‘Because the love a mother feels for a child, the moment they’re born, is often like nothing else we’ve ever experienced before. It’s not immediate for every mother, but you knew your time with your daughter was limited from the moment shewas born, and that gave you an urgency to have the precious moments you did with her.’
‘Have you had anyone suitable contact you about…?’ Valentina found that she couldn’t even say the words.
‘I have a small list of couples who are desperate for a child of their own. Many have tried for years to have a family,’ Hope said. ‘But I wanted to wait until you’d left, until I knew you weren’t going to change your mind. Or in case you wanted to meet them first.’
Valentina shook her head and looked up at the light, staring at it as she tried to stop the tears that kept threatening to spill all over again.
‘When I pass her to you for the last time, I’m going to walk away and not look back,’ Valentina said, swallowing her emotion down. ‘It’s not because I don’t love her, or because my heart isn’t breaking, because I do and it is, but if I look back I won’t be able to keep going.’
Hope squeezed her shoulder. ‘I understand. More than you could ever imagine, Valentina, I understand.’
Valentina leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead, whispering her lips back and forth.
‘May I ask you a personal question?’ Hope asked, quietly.
Valentina smiled at her baby as her tiny fingers caught her mother’s. ‘Of course.’
‘How old are you? I feel that you’re one of the youngest mothers to come through my doors, although you have the strength and demeanour of someone much older.’
‘I’m eighteen,’ she said. ‘Although I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime already.’My father died before my eighteenth birthday. I’ve lived a year now without him in my life.
‘Valentina,no one your age should be faced with having a baby alone,’ she said. ‘Whenever you start to doubt yourself,remember that it wasn’t so long ago that you were a child yourself.’
‘But I didn’t have her alone, I had you,’ she said, as Hope leaned in and put an arm around her. ‘I’ll be forever grateful that Iwasn’talone.’
‘Even so, what you’ve been through would be unimaginable to so many young women. You should be having fun and going to dances, not hiding from a husband in a foreign country and giving birth alone.’
‘The thing is, I fell in love when I was only fourteen, maybe even earlier. I knew for years whom I wanted to marry, the man I was destined to be with, and he would never have let me come here alone. Felipe would have wrapped me in his arms and never let me go.’
‘And you’re hoping to reunite with this man? This Felipe?’
‘I can’t imagine living my life without him, any more than I can conceive of living without my daughter,’ she said. ‘Right now, it’s the only thing about my life that I know for sure, that I’ll be returning to him once this nightmare with my family is over.’
‘Then make it happen,’ Hope said. ‘We only get one life, Valentina, and you deserve for it to be the very best. Don’t stop until you have everything you want. If Felipe is half the man you say he is, fight as hard as you can to get back to him.’
When Hope let go of her, Valentina glanced at her bags, packed and waiting near the door.It’s time. She wasn’t ready, but then she doubted if she would ever be ready. The car was waiting, and if she didn’t leave soon she’d miss her passage back to Buenos Aires. She was lucky she was even able to get home with the war continuing to rage on, and she only hoped she wouldn’t be turned back because of it.
And so she leaned over and kissed Hope’s cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Before holding her daughter one last time, feathering kisses over her face, her lips and then her fingers asshe whispered to her, ‘One day it will be different. One day we’ll be together again, and it will be the two of us against the world. I’ll never stop searching for you, my love. I promise.’
She had no more words, and she knew she was only making it harder on herself saying goodbye, so she passed her to Hope, looking into the other woman’s eyes, and then turning around.
Valentina’s cries came from deep inside her chest, each breath an almost impossible pull of her lungs as she stood, her eyes shut, her back to the daughter she so desperately wanted to take with her, until she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and walk out of the door to the waiting car.
Goodbye, my love, she said silently in her mind.
And then as tears blurred her vision:I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me for what I’ve done.
24
PRESENT DAY
Rose burst into tears the moment Jessica opened the door, dropping her luggage to the ground as her friend enveloped her in a big hug, her arms tight around her.
‘I’m so sorry it didn’t work out,’ Jessica whispered. ‘But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.’
Rose swallowed and took a deep breath. She’d been determined not to become emotional, but seeing Jessica had brought everything back in a wave of sadness that suddenly seemed impossible to fight. ‘The girls are asleep?’ she asked, as she quickly wiped under her eyes. She didn’t need her goddaughters to see her in such a state.
‘They’re asleep, and Ryan’s watching TV in the bedroom, so it’s just us,’ Jessica said, taking her luggage into the house. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
