The Secret Daughter (25 page)

‘What year was he born?’

‘We married in ‘75, a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday, and I had Simon at the end of that year. I thought if I had a baby I’d stop missing you quite so much. And Simon was a wonderful, beautiful baby, as you can see . . . but that was just lunacy. You don’t ever stop missing your child.’ She brushed impatiently at the tears on her cheeks and turned to a new page. ‘Here’s Charlotte, she was born the year after Simon. She has my sister’s hair, these wild and crazy ringlets from the time she was a few months old . . . although you wouldn’t know it these days. Charlotte is built like James, even now, she’s taller and skinny as a rake. You were unlucky in
that
gene lottery,’ Lilly winked at me, but a wink through tear-filled eyes is not heartening at all. Impulsively, I slid my arm around her waist and leant against her. Lilly drew in a shuddering breath and returned my embrace. We stared down at the page together, at the photos of the siblings I’d never known.

‘. . . after Charlotte, we decided that was enough kids.’ Lilly continued unevenly. ‘I’d have had more, if I’d ever found a way to deal with the constant anxiety . . . but I never really did. I love being a Mum, but it’s still the most terrifying aspect of my life.’

She turned to the back page of the album, and there was a single photo, on the only decorated page of the book. There was pink cardboard, and a lace frame, and right in the middle was a faded Polaroid. Lilly was holding a newborn tightly in her arms. Her shoulders were bare. I could see blood and bruises on her wrists and the back of her hand. She was white and gaunt and even in the slightly perished photo I could see the shadows under her eyes, but she was beaming. There was no sadness to the Lilly in this photo, only joy and pride.

‘That’s me, isn’t it?’ I whispered. Lilly squeezed my shoulders.

‘That is one of my most prized possessions in the whole world. I have a copy in our safe, and a copy at my brother’s in case there was a fire, and a laminated copy in my wallet. But I put the original into this book with the other newborn photos, so that no one could
ever
forget that you were a part of our family.’ Her voice broke.

Staring down at myself in that photo was eerie, recognising my own form in the arms of the woman who knew me before anyone else – but who was also somehow a stranger. I fought and lost a battle against tears, and when I looked down at the page, through my blurred vision Lilly really
could
have been
me
. Soon I’d be sitting up in a hospital bed holding a newborn, soon I’d be the one beaming into a camera with exhausted joy.

But that was where the parallels would end.

‘Mrs Baxter took that photo,’ Lilly whispered.

‘Can you tell me . . . about what happened?’

‘What do you want to know?’

It seemed that we’d arrived at the moment that I’d been longing for since I learned about Lilly’s existence. We were neck-deep in a conversation that had no filters and no hesitation; the truth was within my grasp.

‘I really don’t know
anything
,’ I admitted. ‘Just that you were very young.’

‘I turned sixteen just a few weeks before I was confined,’ Lilly confirmed. ‘James had just gone off to university, and it took me a while to realise I was pregnant. And then Tata bundled me up and dumped me in the maternity home. Do you know much about those places?’

‘Only what I read on Wikipedia.’

‘It was not a nice place, and they were not nice people.’ She was tensing, her breaths becoming shallow and hurried. ‘I’ve been going to a support group for the last few years, for other victims of the forced adoption era. I sit sometimes with the women to help them record their stories, but until I started on that project, I’d almost blanked the worst of it out. The pressure and the lies, and the endless days of back-breaking work – God, it would have been a nightmare for a healthy adult, but pregnant teenagers? It seems inhumane through modern eyes. Then to remove the babies like that . . .’

She shook her head and looked down at the photo in the album again.

‘In my case, I really did have no choice about you, you know,’ she whispered. ‘I was only sixteen. Tata had signed the relinquishment paperwork when he admitted me there. I had no say at all, neither did James, or even James’ parents. We all tried, in our way, but nothing worked and so they took you.’

‘M-mum took me?’ I wasn’t even sure if it was insensitive for me to call her that, and I suddenly decided that from that moment on I’d refer to Mum as Megan.

Lilly looked up at me, and her brown eyes searched mine.

‘What
do
you know, Sabina?’

