Betrothed (5 page)

‘What?’ I whispered, lifting my eyes to hers. Cold fingers trailed up my spine, spreading goose bumps with them. I could hardly breathe. Jack slipped an arm around me and began stroking my shoulder. I let out the breath I was holding.

‘Who’s been looking?’ Jack asked, doing a good job of erasing the goose bumps on my arm with his hand.

‘Well . . . I don’t really remember.’ Her eyebrows pulled together for a moment before she went on. ‘It’s baffling, because usually I’ve an excellent memory.’

‘So how do you know someone’s been looking?’ Jack asked.

‘I made a note of it,’ Lena said, glancing at the file on the desk in front of her. ‘It’s in my own handwriting,’ she added as though to convince herself of the legitimacy of the entry. ‘But please be assured, it was a long time ago and no information was given out. What little I have is intended only for you, Amy. In fact I must ask you to identify yourself before I can release it.’

‘I have my driver’s licence,’ I offered, reaching into my bag.

‘No, that’s not the kind of identification I need.’ She put the envelope down and stroked the scant file with one well-manicured finger. ‘I know this is unusual, but . . . do you have a birthmark?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you describe it for me—and the position if you wouldn’t mind?’

I could feel a blush coming on before I even opened my mouth. ‘Well, it’s small and heart-shaped, and . . . it’s . . . on my right butt cheek.’ I glanced sideways just in time to see Jack’s eyebrows pop up.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, unable to resist.

‘I’m afraid I must confirm that for myself before I can release the information to you,’ Lena said.

Hilary and Jack watched me stand with wide eyes. The birthmark was quite low and not in an easy-to-show location.

‘Turn around, you two,’ I said, frowning at Jack. He’d had his eyes on my backside ever since I’d announced the whereabouts of my birthmark. ‘Especially you, Jack!’

‘What! Why?’ he complained. ‘I want to see.’

‘Jack, would you just turn around.’

‘Fine,’ he said, looking disappointed.

I kept my eyes on him as I undid my zip and lowered my pants to reveal my birthmark.

‘Very good,’ Lena said, satisfied.

Jack snapped back around but he wasn’t as swift as me and all he saw was me doing up my jeans. I smiled my sweetest smile at him.

‘It’s just a bum,’ he said, rolling his eyes as he relaxed back into his seat.

‘My bum.’ I turned it to him and wiggled.

He opened his eyes wide. But the surprise soon turned into a grin. I looked away quickly.

Lena handed me the envelope. I turned it in my hand and ran my fingers across the front. The paper was handmade, fibrous, but smooth as silk. It was completely bare but for a seal which looked like some kind of pale pink resin, stamped with two elegant initials, T and F, woven together like lace. ‘What’s inside?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Lena said, rising from her seat. ‘My job was only to deliver it.’

‘And who gave you that job?’ Jack asked as we followed her to the door.

She turned to look at him, that same confused look on her face. ‘I wish I could remember.’

‘And there’s nothing else but this?’ I asked.

‘Not a thing,’ she said, heading for the door again.

‘How mysterious,’ Jack murmured as we made our way back down the hallway.

‘I’ll say,’ Hilary agreed, looking at the envelope I held in my hand.

‘A heart-shaped birthmark on your bum, Marla—sounds adorable. How come you’ve never mentioned it?’

We stepped into the elevator. ‘I don’t know why I would, Jack.’

He was staring straight at me and he had that cute half smile on his face. I looked away quickly.

Hilary smiled. ‘Leave her alone, Jack,’ she said, before turning to me. ‘Are you going to open that?’

I ran a finger across the seal. ‘I wonder who TF is?’

‘One way to find out,’ Hilary said.

I broke the seal and took a small piece of the same pale pink paper from the envelope. ‘It’s the name and address of a woman,’ I told my friends. ‘Ruby Dixon . . . Should we call her?’

‘Yeah sure, let’s do that,’ Jack said, before returning to the subject of my birthmark. ‘You’re not even going to let us have a tiny peek?’ he said as we stepped out of the elevator.

‘No, Jack, I’m not, and what do you mean by “us”? Hilary doesn’t seem to be that interested.’

‘You’ll show it to me one day,’ he predicted as he held the door open and followed us through.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, as I fumbled in my bag for my phone.

‘We’ll see.’

