My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (37 page)

When the crew opened the blinds early that morning, I gazed out to see a blood-red sky. On all the long-distance flights I had made between various continents I had never seen this before. The tears coursed down my face and I knew at that moment that she was gone. I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock.

At Heathrow, I had a long wait for my connection to Newcastle, so I bought a cup of coffee and sat down. Just then, my phone rang and I was surprised to see it was Ian, my son-in-law.

‘Donna and Scott have both gone to the hospital.’ He tried to sound upbeat and I could tell he was being careful not to tell me anything more . . . but I knew.

When I walked out of arrivals at Newcastle, the faces of my precious children confirmed my instincts.

‘What time did she die?’ I asked.

‘Six o’clock this morning,’ said Scott.

They drove me to the hospital. I don’t know how I managed to place one foot in front of the other as we approached the chapel of rest.

When we went in, she was lying on her back, covered by a flowered quilt. Somebody had combed her hair. I stood beside her body, with the children on either side of me. I said a silent prayer as I looked at her face, grey and hollow, but at peace.

As the tears came, I heard a voice say, ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I’m so sorry.’ It was my voice. Was it the little girl in my head, or did I say it out loud?

These were the words that swept me into the time-machine – the machine that took me back to the years when I felt I had to apologize, to say ‘sorry’ when my parents argued, when there was violence, when I was ill, when she was ill. It was ‘sorry’ for my whole life, apologizing and feeling guilty for almost every occasion in the family, as I’d been repeatedly told, ‘If it hadn’t been for you, everything would be all right.’

‘The hospital asked me to register her death,’ said Donna as we drove back that evening. ‘I had to put my name on it as the informant.’

‘Of course.’ I nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

I stayed at my mother’s flat while we organized the funeral and placed an announcement in the local paper. I agreed to read a short eulogy at her funeral, as well as a poem we had chosen, so I sat down the night before in turmoil, trying to write some brief words.

The day of her funeral was grey and misty as the family gathered. Dennis couldn’t be there, so my dear cousin Malcolm, or Mac as we called him, arrived to follow the hearse with me. He was a tower of strength that day.

As we pulled away from her building, Mercia’s neighbours were lined up to see her go and I noticed that a close friend of hers, an elderly man, was standing at his gate. I had spoken to him at length the day before.

‘She was never the same after you left,’ he said. ‘After you went back to America, she never got over it.’

I thought: There you go, my fault again. I don’t suppose he meant it that way.

‘I hope you’re coming to her funeral tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I know she would have wanted you to be there.’

‘No,’ He was emphatic. ‘I can’t go. I want to remember her as she was.’

‘Well, if you change your mind . . .’

As we left for her funeral the next day, there he was, standing at his gate, head bowed, wearing the sweater my mother had knitted for him.

When the time came during the service, I walked slowly to the front, put my papers on the lectern and looked up. The attention of my mother’s friends, our many relatives and the stricken faces of my children was focused on me, and all I wanted to do at that moment was to make them feel better. In my clearest voice, I recited the beautiful poem we had chosen for her. Then I paused, looked up and spoke the words I had prepared for my children’s benefit.

My Mam did not believe in death. She believed in God. She believed in life ever after and the sanctity of the family, the flowers in her garden and all creatures great and small. Her greatest joy was the company of young people and the love and pride she had for her grandchildren. These words are for them.

I stepped down, with her coffin at my right. I could not physically turn my back on her, so I turned my back on the congregation, bowed my head and said once more, ‘I’m sorry, Mam. I’m so sorry. Goodnight and God bless.’

I walked back to my seat and Malcolm took my hand.

‘You were magnificent, Helen,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know how you did that.’

I stayed on after the funeral to sort out my mother’s things. I expected to find her marriage certificate, the one she didn’t know I’d found, when I was twelve – I wanted to look at it again, the proof of my illegitimacy – but it was missing. She must have destroyed the evidence so that I wouldn’t find it. I sent for another copy. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

I sold all her furniture and effects and gave the money to Scott and Donna. I didn’t wish to have anything from her, but wanted my children to have everything I had never had. I hope to continue doing that for a long time.