‘Not enough,’ I whispered. ‘I barely know anything at all.’

‘You know that she was a social worker at the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘There were two of them, her and her boss, Mrs Sullivan. Mrs Sullivan was a vile, cruel monster with a God-complex. But Mrs Baxter – Megan . . .’ Lilly released me gently, and then sat back in the chair and rubbed her eyes for a minute. When she’d finished, she looked to her lap, back to the photo album. ‘She was kind to me – at least, while I was a resident. She was wonderful, actually. I never could remember much of the labour, but I remember her coming in and acting as labour coach when things got really nasty toward the end. But it was more than that. She broke the rules for me, a lot. She’s probably the only reason I made it out of there sane at all.’

‘But?’

‘But she
tricked
me,’ Lilly said, and she started to cry, her voice rising and then breaking. She sounded like a broken little girl. ‘I can only assume that the k-kindness was an act, part of some cruel game that she decided she would play with me, God only knows why.’ Lilly fumbled in the pocket of her jeans and withdrew a tissue, but she only held it in her hand, playing with it almost nervously. ‘I’ve spent nearly forty years trying to f-figure it out and I just can’t make sense of it even now.’

‘But
how?
How
did she trick you?’

‘It looked like it was all over, and that I’d lost you,’ Lilly explained slowly. She was fighting to keep her tears mild, I could see the way that she held it back, forcing a stilted rhythm to her voice. ‘I knew that you were going to be taken, and then you
were
taken. I saw you only for a second or two before the nurses took you out of the room, and as terrible as that is, that would have been the end of it.’

Lilly’s face crumpled and she drew in several terse breaths through her nose, before she glanced at me again and whispered,

‘But Mrs Baxter came back the next day, and she brought you to me, and she had come up with this marvellous plan that would allow us to keep you. She quit her job, and she took you home, and once we were married she was going to give you back. I’d always
liked
her, but for a while after that, she was my
hero
.’

There was rising static in my ears, the buzzing of dread. I felt like she was describing the mother I’d always known – but I knew that what came next would reveal a side to Mum that I did not
want
to know, as much as I
needed
to.

‘What went wrong, Lilly?’ I whispered, when the silence began to stretch.

‘I don’t know,’ Lilly said. With the admission, sadness overwhelmed her, and she started to sob. ‘All I know is that after a few weeks, she rang me and told me she was keeping you.’

TWENTY-EIGHT

Megan—September 1973

Telling Lilly about my plan was easy. It was like playing God, actually; I was handing someone a miracle at the time when they needed it most. She was sobbing from the moment I walked into the room pushing the little trolley that contained her baby, and that was before I even told her the best part.

‘Mrs Baxter! Oh, Mrs Baxter …’ She sobbed and cradled her baby and tried to hug me all at the same time, and I gave her a brief embrace but then stepped away to organise the camera. I had borrowed it back from Tania on the way to the hospital, and while her joy was still fresh I took a single photo of Lilly with her daughter. The radiant sparkle in Lilly’s brown eyes was almost breathtaking.

That was motherhood, right there, evolving before me. It was hope out of total despair.
That
was what I wanted for myself, but even more importantly,
hope
was the very thing that I went into social work to achieve. I felt a burst of pride that had been entirely missing from my life for five months.

‘I can’t promise this is all going to work,’ I felt I should add, and I saw her try to brace herself a little. ‘There’s the matter of your wedding, Lilly. You’ll have to find some way to arrange that, but maybe the lawyer James engaged should be able to help. I
think
that because you’re sixteen a judge can give consent if your father won’t, and I’d be very happy to provide a reference or two if that will help.’

‘Okay, yes – I will write James as soon as you leave.’ Her voice was always just a little lyrical, but when Lilly was excited or upset, she spoke in a song. She’d explained to me that it was a technique she’d figured out to manage her stutter, but like a lot of Lilly’s quirks and features, I found it to be utterly charming. ‘And are you sure you can arrange all of this? Will you just bring her to work with you?’

I shook my head, and inhaled deeply, savouring the moment.

‘No, I won’t be working after today. I’m going to resign.’

