‘Jesus!’ Sinéad’s hand flew to her mouth.
‘If I’m completely honest I’d had my suspicions, but I just blocked it out, refused to acknowledge it. Yes, it was a shock, of course it was, but as I had never really been in love in the first place I wasn’t heartbroken. Philip was very upset, though. He didn’t know how to handle it. He came from such a religious family with very strong views and he knew that he would be completely rejected by them if he came out. And he was sure that he would lose me, too. But after I’d had a chance to think about it I realised that I didn’t want a separation. We still loved each other and he assured me there was no one else in his life, and there certainly wasn’t anyone in mine. So we agreed we’d stay together unless that changed.’
Her brother and sister sat in stunned silence, entranced, and they hadn’t heard the worst of it yet. She swallowed back tears as she remembered that traumatic day. ‘It happened sooner than either of us expected. The day that I was clearing out Bridie’s house and found the papers, well, I was devastated.’ She met Sinéad’s eyes. ‘It was bad enough finding out about poor Mum but I felt so betrayed by you, Sinéad.’
‘But—’
‘I know. It was irrational. But it’s the way that I felt. I came home still reeling in shock, longing to talk to Philip about it, and when I walked in he was with another man.’
‘The bastard, I’ll kill him,’ Max said, his eyes going to the door.
‘No,’ Sheila said hurriedly. ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. They weren’t doing anything. They were just in here, having a drink, but I could feel the electricity between them and the tension in the room. They had done nothing but they acted like guilty schoolboys and I knew that Philip had fallen in love. I was glad for him, honestly, I was,’ she added when she saw the expression of disbelief on her brother’s face, ‘and I could have coped with Philip moving on at any other time. But on top of Bridie’s bombshell it was the final straw.’
There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Max broke it.
‘That’s awful, Sheila, and I can completely understand that you were devastated. But, if you wanted nothing more to do with any of us, why not just say good luck, goodbye, I’m off? Why did you let us believe you’d killed yourself? Were you deliberately trying to hurt us?’
She flinched, her eyes filling with tears as she remembered that moment in front of the Monet painting when she had realised the enormity of what she had done. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, Max. You just got caught in the crossfire. I was angry with Sinéad, though, and I didn’t see any reason why I should continue to live her dream. All my life since Mum died I’d put her first and I decided it was time to put me first. But the only one I wanted to punish was Dad, for leaving us to Bridie’s tender mercies, for playing with my life and for driving Mum to take her own life. I couldn’t stop thinking of the night she drowned. It was like a movie that I kept replaying over and over in my head. It drove me crazy and I wanted Dad to suffer the way Mum had. Pretending to drown myself seemed like a good way to achieve that at the time. I’m sorry. It was a cruel, horrible thing to do. I didn’t think it through, consider the consequences. If I had I would never have gone through with it. Philip was furious with me.’
Max’s eyes widened in realisation. ‘Philip knew you were still alive? He’s been keeping in touch with you, hasn’t he?’
Shit, she’d walked herself into that one. Her brother was too bloody smart. She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘Of course he didn’t know, Max. Have you any idea the trouble he’d be in if he withheld information like that from the authorities?’
He fixed her with that piercing gaze and then gave a reluctant nod.
‘I came to my senses a few weeks ago and I made contact with him and told him everything and that I was thinking of coming home. So Philip spent the last few days paving the way with the authorities for my reappearance. His office will send out a press release in the morning and we will appear outside the house tomorrow evening before the six o’clock news and make a short statement. It would be great if you were all here too but I’ll understand if you don’t want that. But you must realise that if they get an inkling that there’s a rift in the family, they won’t leave any of us alone until they find out what it is.’
‘So what will your story be?’ Sinéad asked.
‘That I buckled under the pressure of the business and had a breakdown. I will go into a nursing home in a couple of days and spend some time there under the care of a psychiatrist.’
Sinéad looked at her in dismay. ‘But you’re not mad, you don’t need treatment – do you?’