I always knew I wasn’t wanted. The guilt of that had been a weight on my shoulders down all the years, and was now compounded by the guilt of not being there for her when she was ill, when she needed me most. Grief overwhelmed me as I sorted out my mother’s affairs.

But on the day I left, the grief fell away. I suddenly realized I wasn’t ashamed of being me any more. I shut the door of her flat and walked away.

It was over, finally over.

Back in Texas, I learned that George’s widow Joan was unwell. She had never got over his death, haunted by all their memories, and she passed away in hospital a few weeks later.

It was a sad time. I felt drained, exhausted, after these poignant partings. It was hard enough to say farewell to one beloved family member, but three so close together – that was tragic. Dennis was my rock. He helped me through it all while I began to regain my balance and adjust to a life beyond my past.

Then, late one night, came the bombshell that changed everything.

CHAPTER 33

Jenny

Revelations

‘Are you sitting down?’ Wendy asked on the phone in the autumn of 2004. I wasn’t, but I plonked myself down in a chair. I knew it was some sort of news, and I was alone in our Florida house. She didn’t sound upset, so I didn’t think it could be anybody close.

‘I’ve got some sad news to tell you,’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘Mercia’s death was in the paper tonight.’

I don’t know what I felt. Perhaps a kind of numbness tinged with relief that I’d finally met her before she died.

She read me the death notice and we chatted about it all for a while.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That was just fate that I had to go and see her.’

That night, I told Sam and the children.

‘Mum,’ said Katie. ‘Are you upset?’ She put her arms around me.

‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘I can’t get upset about somebody I only met once.’

Katie nodded in sympathy.

‘I know she was my birth mother, but I didn’t really know her.’

But yes, of course I felt upset in a way, though it was not so much about her death as about not having had the chance to get to know her properly. It was a tragedy really that we finally met so late in her life. I would like to have spent more time with her, had more time to ask the questions I still needed answered, but I don’t think she would have wanted that. In fact, I’m sure she wouldn’t. Especially when Helen was staying there.

In 2005, after seven years in Florida, we arrived back in England for good. Sarasota was a distant dream. Tenterden was our new home. The move from Florida’s humid heat to Kent’s fresh warmth was a welcome change for us all. We spent the summer fitting out our new house and moving in, making new friends and over the next couple of years set up a happy life for ourselves.

I woke up one morning with the name Helen carved in my brain. A hail of questions sprang out at me. What is she like? Is she married? Does she have a family and where does she live? It seemed crazy to have a half-sister and know nothing about her.

It was time I started a search. I could hardly believe we’d been back in England for two years and I’d done nothing about it. When I mentioned to Sam later that day that I was going to try to find Helen, I almost heard him groan.

‘How can you do that when you don’t know her surname?’

‘I’ll just have to find out.’

To be honest, I didn’t have a clue how, but I just knew I had to find a way.

Then Sam had a brilliant idea. ‘Why don’t we send for a copy of Mercia’s death certificate? You know when she died and where, so it should be easy to order it. Death certificates are usually signed by the person’s next of kin. That’s Helen, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, or her brother – Mercia’s son on that photo. Either way that will help.’

We sent off for the death certificate and it arrived a few days later. Excited, I tore it open and looked at the name of the informant of Mercia’s death. It was somebody called Donna. That was a surprise. Who was Donna? Not a sister, I’m pretty sure. After all, the aunt I visited that day gave me the photo and said, ‘You have a sister and a brother.’ So it was definitely only one sister, or half-sister, I reasoned. And that must be Helen, as Mercia herself said her daughter’s name was Helen. So who was Donna? Another brick wall. This was not proving to be an easy quest, but I’ve always liked a challenge.