When we got back to the car, I punched in the number. The phone rang quite a few times and I was just about to hang up when an elderly-sounding woman answered. I put the call on speaker.

‘Um, hi, you don’t know me. My name’s Amy Smith and I think I’m supposed to speak to you about my adoption.’

‘Oh, it’s you! I’ve been waiting such a long time for your call!’ The woman’s voice was shaky with a mixture of age and excitement.

I was silent for a little while, as I struggled to know what I should say next, there were so many questions, but I didn’t know which to ask first. Hilary opened her mouth to rescue the situation but Ruby got in first, ‘Are you still there, dear?’

‘I am,’ I said, and then, ‘What do you know about me, Ruby? Why was I given your contact details? Do you know my birth parents?’

‘Oh I don’t think those are things I could talk about over the phone. I don’t go out much anymore, but will you come and meet me here?’

Jack was nodding madly, but I wasn’t so sure, we had no idea who this person was. ‘Um, I don’t know . . . Can I call you back?’

‘Don’t hang up, I’ll just hold on.’ I could hear the anxiety in her voice.

I told her I didn’t have much credit and promised to call her back soon, then I hung up and looked at my friends. ‘What should we do?’

‘Go there of course,’ Jack said, ‘It’s only Bondi.’

‘We have no idea who she is! What if she’s some crazy old psycho?’

‘She sounds like a sweet little old lady to me,’ Jack said.

‘And we’ll be with you,’ Hilary added.

Jack typed the Bondi address into his GPS. ‘We could be there in about half an hour,’ he told us, when the directions had been calculated. ‘And all your questions will be answered.’

I seriously doubted that, but I said, ‘Fine, we’ll go, but if she comes at us with an axe, I’m hiding behind you.’

‘Well I am the man aren’t I?’

Hilary and I both made scoffing noises, then I called Ruby back and told her we were on our way.

Given the strangeness of my dreams I’d kind of suspected that discovering the identity of my birth parents wouldn’t be as simple as just going to meet Lena Molloy to find out they’d left me as a newborn because they were too young, or too sick, or too poor. I hadn’t been surprised she’d been unable to tell me that my parents either wanted to know me or didn’t want to know me. And the weirdness of the meeting itself had only reinforced my suspicions. Who goes to some scungy little office to get information about their adoption? And who, once there, is given a secret envelope containing the address of some old lady? The whole thing was bizarre and there were so many questions—first whirling in my head all alone and then bouncing around the car with Jack and Hilary. The three of us picked every aspect of the meeting with Lena apart. What did my adoption have to do with her export business? Why hadn’t my information been kept at the government adoption agency? Why did Lena seem to be suffering memory loss when it came to answering questions? Why had I to prove my identity with my birthmark? (This got Jack distracted for a little while.) What did this old lady have to do with it and exactly what kind of paper was her name and address written on? And who had been to Lena looking for information about my adoption?

‘That’s what worries me most,’ I said, ‘the fact that someone has been looking for me. I mean why would anyone want to find me?’

‘Well, someone did,’ Jack said, ‘and judging by the way you had to identify yourself, someone else didn’t want them to.’

I shuddered as more icy fingers walked up and down my body. I’d stepped into a whole world of intrigue and I didn’t like it one little bit. ‘I feel really sick,’ I moaned.

Jack reached across me into the glove box, and took out a paper bag and handed it to me.

‘It might have been your parents they were searching for,’ Hilary said gently, giving my shoulder a pat over the back of the car seat. ‘Try not to worry.’

But I only started to worry more because then I began to wonder what my birth parents might be involved in to make someone want to find them, and by association, me. That led to a whole new world full of speculation. Crime gangs, drug syndicates, murder and lifetime jail sentences all popped up in the conversation more than once. I clutched the vomit bag to me, shivering and shaking.

I was a mess by the time we pulled up out the front of Ruby Dixon’s house, felt too nauseated to be in any way excited about what I might discover. The house was an old double-brick with a closed-in veranda and stained glass in the windows and doors. The sight of it calmed me as we walked down the path because it reminded me of the house my grandparents had built as newlyweds and lived in their whole married lives. I wondered if Ruby had a similar story.

We only had to knock once and the door opened. Ruby had been waiting. She was old, in her late eighties at least, but her blue eyes were kind and bright in her wrinkled face and put me at ease immediately.