‘I’m fine, it’s just something that was suggested to Philip. Apparently, the press will back off a little if I’m under medical supervision. But I think I’d like to talk it all through with a professional now, to be honest. When I look back I feel shocked and a bit frightened that I did what I did, and I’d like to try to understand it.’
Sinéad shivered. ‘This is surreal.’
‘What about the police?’ Max asked.
‘They already know I’m back and I’m going down to the station later to make a statement.’
Sinéad frowned. ‘A statement? Why?’
‘I may face charges for wasting the time of the police and emergency services,’ Sheila explained. ‘They could even ask me to foot the bill of the search but Philip thinks it’s unlikely. Apparently, the courts are sympathetic when dealing with cases like mine.’
‘And everything is okay between you and Philip?’ Max asked.
Sheila smiled. ‘Yes, everything is absolutely fine.’
‘I think I may have met his boyfriend,’ Sinéad murmured.
‘Promise me you’ll say nothing,’ Sheila begged her sister. ‘He says he’s going to come out but I think he’s rushing into it and I certainly don’t see why he needs to make a public statement about his private life. I’m trying to persuade him to hold off for a while.’
‘I’m amazed that you’re still so close after all that’s happened,’ Max marvelled.
‘We’ll always be close, Max. Philip is a truly wonderful man.’
They sat in silence for a moment and Sheila waited, wondering if the worst was over but afraid to hope.
Max looked at her. ‘You know that Bridie passed away?’
‘Yes, Philip told me,’ she said honestly. They didn’t need to know that it was the day the woman died. ‘I’m not sure how to feel about that now. I didn’t realise how much she put you through, Sinéad. Oh, I wish you’d told me.’
Sinéad’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Me too.’
Nervously, Sheila sat down beside her sister but didn’t dare touch her. ‘I know she screwed us up but I don’t think it was out of any kind of malice. She must have been pretty screwed up herself.’
Max looked over at her. ‘There’s something else you don’t know, Philip doesn’t know, even Dad doesn’t know yet. I only found out myself yesterday. Bridie has a son.’
‘I do know, Max. I found lots of paperwork about him in the same box I found Mum’s suicide note. It was very sad. There were letters from him that Bridie had never even opened. It was reading about him that really resulted in me going to Manhattan.’
Sinéad frowned. ‘Why?’
‘That’s where he lives and I suppose I felt I had something in common with him. I had no one and he had no one.’
‘But that was never true,’ Sinéad said, reaching for her hand.
Sheila clung to it. ‘I know that now, Sinéad, but, like I say, I wasn’t thinking straight.’
Max looked at her. ‘Was there anything in the papers to indicate who the father was?’
‘No.’
‘Bridie rushed off to the States before taking her exams,’ Sinéad said excitedly. ‘She must have been pregnant and was sent off to avoid embarrassment and to get her away from the boyfriend.’
‘That’s exactly what happened,’ Max confirmed and looked back at Sheila. ‘Did you have any luck tracing h
er son?’
She smiled. ‘It only took three phone calls.’
‘Oh my God, you’ve met him?’ Sinéad asked. ‘What’s he like?’
Sheila smiled and stood up. ‘Come and find out for yourself.’
Chapter Thirty-five
‘Max, Sinéad, meet your cousin, Karl.’ Sheila opened the door of the kitchen and stood back. Sinéad felt as if she were dreaming. First Sheila appears out of thin air and now the cousin, that she’d only just discovered she had, was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Philip. Karl stood up and smiled. A giant of a man, somewhere in his forties she guessed, with blond hair and eyes the same pale blue as her brother’s, he was casually but expensively dressed and when he smiled she saw a trace of Bridie in his expression.
‘Lovely to finally meet you both,’ he said but she saw his eyes go past her to her twin as if checking on her. She liked that.
‘Lovely to meet you too, K.’
‘Sorry?’
Sinéad shook her head and smiled. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘You people have a lot of catching up to do and I should get some work done,’ Philip said, and stood up. Immediately Sheila went to him.