Several days went by as I searched various family history websites trying to find any clue that might help me. Nothing. It was a very frustrating time, but I refused to let it defeat me. I had heard about a website that can unite lost relations, Genes Reunited, so I Googled it and found the site. I looked at different things on there, then left a simple message of my own –
Looking for the family of Mercia Dick/Lumsden
– with her birth and death dates.

I gave my email address, just in case somebody who knew the family should see it. I didn’t have great hopes, as I knew these things can take ages to be noticed, if at all. It was a remote chance.

So I was astonished to receive an email response the following morning from someone called Melanie, who wrote:

I am your cousin. You had a brother George who died. You have two sisters, Patricia and Helen. They know nothing about you.

I was stunned.
Two
sisters! How could that be? Melanie gave me Helen’s email address and told me she was living in Texas. Wow!

I sat and read the brief message again – only a few words that opened a new world. I couldn’t believe it. After all this time of getting nowhere, suddenly here was a means of contacting Helen direct.

So I sat down that night and began to write the hardest email I had ever written. How do you broach something like that? There is no easy way to tell anyone you are their long-lost sister, and it seemed to take for ever as I can only type with two fingers. I did a lot of thinking about it – different ways to say it. In the end, I made it short and to the point. I think I read it through about twenty times before I could send it, then finally I pressed the send button and off it went. I heaved a sigh of relief.

As I lay in bed that night, sleepless with apprehension, I wondered what Helen would make of it. Would she write back? Oh, please let her write back. What would she say? I hoped so hard that it hurt – willing her not to reject me like Mercia did. I tried to stop worrying, determined to be positive. Surely she would want to respond?

Tomorrow could be a momentous day – both an end and a beginning – the end of my long search to fill the void since I’d discovered I was adopted, and a new start, to reclaim something precious that was stolen from us both at birth. I just hoped she would answer; would want to know me; that she would want a sister as much as I did.

CHAPTER 34

Helen & Jenny

Exploding the Past

Helen

Late one night, as I was checking my emails, a bomb detonated and blew my past into confusion. It tore into shreds all the certainties I’d grown up with. The bomb was an email from someone called Jenny who claimed to be my half-sister.

She mentioned a visit to Mercia, my mother, whom she had traced, but how could that be? I was staying there at the time, but I must have been out that afternoon. I could have walked in on their meeting at any moment. I wish I had. Why didn’t my mother mention Jenny’s visit to me? I never suspected anything. Did she deliberately conceal it from me? Were there other things she didn’t tell me? I felt shocked and confused. Betrayed . . . and yet desperately sad.

‘I believe you are my half-sister,’ said the email. A sister – I’d always wanted a sister. Why didn’t I know about her?

The tremors started again. I couldn’t keep my hands still. I knew I was in shock. A cup of tea, that’s what I needed. A cup of tea is the answer to everything, isn’t it? As I tried to fill the kettle, my hand shook wildly, so I gave up and went into the bedroom.

‘Dennis,’ I shouted. ‘Wake up, I need to tell you something.’

He groaned in his sleep.

I shook him awake. ‘I’ve had an email from my half-sister.’

He turned over towards me. ‘You haven’t got a sister.’

I got him out of bed to look at the email and we stayed up talking till dawn. Finally Dennis could stay awake no longer, so I watched the sunrise alone, as I mentally wrote this astonishing new reality into the story of my life. I kept repeating to myself the key question: Why did I never know until now that I had a sister, something I always yearned for? And yet, wherever she had been all these years, she had somehow found out about me, tracked me down and told me herself.

Yes, this email was a shock, but it was a wonderful shock. The kind I’d never dreamed of, yet it felt right from that very first day. Wow! I had always sensed there was something or someone missing.

As I sat down to write my reply, the sky cleared and I recognized what I had known all my life. As a child I had always felt incomplete. I couldn’t quite reach that missing part of me, so I had invented my imaginary sister to tell my troubles to. My secret sister.