‘Thank you, Hope.’ Alexandra gave her a long hug, wishing she didn’t have to say goodbye to the woman who’d come to mean so much to her.
‘What you’ve been through is not something I would wish upon anyone, but you’ve handled it all with such grace.’
Alexandra sighed—a deep breath that shuddered with emotion as she let it go. ‘I wish things could have been different.’
‘As do I,’ Hope said, reaching out to smooth a strand of hair that had slipped down.
She had her long hair tied back again, now back to the length it was before she’d followed Belle’s advice and cut it short. It felt like a lifetime ago when she’d been out shopping and giggling with her cousin; and it was as if she’d aged a decade instead of eighteen months.
‘Alexandra, may I ask, what did she say to you earlier?’ Hope said. ‘It’s unusual for an adoptive mother to request a private conversation. Usually they want nothing to do with the birth mother. I’ve always thought it’s because they don’t truly want to confront the fact that they’re taking another woman’s baby.’
Alexandra looked into Hope’s eyes, as always seeing such kindness shining from her gaze, and she did something she’d rarely ever done in her lifetime before. She lied.
‘She only wanted to thank me for the gift I’d given her,’ Alexandra said. ‘She mentioned it had been very hard for them to conceive.’
Hope patted her hand. ‘Well, that’s lovely to hear, because youhavegiven them the most beautiful gift.’
Alexandra forced a smile.
‘Don’t forget, if your daughter wants to find you one day, I will have the box to give her,’ Hope said. ‘And if she doesn’t come looking before her twenty-first birthday, I shall make sure it’s sent to her, just in case.’
She wanted to say something. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Hope that the box should never be given to her daughter, that she was never to know she was adopted, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
‘I’m just glad you kept those diamond earrings instead of putting them in the box,’ Hope said. ‘A woman never knows when she might need something of value, how her circumstances might change.’
Alexandra hugged Hope again, not able to find the right words to say, and so embracing her instead. If it hadn’t been for the conversation earlier, she’d have insisted on adding the earrings to the tiny box of clues, but now she knew there was little point. The mother of her child would make certain her daughter didn’t receive it.
She closed her eyes as Hope rubbed her back in big, comforting circles, thinking of what she’d left. The photo had been one of her favourites, and one of the only pictures she had of her mother. And the sheet of music; it held her heart. It was the only thing she’d had left that connected her to Bernard, so it felt right to leave it behind.
Alexandra heard a car pull up outside and forced herself to let go of Hope.
‘I hope you have a wonderful life,’ Hope said, as she kissed her cheek. ‘And I hope one day you can forget the pain of this past week.’
She only nodded and collected her bags, one in each hand, and walked down the steps to the waiting car. A driver stepped out, and when he opened the back door, she could see that there was no one else inside. Her father hadn’t bothered to come and collect her himself.
Once she was settled in the back seat, the driver looked at her in the rearview mirror.
‘Do you have instructions for where to take me?’ Alexandra asked.
‘Yes, miss,’ he said, taking something from the passenger seat and passing it back to her. An envelope. ‘I’m to take you directly to the airport.’
She tore at the envelope and took out an airline ticket.Athens. After all these years, I’m finally going home.
It was strange that now she had the opportunity to go home, all she wanted was to stay in London.When my heart was in Greece, all I wanted was to go back. But now my heart is here, with my daughter. With Bernard. With Elizabeth, Belle and Will.
Only her daughter would never know she even existed, and Bernard thought she’d vanished into thin air. She didn’t know what her aunt and cousins had been told, and she hadn’t been brave enough to tell them herself, too ashamed of what had happened.
‘Can we please take a detour on the way?’ she asked.
The driver cleared his throat. ‘Miss, your father was very clear with his instructions that I was to transport you directly to the airport.’
She stared at him when he looked in the mirror at her, hoping her gaze was as cold as her words.
‘Unless you want me to throw myself from the vehicle, we will be taking a detour,’ she said.
The driver didn’t say anything in reply, only gave her a curt nod, and she leaned back in the seat as he pulled away from the kerb and Hope’s House disappeared into the distance.
‘Where should I go, miss?’ he asked.