‘You are? But Mrs Baxter, that’s – I am so happy for you, but so sad for the girls in the home.’

‘It’s the right thing to do, Lilly. It’s just taken me a while to figure out how to go about it. Your little girl is helping me out, too. And speaking of which, what exactly are we calling her?’

Lilly drew a sharp intake of breath, and gave me such a look of wonder and joy that I actually laughed. ‘She’s
your
daughter. You really should name her.’

‘I wanted to name her after my grandmother, Sabina,’ Lilly whispered, then she flashed me a teary grin. ‘These are happy tears, Mrs Baxter. I never thought . . . I never even dared to hope I’d get to give her a name. I can’t thank you enough.’

‘Thank me when we pull this off, okay?’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘We’ve still got a long way to go yet.’

I left her with my phone number and instructions to call me when she’d spoken with James, and in return I promised I’d arrange for one of the midwives to post her next letter to him in case I didn’t make it back in before she was discharged.

I took baby Sabina back to the nursery, and made my way down the long hallways back to my office. I walked slowly, giving myself plenty of time to change my mind. Once I resigned, there was no turning back.

But I
knew
that I’d never want to turn back. What I
wanted
was to help people . . . starting with Lilly. I smiled to myself as I opened the office door. June was on the phone, talking to the parent of a prospective resident, and when she hung up she gave me a curious glance.

‘You’re looking a lot happier than I expected today. I didn’t realise you were sick yesterday, I heard you’d been ill in the maternity ward.’

‘It was just – well, I went in to check on the birth and it was quite overwhelming, she had a very difficult time of it.’ I took a deep breath, and spread my hands wide. ‘The truth is, I have been doing quite a lot of soul searching . . . well, Graeme and I have together. And we’ve decided that we are ready to adopt. I know Liliana’s baby doesn’t have a placement yet. I think we’d make a good home for her.’

In my time at the maternity home, I’d noticed that June had two entirely different personas. The June who raised terror in the hearts of the residents was cold and hard, and absolutely ruthless in her pursuit of what she deemed to be
the best thing
for the babies
.
When our office door was shut, June was warm and friendly, reasonably patient with my struggles to settle into my role, and quite motherly towards me once she learned about my fertility issues.

I held my breath when I finished speaking, but I needn’t have worried. June’s face lit up and she clasped her hands together in delight.

‘That’s absolutely marvellous news, Megan. Congratulations. I’m so sorry to lose you, but I was hoping that you’d make this decision for yourself sooner or later.’

TWENTY-NINE

Sabina—April 2012

Lilly had shifted, and now sat with one foot tucked up under her body, the other dangling over the edge to the veranda floor. She was rocking the chair slowly and gently, each swing landing almost in time with the soft hiccups and sobs that she was still making. I’d taken her hand in the moments of painful silence as she tried to compose herself, and our fingers were entwined against the cushion.

‘I want you to understand that we’d already done everything we could do, and once she took you, there was nothing left to try. I
really
hope you believe me, Sabina. There was nothing at all that I could do. As crazy as it sounds, they had more of a right to you than I did.’

I was lost in my own thoughts, and almost to myself I whispered,

‘Why would she
do
that?’

‘I was hoping
you
could tell me that.’

‘She hasn’t told me anything
,
Lilly. Not really. She just told me that what she did was unforgiveable.’

‘She’s dead right about that,’ Lilly murmured, then she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and sighed an exhausted sigh before she continued. ‘After that, there’s a pause of thirty-eight years in our story, until that call from the adoption information office. But of course, I didn’t just forget about you once she took you. My life
did
go on, in so many ways, but there was a huge part of me stuck in limbo wondering what the hell had happened to you and if you were okay. I went through periods – months at a time – when it was like the sunshine had been sucked completely from the earth, usually when spring came and I’d realise that we lost another year of your life. A few times, James dragged me to doctors and they’d give me medication until the depression lifted, but it always came back. I saw counsellors and even a psychiatrist for a while, and over the years, they’ve become more sympathetic . . . but in those early years, no one at all seemed to understand why losing you had broken me so badly.’