‘Did your wife have melanoma like my mum?’
Todd dragged himself back to Skye. ‘Yes. Yes, she did.’
Skye nodded, something bright in her eyes that he thought was sympathy. ‘What was she like?’
‘Jacqui was from England and had very fair skin. It didn’t stand up well to our Australian summers, unfortunately. Her closest friend was a large-brimmed straw hat that she never went anywhere without.’
‘Mum always makes me wear sun cream and a hat whenever I go out. I’m just like her with my skin. There’s every chance I’ll get melanoma too.’
‘And there’s every chance you won’t. Come on, miss, I think we need to have some breakfast and then go and catch those horses, don’t you?’ Todd stood up and grabbed a couple of apples before leading the way out of the house.
That evening, Todd let himself into Jacqui’s study. It was the same as the day they’d driven away to face whatever the future held for them in Perth. Of course, he’d been back in once or twice, on the times he’d come back to visit, but he’d never thought about clearing it out. He liked to be able to feel her presence.
The first time he’d gone into her study, he’d opened her filing cabinet and looked through. He’d been wanting to get hold of credit card details that would bring memories back, written in black and white. Such as the time they went to Fremantle and ate fish and chips on the beach. Or their trip to Darwin in the wet season.
But memories weren’t the only things he’d discovered. There were doctors’ reports he’d never seen and adoption papers he didn’t know about.
The first doctor’s letter he found was dated 1982.
Dear Doctor Gerard,
Thank you for seeing Jacquelyn Emma Atkinson. She has presented to me with fertility problems. I believe they may have been caused by complications during two previous pregnancies. The birth in 1973 resulted in damaged fallopian tubes, through a retained placenta. Mrs Atkinson has recently married and is keen to have children. Would you please discuss options with her?
Doctor H. Van de Hoover
After reading this letter for the first time, Todd stared at the page. His hands started to shake.
Jacqui had given birth to not one, but two children, and he knew about neither of them?
On his hands and knees, he riffled through the file, searching for answers, for questions he hadn’t formed yet. He found more fertility reports from before they were married. Why hadn’t she told him? His breathing was shallow. A sob escaped him—he didn’t know how, because it felt as if his throat had closed over. She’d kept secrets from him? He couldn’t understand; they’d always agreed there would be no secrets.
The shock had never really worn off, but the sadness in his heart had been patched somewhat by the kids from Walk This Way.
Now, sitting in Jacqui’s study, he could hear laughter from the kids as they sat around a lantern near the shearing shed. He thanked his wife again for having the foresight to make sure he got involved in volunteer work.
‘You’re going to need something to do after I’m gone,’ she’d said gently as Todd lay alongside her, holding her as tightly as he dared. Towards the end, she had become cold so easily; she loved his body heat on her skin.
‘I’m not thinking about the future,’ he told her. ‘I’m concentrating on you and every day we have together.’
‘Face facts, Todd.’ Jacqui tightened her grip with surprising strength. ‘Sit up. Look at me.’ Doing as she said, Todd saw the intensity in her eyes: something he’d rarely seen in the thirty-nine years they’d been together. ‘I’m going to die. Sooner rather than later. I’m sorry. I’ve fought as long as I can, and I’m tired.’
‘But—’ he began.
She shook her head. ‘Be realistic. That’s what you’ve always been so good at. It’s why you were so successful at running the farm. You can’t just waste away in this house. You need to keep busy: get a job, volunteer, make a difference. Don’t wallow around here and wait to die. You need to keep living.’
‘What’s there to live for?’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘You’re not going to be here soon. We haven’t got kids.’ He’d looked away so she hadn’t seen his tears before grasping her hand and wishing, with all his might, that he could make everything better. But he couldn’t.
‘Face facts,’ she’d told him.
Well, one fact was that Jacqui was dead. Another fact was that he’d lived in isolation for a long time after she died, in a city where he hadn’t known anyone and hadn’t understood the culture. And a third fact was that now he had all the kids he’d helped through Walk This Way. He had Connor and Sasha and a few other friends.
But he didn’t have any family.
It had been Connor’s idea that Todd search for those two adopted babies. At first he’d resisted—what would be the point? He couldn’t give those now-adults their mother anymore. But slowly he’d come around. He could offer them stories and memories of their mother. Show them photos and tell them what she was like. It would be another way to keep her alive in his memory. How to contact them, though?
He’d put some information about Jacqui onto a Facebook page with a photo. He still didn’t understand how Facebook worked—he’d needed a lot of help from one of the Walk This Way kids. Jacqui had always been the one who’d dealt with computers and all those other gadgets, and he hadn’t wanted to put too many details online because he’d read an article in the paper about identity theft. When no one had responded for months, he’d stopped checking. What were the odds, anyway?
Perhaps there was a better way to search. Or, if he was completely honest with himself, perhaps he wasn’t ready. Intellectually he’d known it was a good idea; emotionally was another story.
Tonight, he certainly didn’t feel ready to keep prying through her study. He wondered what else he might find; what else she’d kept hidden. But he needed to get someone living in here before the place went to rack and ruin; he’d already noticed mouse droppings in the kitchen. This clean-up couldn’t be avoided any longer.
