‘Valentina,’ Hope said, knocking softly against the wood as she stood in the open doorway. ‘Could we talk for a moment?’
Valentina immediately moved over on the bed so Hope could come and sit beside her. In the time that she’d lived at Hope’sHouse, she’d come to see what a compassionate, loving woman Hope was, and she knew that she’d miss her for a long time to come once she did finally leave. Their ages might not be so far apart, but Hope had felt like the big sister she’d wished she’d always had—always seeming to know the right thing to say.
‘I don’t know how I’m going to leave her,’ Valentina whispered.
‘You’re certain there’s not a way that you could take her with you?’ Hope asked, gently. ‘I’ve never said this to any of my other mothers before, but is there any way you could keep her hidden in Argentina until you’re ready? Do you have any relatives you could call on while you sort through your family’s affairs?’
Valentina forced her gaze from her daughter’s face. ‘I’ve gone over this countless times in my mind, trying to figure out a way to keep her with me, but if I don’t succeed at keeping her concealed, then there’s no way my marriage could be annulled. We would be forced to return to my husband, both of us, and the only way I’d ever be able to divorce him would be if I left her with him. And I can’t do that. Iwon’tdo that.’
Hope nodded. ‘I understand, I promise I do. I was only trying to think of a different way for you, if that’s what you wanted.’
Valentina thought of the last correspondence she’d had from her lawyer, and of her dwindling funds. Without his help, she wouldn’t have even been able to pay her passage back to Buenos Aires to fight her mother. There was no way she could take her daughter with her, as much as she wished she could. And the ongoing war in Europe had made everything difficult, particularly travel.
‘I don’t know if it will take weeks, months or even years to fight my family and receive my annulment,’ she said. ‘I have to actually make it home, we have to go through the courts, and?—’
‘Valentina, you know what’s best for you and your baby,’ Hope said. ‘I was only asking because your situation is sodifferent to many of the other young women I help. I keep thinking about you asking me to keep her, that first day we met.’
‘She has to be a secret,’ Valentina murmured, her eyes fixed on her daughter again. ‘She’s the most precious thing in my life, but no one can know about her. No one can discover that I’ve had a baby.’ It wasn’t just her husband, it was the judges she would have to stand in front of, too. She had to plead her case as her father’s only child, an innocent young woman who’d been forced into a marriage that hadn’t been consummated, and who was ready to step into her father’s shoes. For a price, her husband would go along with it, of that she was almost certain, but not if he knew they had a child.
‘I want you to search for the best family for her,’ Valentina said. ‘If you find that family, then you’re to place her with them, and I will leave the box behind for her to discover when she’s older. It was selfish of me asking if you could look after her until I return, when I don’t have any idea when I’d be able to come for her.’
‘I will wait, for as long as I can,’ Hope said. ‘But I understand what you’re telling me. If the perfect family comes along…’
Hope’s eyes met hers, and Valentina couldn’t help but see they were filled with tears. She reached out and Hope took her hand, holding it tightly.
‘I don’t presume this ever gets any easier for you, does it?’ Valentina asked.
‘Some of the girls want to have their baby and get out of here as quickly as possible, almost as if they want to forget the entire ordeal and pretend it never happened,’ Hope said. ‘But sometimes,mosttimes, the pain of separation is almost too much for the mother to bear. I have to tell myself each time that my job is to take some of that pain, to let them know that everything will be all right. Because it will be. No matter how badthe pain is, each day will get a little easier, until the loss becomes a simmer inside of you that somehow you learn to live with.’
Tears began to fill Valentina’s eyes. It sounded to her as if Hope knew her pain, as if she’d experienced something similar herself, which made her curious all over again. But Hope had never volunteered any information on why she’d started her house, and Valentina didn’t want to ask her.
‘I keep telling myself that I’m doing this for her, but in truth, I’m doing it for me. We could stay together, we could run away and never be found?—’
‘But what sort of life would you have together?’ Hope said softly. ‘There is no shame in acknowledging that you can’t give her the life she deserves, the life you want her to have.’
‘Exactly,’ Valentina said. ‘She deserves better.’
They sat in silence for a long moment, with Hope reaching out to stroke the top of the baby’s head as Valentina watched on.
‘Only the very best family for her,’ Valentina whispered, as her tears fell onto the baby’s blanket. ‘I want to watch her from afar and know that she’s better with them than she would have been with me. I want her to have a loving mother and father, parents who will cherish her.’
‘I promise, she will not leave this house with anyone less than wonderful. You can trust me, Valentina, I promise you can. I promised the very first young woman I helped not so long ago, a French mother named Evelina, the same thing, and I can say with my hand on my heart that I did. Just as I will do for you.’
And Valentina believed her, because Hope was one of the few people in her life who had treated her with true respect and kindness, and she knew unreservedly that she could trust her with her precious daughter. There was no one else in this world she would trust with this responsibility—somehow a woman she’d barely known a few months seemed to be more trustworthy than anyone from her former life.
Except for you, Papa. Because you would have let me marry Felipe, and then I would never have been faced with having to give up my own child in the first place.
Valentina tried so hard not to cry, not wanting her daughter to have her mother’s tears landing on her soft cheeks as they said their final goodbye, but it was impossible not to. She’d walked her around the garden and marvelled at her dewy, newborn skin; whispered to her as the sun rose and she’d held her to her breast for the final time; nuzzling her soft, downy head as she’d rocked her to sleep in her arms. And now, as the hour of her leaving approached, Valentina felt an internal pull that threatened to upend all of her careful plans.
I can’t do this. I can’t leave her.
‘Valentina?’ Hope’s voice pulled her from her thoughts as she entered the room.
‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘What kind of mother am I if I leave her?’
Hope’s hand fell across her shoulders as she stared into Valentina’s eyes. ‘You would be the kind of mother who’s putting her child first,’ she said. ‘Not everyone is brave enough to do what you’re doing. If you truly believe that you cannot provide for your baby, if you won’t be able to prosper together, then you can know in your heart that you’re doing the right thing.’
‘If it’s right, then why does it feel so wrong?’