Sinéad watched as he put his arms around her sister and smiled down with obvious affection.
‘Will you be okay?’ he asked quietly.
‘Fine,’ she said, and hugged him.
Max put a hand on his shoulder as he went to leave the room. ‘Thank you for bringing her home to us, Philip.’
Philip smiled at him. ‘I think you really have Karl to thank for that.’
Sinéad sat down at the table, her eyes shooting between the sister she thought she’d lost and the cousin she didn’t know she had. They drank a gallon of coffee and then opened the wine. And with every minute that passed she felt herself growing closer to her twin. There were still questions, there was still hurt, but only time alone together would sort that out. They would get there eventually. As if reading her thoughts, Sheila turned and smiled into her eyes and Sinéad instinctively reached for her sister’s hand. Sheila returned the pressure, her eyes bright with tears.
‘I couldn’t believe it when I opened the door and Sheila told me who she was,’ Karl was saying in his low, musical drawl. ‘I’d given up hope of ever tracking down my family.’
‘I thought I’d cleared out everything in Bridie’s house but when I was doing a final check I found a box at the back of her wardrobe with her other private papers,’ Sheila said, taking up the story. ‘She had obviously forgotten that it was there.’
‘When did you first try to make contact with Bridie?’ Max asked Karl.
‘When I was about nineteen,’ Karl said. ‘It took a couple of years but when the agency finally found her she refused to allow them to give me her address. She didn’t want contact of any sort.’
Sinéad’s heart went out to him. ‘Rejected twice, that’s so sad.’
Sheila shook her head in exasperation but her eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘I see you’re as diplomatic as ever. Remember that Bridie was only a child herself when she gave birth. She was probably forced to give him up. Can you imagine the scandal it would have been back then to get pregnant at only fifteen?’
‘Sinéad’s saying nothing I haven’t thought a thousand times myself,’ Karl said. ‘I suppose I’ll never know the full truth unless I can trace my father.’
Sinéad saw Max’s expression cloud. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, sure. Tell Karl about the diary.’
‘Oh, right, it went completely out of my mind.’ Sinéad smiled, realising that this would be the best news she could give Karl. ‘Your mum had this diary for years where she kept notes on anything and everything. But she also wrote some poetry and it’s all dedicated to K – to you, Karl.’
‘Or my father,’ Karl pointed out.
‘Did Bridie name you?’ Max asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And is your birthday May thirteenth?’
Karl stared at him. ‘Yes, it is.’
Max smiled. ‘She has it written in the diary along with all the other family birthdays.’
Sinéad smiled. ‘You are K.’
Sheila reached for Karl’s hand. ‘You see, she did love you.’
He nodded, his eyes filling up. ‘Excuse me.’
Sinéad sighed as he left the kitchen. ‘Poor man.’
‘At least now he has some answers,’ Max said.
‘I wonder if Dad knows who Karl’s father was,’ Sinéad said. ‘Surely Mum would have told him.’
‘If she knew,’ Sinéad pointed out.
‘Mum knew,’ Max said. ‘Bridie said so in her letter to me but I don’t know if either of them told Dad.’
‘We have a lot of questions for him, don’t we?’ Sheila said, her mouth settling in a hard line. ‘I think it’s time he told us the truth, all of it.’
Back home, Sinéad curled up on the sofa, exhausted. She should have gone into work – she knew Krystie was looking for her, but she couldn’t think about hats today. There was so much to get her head around that she felt dizzy. The pieces of the puzzle were slowly dropping into place but she couldn’t figure out why Bridie had kept her letter and the suicide note. Did she want them to find out what their father had done once she was dead and gone and could no longer be embarrassed or shamed by the family secret? It had never struck her that there was animosity between the two. Though they certainly weren’t close, there seemed to be an understanding, a respect. Had it all been an act?