‘Oh my dear, it’s like seeing your mother again,’ she said, her hand fluttering to her chest. ‘But come in, I’ve made us a nice pot of tea.’

‘You know my mother?’ I asked as she led us through the kitchen and into a small dining room—dark from the drawn curtains. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but when they had, I felt like I’d stepped back in time. There was a smoke-stained fireplace in one wall and instantly I could picture Christmas stockings strung along the top of it. On one side of the room was a dark timber sideboard and in the centre was the matching dining setting. It was topped with a tablecloth of white lace, upon which sat a delicate jewellery box and a bone china tea set. The table was set with sandwiches and tantalising little cupcakes decorated with soft pink frosting and tiny flowers. As usual my mouth began to water as I felt a stab of irritation that I wouldn’t be able to eat any of it.

‘I don’t
know
your mother but I have met her,’ Ruby said as she took her place at the table. She told us all to make ourselves comfortable before asking Jack if he would mind pouring the tea, adding that the teapot was so awfully heavy. Then she looked across to me and said, ‘How old are you, dear? I do lose track of time these days.’

‘Seventeen.’

‘Oh good, there’s still time.’

I felt like I was in the middle of a riddle. ‘I’m confused—what do you know about me, Ruby? Why was I given your name and number?’

‘Of course you are, dear, and if you don’t mind that I speak in front of your friends, I’ll start from the beginning, and tell you everything I know.’

There was something so calming about her that all things frightening eased from my mind. I let out a long sigh and for the
first time that day, relaxed. I said, ‘That would be really great, Ruby.’

She put down her cup and began. ‘You were just a few days old when your parents arrived at my door. Such a beautiful couple. Your mother was quite lovely and your father, dear me, such a handsome man.’ Ruby blushed, proving that age doesn’t extinguish the appreciation of a hot guy. ‘They were young—can’t have been much more than nineteen or twenty. I don’t know why they chose me.’ Ruby looked thoughtful for a moment, like she’d wondered this many times. ‘Maybe it was because I was alone or maybe they just liked the look of me. I really don’t know . . . Anyway, no matter. They were terribly desperate. Your mother was all wrapped up in a blanket. She was very distressed, poor dear—still recovering from your birth I suspect . . . Your father held her up with one arm. In his other he held you, sleeping soundly. Your mother was too upset to speak but your father asked me to give you to the lady you got my information from. I was to leave the pink envelope with my details inside but give her no information regarding how you came into my care. He said to tell her that you arrived on my doorstep with nothing but the little blanket you were wrapped in. Oh, and I was to speak to no one about you, and plead ignorance if questioned . . . that all of your lives depended on it.’

I remained quiet as I endeavoured to absorb this overwhelming information.

‘They left something for you,’ Ruby continued after a moment, dragging me from my thoughts as she gestured to the jewellery box in the centre of the table. I reached for it and pulled it close, then inserted the key she took from her cardigan pocket. The lid opened with a gentle click. A small envelope caught my attention. It was of the same pale pink paper as Lena’s, the letter within written in sweeping handwriting. I read it aloud so everyone could hear.

Our dearest daughter,

It is with sorrow we leave you today in the care of others. It is our most heartfelt wish that we could be with you, to love and nurture you and watch you grow, but alas, this is an impossible fantasy. This place will not be easy for you and for this we are sorry. Our hearts break but, for your safety, there is no other way. We must leave you now but will find some way to return for you before you reach eighteen. Until then, be strong and brave, our darling girl, the road ahead is fraught with danger. We love you forever.

Your devoted parents,

Tobias and Finelle

As I put the letter down, my heart tore. I never thought my past would matter, but the sense of loss was overwhelming. Suddenly I wanted to know my parents more than I’d ever wanted anything. My eyes filled with tears that quickly started to leak onto my cheeks. Jack reached across the table and covered my hand with his. I managed to pull myself together enough to retrieve the other item from the box—a gold bangle from which dangled a locket with three words engraved into the front: ‘Our Beloved Daughter’. I opened it. On one side was a photo of a sleeping newborn, on the other a man and woman not much older than me. I looked inside the flat edge of the bangle and my breath caught in my throat. Engraved there was my birth date—the twentieth of February—and my name—Marla.