He sat in Jacqui’s chair and spun around once, then looked at her desk. Her laptop sat there untouched, surrounded by pens and pencils; he wasn’t even sure how to turn it on. There was a photo of them at a fundraiser for the Royal Flying Doctor Service three years before she was diagnosed. They both looked so happy. There had been no indication of what was about to happen in their lives.
From the desk drawer, he pulled out her yearly diary. He put it into one of the storage boxes he’d brought with him and flicked through the next drawer down: cheque books, envelopes and the stationery she’d written her thank-you letters on. The third drawer held the most recent receipts and statements of the credit card bills. Looking at a couple of them, he was thrust back into memories of hospitals and chemo. The credit card payments for specialists and scans jumped out at him.
God, what he wouldn’t give to have her back. To talk to her. To understand.
He leaned back in the chair, not sure he could go on. Maybe he could send a packing company in to put it all into boxes. No, that wasn’t an option. There were too many personal things in here. No one except him could touch them.
Taking a deep breath, he stood up and started on the filing cabinet in the corner of the room. The files labelled ‘Household’, ‘Telephone’, ‘Power’, ‘Statements’, he stacked into small boxes. The next drawer was teaching aides and lesson plans. The last drawer was personal items—things Todd didn’t recognise.
Shoved under the last file, at the back, was a well-worn book. He looked at it for a long time before reaching in and picking it up slowly. Did this hold more information about the adopted babies? Did he want to know? They’d had thirty-four great years together as husband and wife, and all of this had happened beforehand. Did it really matter?
Dear Diary,
I’ve met the most wonderful man. His name is Todd Atkinson and he’s a farmer. He is quite a big cropper—I think that means he grows a lot of crops! He said he h
as sheep as well.
I didn’t think I could fall in love again, after Angus. I was scared of going down that path and opening myself up to any more hurt. To love someone can give them the power to destroy you.
Todd isn’t like that. He’s gentle and kind. Thoughtful and considerate. Very handsome.
He’s asked me to marry him, and I’ve said yes. I shouldn’t have, though. I carry too many secrets. However, I have and I want to and I will.
Todd stared at the familiar handwriting, the elegant cursive that Jacqui had been so proud of. Taught by the best in England, she used to say. The teachers would crack our knuckles if our writing wasn’t neat.
‘Too many secrets,’ he whispered, continuing to read.
Dear Diary,
Devastation reigns in our house today. Or at least in my heart. The doctor has confirmed what I think I already knew. I can’t have any more children.
I have many emotions: anger, denial, confusion. Of course, none of these will help, but it feels good to get them out onto the page.
When I told him, Todd was his usual, understanding self. ‘Then so be it, my love,’ he said. ‘We’ll be okay. We’ve got each other.’
And he’s right. But I will allow myself a few days to grieve what could have been. If I had met Todd sooner, if circumstances had been different, if previous wrongs were righted. If I had told Todd. I’m too afraid to tell him now.
Mother’s Day is torture, as are the birthdays. My first thought in the morning is that I hope both children are happy, wherever they are. They’d be eleven and seven now; I often imagine what the younger one looks like—if he has Angus’s black hair and deep, almost black eyes. Or is he more like me? Is his hair combed short and are his knees knobbly like his father’s?
It’s best not to think about these things. That’s what the hospital staff told me. They said to cast all thoughts aside as though neither baby ever happened.
But they did. My babies can’t be forgotten, and my heart aches. And so it must continue to be that no one knows.
She had a son, then. Oh, he’d longed for a son. Someone to take with him in the ute, to teach about crops and grain; someone to pass the farm on to. ‘I would have loved him as if he were mine, Jacqui,’ Todd whispered.
Dear Diary
Today I caught myself looking at children on the streets of Perth. Trying to see if they had any similarities to the children I bore.
I watched little ones playing on the swings, delight on their faces. They’re younger than what mine would be, but it didn’t stop me from searching their faces.
Teaching fills a small gap—I’m so glad I chose it as a profession.
Read an article today; it suggested I write a diary to the children. Then if one of them ever comes looking for me and I’m not alive, they’ll know they were loved.
It was almost too much to take in. Now that he’d seen her thoughts written down, her pain and despair, it broke his heart.
He looked around this house that he’d called home. How different it would have been with two children within its walls. The laughter and noise. The love!
How could he blame Jacqui for not telling him? It wasn’t his place to judge the woman he’d loved to distraction. But how different their lives could have been.
Once he’d glanced through the diary, he searched through the drawer again. In a plastic sheath, he found a two-page letter.
Dear children,
Where to start? Firstly, you both need to know you are loved. There isn’t a day that passes in which I don’t think about you. You both are my first thought in the morning and my last at night.
I wonder what you’re doing at the very moment I’m writing this letter. It’s strange to think that you both might be eating, or talking, or laughing right now. Or even writing something at the same time that I’m composing this letter to you.
My life has been complicated; many things have happened.
