couldn’t rewind to her mother being well, or un-take that photo. She couldn’t un-sleep with Billy. There was no turning back from here.

  Chapter 24

  Lauren was propped up on the couch, watching some mindless daytime TV show that made no sense to her. Five days had passed since the operation to remove the lymph nodes in her armpit. Each one would be biopsied. The wait for more results was on again.

  She was sick of waiting. Her family was sick of waiting. She couldn’t even imagine how it would have felt to have waited longer for the surgery.

  Skye sat on the armchair
opposite, her earbuds in, staring into space, one leg swung over the arm of the chair. For nearly an hour she’d barely moved.

  Lauren’s heart ached every time she looked at her daughter. If she could change what Skye was going through, she would. Youth and innocence had been taken away from her daughter because of a couple of silly decisions. What Lauren wouldn’t do to be alone with that boy for thirty seconds: she’d make him wish he’d never been born.

  Dean had taken the horrifying phone call from Tamara, only an hour after Lauren had been talking to her surgeon about how the procedure had gone.

  Not wanting to leave Lauren at the hospital by herself, Dean had rung the school principal, Hamilton, and demanded an explanation. Hamilton had been caught on the back foot because no one had made him aware of the situation. Dean wanted to go to the school and talk to the boy—but, of course, Hamilton hadn’t allowed it.

  A day later, Hamilton had rung Dean. On speaker phone in the hospital, he and Lauren had listened to the principal’s report.

  ‘It seems that Skye sent Billy a Snapchat photo of herself in a rather compromising position,’ he said. ‘From there, Billy showed it to other kids—didn’t send it on via text messages or social media, but physically held his phone up for his mates to see. They just happened to be with him at the time. From the boys I’ve talked to, Skye’s face was very visible. Billy isn’t admitting to anything.’

  Lauren’s breathing had become strange when he said that.

  ‘All I can do is suspend him for bad behaviour for two weeks,’ the principal had said apologetically. ‘Other than hearsay, there’s no evidence. I’m sorry, Lauren. I wish I had better news.’

  After that, Dean had decided to ring the police, to see if they could press charges. Lauren thought the answer might be the same as the one Hamilton had given—and she was right. Dean spoke to an officer on the phone, getting increasingly frustrated, before finally hanging up. He turned to Lauren with a look of absolute disgust. ‘That little bastard has got away with it. If he’d sent the photos to others, via text message or social media, they could charge him with distributing child pornography. Or if he’d saved it to his phone, that would mean he was in possession of child pornography. But because the photo was on Snapchat, it’s gone. It’s Skye who’d be charged with “distributing child pornography”, because she sent the Snapchat.’