He nodded. ‘I don’t think you could have lived with the guilt if you’d said goodbye to him.’
‘I’m sorry I hurt you in the process.’
‘You don’t need to apologise. I know it was never intentional because that’s not who you are. But you do realise that, now that destiny has finally reunited us, I’m not letting you go again?’
‘Good, because I don’t want you to.’
For the next couple of hours, we curled up together on the sofa and held each other and I knew that this was it. We’d finally found each other, we were free to be together, and neither of us were going to let go.
49
Will left around mid-afternoon on the Sunday. He didn’t want to leave me but I refused to let him cancel his plans to see his mum. Returning on the evening wasn’t an option as he had some marking to do ahead of the fresh school week.
His absence gave me the time and space to listen to Marianne’s tape several times and think about all the aspects of my childhood that made so much more sense now. I’d always wondered why my dad hated me so much and now I knew. It had been about his negative reaction to Marianne’s pregnancy and the impact his deal with Eli Farrow had on our family, driving a wedge between them all. I’d always believed I must have said or done something to turn him against me and it was strangely comforting finally knowing that I hadn’t.
I didn’t need to work on Monday as Milly was working the full day but I went downstairs when I heard her arrive and she enveloped me in a hug. I’d told Paulette everything and had asked her to update the others.
‘How are you doing?’ Milly asked.
‘I lost it yesterday, but I’m okay today. How’s your workload?’
‘Not too heavy today so I’m all yours if you’d like to talk between customers.’
Paulette joined us shortly after opening time and we sat by the counter with mugs of tea discussing what I’d shared with them both.
‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like to discover your sister was really your mum and your parents were your grandparents,’ Milly said. ‘Your head must be mashed.’
‘It is. Things they said at various times keep coming back to me and I understand them in a new light. There were clues but I can only see them now that I know the truth.’
‘And this Richard’s dead too?’ Paulette asked.
‘Yes. I wondered if she might have just said that to stop me going to the farm, but I found his obituary online.’
‘Might you still go to the farm, though? If he got married and had kids, they’re your half-siblings.’
‘Half-siblings?’ I stared at Paulette, wide-eyed. ‘That never even entered my head.’
‘How do you feel about that?’ Milly asked.
‘I’m not sure. I thought I was the last one standing – the end of the branch – but I’m not, am I? Oh, my God! What do I do? Do I contact them? Do I want to?’
Paulette and Milly gave me reassuring smiles.
‘There’s no need to rush into anything,’ Paulette said. ‘You’ve had plenty of shocks already. Take some time to let the dust settle and see how you feel then.’
* * *
Over the next few days, I went through the photos in the shoebox and smiled when I came across one of me as a little girl licking cake batter off a wooden spoon. That conversation at Cake & Craft Club with Veronica seemed like a lifetime ago now.
I recognised Mum’s neat handwriting on the back of most of the photos, listing names, dates and locations. There was a well-worn photograph of a man and I gasped, not needing to turn it over to know who it was. No wonder Marianne had found it hard to look at me. It wasn’t just the eyes. I was the image of my father. Sure enough, when I turned it over, I recognised the same scrawl from Marianne’s final note:
Yvonne, this is your dad, Richard Farrow, age 18.
I’d gone back and forth as to whether I wanted to visit the farm and introduce myself. Having always felt as though I’d missed out by not having any grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins, I loved the idea of having a big family out there but, from what Marianne had said on the tape, they knew nothing about me and I didn’t want to cause them any pain. No matter how much I longed to connect with them, it felt kinder to them to let sleeping dogs lie.
‘You know what you could do?’ Will said. ‘You could ask for permission to scatter Marianne’s ashes on their land. You don’t have to say why but at least it’d give you a plausible reason to meet them. You can gauge then whether it’s best to walk away or tell them the truth. Bear in mind that you’re assuming that discovering they’ve got a half-sister would be bad news but that’s not necessarily the case. It wasn’t for your friends Emma and Oliver.’
He raised a good point. It had been brilliant news for them and the half-siblings were exceptionally close. I wasn’t sure what to do for the best, but scattering Marianne’s ashes where the shepherd’s hut had been was her final wish and I did want to respect that. So that’s how I found myself driving up the track to Hayscroft Farm a fortnight after Amelia found Marianne dead.
