‘Painfully so.’
Rose laughed. It hadn’t only been a long time since she’d had coffee, it had been a long time since she’d laughed, and it felt good.
‘Let’s just say I’ve been living on instant coffee these past few weeks,’ she said.
‘Let me guess,’ he said, making a face as if he was deep in concentration, before grinning. ‘Skinny flat white?’
She wasn’t sure if she was impressed or annoyed that she was so easy to read, but she decided to go with impressed. ‘You got me.’
Rose paid for the coffee and ordered an eggs Benedict to placate her growling stomach when the barista came back to the counter. And if she hadn’t been so curious to find out what was in the little box in her bag, she would have stood and flirted with the cute barista for longer. When she’d been working, she’d stopped every morning at the café closest to her office on the way in, enjoying the morning banter and always going to work with asmile on her face and a coffee in her hand. It wasn’t so much that she missed the routine of her old life, it was more that she craved the social interaction.
She eventually sat down at a little table in the corner and held the box she’d been given at the lawyer’s office, turning it left and then right in her hands as she studied the handwritten name tag attached to it. The string holding it together was old, with little fibres coming away and floating into the air as she worked on the knot with her fingernails. It didn’t take long until she was able to pull the string though, discarding it on the table and slowly opening the tiny box, the wood smooth against her skin. She paused, staring down at it for a moment before opening it, nervous about lifting the lid as a wave of sadness passed over her.I wish you were here to open it with me, Grandma.
It was only small, and she had no idea what to expect, but what she saw inside when she finally opened it took her by surprise. There was a piece of sky-blue silk, which appeared as if it had been cut or even gently torn from a larger piece of fabric, and as she lifted it out, she saw that a delicate figurine of a horse was nestled at the bottom of the box. She placed the silk down and carefully took out the horse, running her fingertips over the soft edges of the wood, admiring the intricate carving. It was so small and so carefully made, something she guessed a person would have to labour over for hours and hours to create by hand.
‘Flat white?’
Rose nodded at the server when she stopped at her table, not even looking up as she murmured thank you, unable to take her eyes from the figurine as she tried to understand what she was looking at—imagining who might have made it and how it might have come to be left for her grandma. The woman at the meeting, Mia, had claimed that the box had been left behind at a place called Hope’s House for Rose’s grandmother at her birth,before she’d been placed for adoption. Rose couldn’t fathom that this had been hidden for decades, just waiting to be discovered.
Eventually she put the horse down and looked in the box again, tipping it upside down, certain she’d missed something, wondering if there was supposed to be a letter or some explanation for what she’d found. But there was nothing. Just two tiny items that held the key to discovering her family’s true past.
Rose took the piece of silk in one hand and the horse in the other and stared between the two things, forgetting all about her coffee and closing her fingers over them as if perhaps just by feeling them she might have an answer.
But the truth was, she’d never been so puzzled in her life, and she also couldn’t help but wonder what it all meant for her, when she was on the cusp of losing the only family she’d ever known. A shiver ran through Rose as she stared down at the clues. Her grandmother had only recently passed away, barely six months before Rose’s mother had been diagnosed, which made finding this connection to the past bittersweet. She’d grown up an only child, living in her grandmother’s home after her father had left to work abroad. It had been a multigenerational house—with her, her mum and her grandmother all living together, and she’d grown up feeling as if she had two mothers who’d adored her instead of one.
Rose quickly blinked away tears, not wanting to become emotional in the middle of a café; yet she felt the most overwhelming sense of loneliness. She would have done anything to have her grandmother seated beside her, her soft, weathered hand in hers, glancing over and seeing her bright eyes looking back at her. Or the sense of her mother’s warm gaze settling on her as they exchanged a surprised glance at the discovery. It was almost impossible to believe that within the space of a year, she’d have lost both of them. And without them,did she even want to dig up the past? She sighed.Maybe some things are better left undiscovered.
But the discovery did bring a smile to her lips, remembering her grandmother’s favourite saying, which seemed most appropriate now.
‘Let sleeping dogs lie, my darling. Nothing ever came from poking one’s nose where it doesn’t belong.’
But would I be doing that if someone had intentionally left this behind for you, Grandma? Don’t I owe it to you, to find out about your past?
Rose brushed another tear from her cheek and repositioned the clues on the other side of the table before beginning her meal. She was curious, of course she was curious, but with everything she had going on right now, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
2
TWO MONTHS LATER
Rose sat in a heap of her mother’s belongings, a glass of half-drunk prosecco in one hand, watching her best friend move with an energy that exhausted her. If she’d been alone, she’d have been holding a tissue rather than a glass, but Jessica had blown into Rose’s flat like a storm, sweeping her into her arms and refusing to let her wallow. They’d cried together for the first hour, and then Jessica had taken over, immediately ordering groceries and tidying the place as if she were a professional housekeeper rather than a diplomat who’d just flown in from New York.
And now, six hours later, they were sitting in her mother’s room and Jessica still hadn’t slowed down.
‘Would you like my opinion?’ Jessica asked.
Rose watched as her friend scooped her long hair up and tied it on top of her head. ‘When have you ever not shared your opinion with me?’
Jessica’s smile was warm, her eyes soft as she looked back at her. ‘You’ve just lost your mum, Rose. I’m not going to do anything without asking first.’
Rose sipped her prosecco. At first it had seemed almost rude to drink a celebratory beverage within forty-eight hours of hermother’s passing, but Jessica had reminded her of all the times they’d sat and shared a bottle of wine with her mother when she’d visited from New York. It was as good as a tradition. The two of them had been best friends since their first day of high school, and Jessica had dropped everything and caught a red-eye flight from New York as soon as she’d heard the news.
‘I think you shouldn’t be in a hurry to deal with all her things,’ Jessica said. ‘There’s no reason I can see to rush this part of the grieving process.’
Rose nodded, blinking away tears as she looked around the room. Jessica was right. She didn’t want to erase her mother’s memory; she was only doing all this because she’d thought it was what was expected of her.
‘I think, in a few months from now when it’s not all so fresh, you’ll be more comfortable coming in here and going through all her things.’ Jessica paused. ‘When you’re ready.’
‘So, what do we do now?’ Rose asked, looking around the room and knowing how lucky she was to have a friend like Jessica. ‘I hate the thought of being idle.’