Baby One, I have no idea whether you’re a boy or a girl. At the time I didn’t care. The circumstances around your conception were traumatic. I’m not sure you need to know about them—or maybe you do? Maybe I’ll write it down for you one day, but not now. Suffice to say, it took me a long time to even think about you. It was a time I needed to forget in order to start a new life. It’s taken me this long to come to terms with what happened, and now I think about you every day.
Baby Two, I’m almost certain you’re a boy. Before they took you from me, I saw a large amount of blond hair, but nothing else. Not your little fingers and toes or your eyes. I hope you have Angus’s dark eyes; I always felt I could drown in them. Still, with the fair hair, your eyes will probably be blue like mine.
I attended teachers’ college with your father, Angus. We had a romance for a year, and I was so in love with him. The night I told him I was pregnant, he broke off the relationship and I never saw him again. I was so distraught.
Again, I had to go through the process of putting another baby of mine up for adoption. Giving you away was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.
Baby Two, your birth was harrowing. A retained placenta and haemorrhaging damaged my fallopian tubes and as a result I am infertile.
Fortunately my husband, Todd, is a wonderful man. Without realising it, he put my pieces back together and made me whole again. Well, I’m as whole as I can be without knowing that the two of you are safe, well and happy.
And now I am sick—with only a few months to live. My body is full of melanoma. I had plans of trying to find you both, but now it’s impossible. I can only hope that one day you’ll find me, or at least what’s left of me—this letter and my diary—and know that you both were loved.
Here’s what I know about you.
Baby One, you were born on 12 May 1969 at King Edward Memorial Hospital. You were taken from me straight away. I never saw you, held you or knew who you were being adopted by.
Baby Two, you were born on 1 March 1973, also at King Edward Memorial. I heard you cry, saw your blond hair and then they bundled you away. The nurse took pity on me and told me I’d had a son.
It’s very odd to think that I have given birth to two children, but the things I know about you can fill only one paragraph each. A short one at that.
So, let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in London. My parents were good, honest, hard-working people who chose to come to Australia as part of the Ten Pound Pom scheme. We travelled by ship, landing in early 1968 at Fremantle.
After Baby One was born, I threw myself into my studies, then went straight to teachers’ college, where I met Baby Two’s father. After you were born, working hard during my teaching diploma helped me with my grief. I graduated near the top of the class. Cadoux was my first and only school: I met Todd and never left.
He doesn’t know about you yet. I’m trying to find the right time to tell him. That may never come and, if it does, it will be a shock to him. Be kind to Todd if you meet him. He would have made a wonderful father to you both.
I love reading and sewing. Cool weather and wildflowers. I love Todd. Children, teaching them and being around them, are my life.
There you have it, my lovely ones. It’s been strange writing a letter when I’ve got no idea if it will ever be read.
Todd and I move to Perth next week. I don’t have much time left.
I have left this letter in a drawer. I hope that Todd will find it after my death. I hope that if you ever come looking for me, he will be there to give it to you.
With every ounce of love I hold, Your Mother xxxx
Chapter 32
The clock in the hall chimed three o’clock in the morning. Todd had no idea how long he’d been sitting on the floor, tears running down his cheeks.
It was still dark outside, but if he looked hard enough he would see a glimmer of the approaching dawn on the horizon.
‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’ he begged answers from the empty study.
Torn and grief-stricken, he made himself get
up off the floor and go into the lounge. Something was niggling at him.
He tried five photo albums before he found the right one. Jacqui had brought them from her parents’ home, after they’d died. It was full of black-and-white photos of her family when they’d first arrived in Perth. Jacqui in bathers at the beach. Jacqui smiling at the camera, ice-cream in one hand and a tissue in the other. Jacqui with her parents flanking either side of her, dressed in her graduation gown.
Todd looked carefully. He could see it now: under a bulky jumper, as she smiled slightly, was a slight swelling of her stomach. And in this one, the graduation photo, even though she was smiling, her eyes were dead and dull. Not holding the excitement of a new teacher ready to go out and take on the world.
On winter evenings they’d sat in front of the fire, flicking through old photos. Jacqui had told him stories of her childhood, and he’d told her stories of his. Not once had he noticed there was anything different about the woman sitting beside him from the girl in the photos.
He went back to the diary. ‘The circumstances around your conception were traumatic,’ she’d written of Baby One. What did that mean? Frustrated, he got up and paced the perimeter of the room. Had she been raped?
Now that he knew when the first baby had been born, Todd assumed that Jacqui’s parents had been aware of all the details, although perhaps they hadn’t found out about baby number two. Jacqui’s relationship with them had been close, and he’d got along well with them too—but apparently not well enough for anyone to tell him the truth.
Taking a colour portrait out of the plastic pocket, Todd held it close to his eyes, examining every detail of her sixteen-year-old face. The familiar curve of her chin, her pensive smile and the freckles on her nose. Her red hair. Her eyes were light—in real life, a sapphire blue, deep and rich.
Much like Skye’s colouring, in fact. His stomach flipped. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. Hundreds of babies are adopted out every day. There is no chance in the world that Skye could be Jacqui’s granddaughter.
The Missing Pieces of Us Page 24