She thought of the teenage Bridie discovering she was pregnant and being packed off to America, terrified and abandoned. How cruel and hard her grandparents must have been. It was sad that Bridie couldn’t bring herself to meet Karl. He was a man any mother would be proud of and her life would have been richer for having him in it.
The door opened and she looked up and smiled as Dylan walked in, his face creased in concern. ‘Hey.’
‘I got home as soon as I could,’ he said, coming to sit beside her without even taking off his coat. ‘How are you?’
‘Shell-shocked, but fine.’
He touched her cheek, his eyes full of compassion. ‘And Sheila?’
‘She’s probably down at the Garda station now. There are procedures that have to be followed. Philip’s holding a press conference tomorrow, where we’ll play happy families and say how thrilled we are that she’s safe and well and ask for privacy.’
‘He’ll have a hard time getting that,’ Dylan said.
‘Oh, I don’t know. He’s really taken control of the situation, and he’s being so kind to Sheila. I feel lousy when I think of all the bad thoughts I’ve had about him.’
He stroked her thigh. ‘You’re human, Sinéad. How do you feel now about your sister?’
‘Better,’ Sinéad admitted. ‘I had no idea that Dad and Bridie gave her such a tough time and made her feel totally responsible for me. It’s funny, people always think twins are so close and can read each other’s mind, but neither of us had a clue what the other was going through.’ Tears brimmed in her eyes at the thought.
‘You’ll be closer now than ever before.’ Dylan hugged her close.
She clung to him. ‘I hope so.’
‘Does your dad know he’s having visitors later?’
‘Max told him we were coming over, that we needed to talk. He wanted to make sure that Beth wouldn’t be there. He didn’t tell him Sheila would be with us.’
‘It’s going to be one hell of a shock to open the door and see her standing there. I hope you don’t give him a heart attack.’
‘I’m not sure she’d care. She’s very bitter. We all are.’
‘Do you want me to drop you over?’ he asked. ‘You’re probably going to need a stiff drink or three to get through this showdown.’
‘No, Max and Sheila are collecting me, but I don’t think I need or want alcohol tonight, Dylan, just answers.’
‘Shit, shit, shit, what do I do now?’ Krystie cri
ed, flinging down the phone and staring in frustration at her laptop.
‘What’s wrong?’
She whirled around to see Ellen in the doorway. ‘Jeez, you scared the hell out of me.’
‘Sorry but I come bearing gifts.’ Ellen put a coffee and an egg-mayonnaise sandwich at her elbow. ‘We haven’t seen you all day, so we figured you’d forgotten to eat.’
Krystie looked at her watch and sighed. ‘I did, thank you.’
‘So why were you turning the air blue when I walked in?’ Ellen asked, sitting up on the table and watching as Krystie unwrapped her sandwich.
‘You won’t believe it, Ellen, I can’t believe it.’
‘What? Tell me. Oh, my God, you’ve won the lottery!’
Krystie laughed. ‘Better than that: Sinéad’s just been contacted on Twitter by one of the organisers of New York Fashion Week.’
‘What? No way. I didn’t know she was even on Twitter.’
‘She isn’t, really. I set it up. She thinks it’s a waste of time, but –’ Krystie grinned and turned the screen to face Ellen – ‘she’s wrong.’
Ellen read the message. ‘Oh, wow. No, Krystie, this is too good to be true. It has to be some nutjob playing a cruel joke.’
‘It’s not. I checked out the email address and it’s legit.’
Ellen threw her arms around her. ‘Oh, Krystie, well done! Have you told Sinéad?’
‘No.’ Krystie sighed in exasperation. ‘We work side by side every day and the one time I need to talk to her she’s not here and she’s not answering her messages.’
‘Is it that urgent? You’ll see her tomorrow, right?’
Krystie rested her chin on her fist. ‘It may be too late. These people act as if they’re doing you a favour by even making contact, and, to an extent, that’s true. If she doesn’t get back to them soon, they’ll move on to the next person on the list. And if she goes for it—’
First We Take Manhattan Page 30