Daria's Daughter

by Linda Huber

  Apart from being better-dressed and several shades cleaner, Evie/Bridie looked the same child she’d been the last time Liane had seen her in the garden – and thank goodness for that. It showed the poor kid hadn’t been desperately unhappy all the time she’d been at Margie’s. Liane did a round of hellos, then hugged Daria.

  ‘Are you okay? You must be shattered.’

  Daria, who was walking with sticks today, pulled a face. ‘I slept better last night, in my own bed again. Those beds for parents at the hospital don’t exactly give you a good night’s sleep, do they?’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Liane turned round as Aiden Donohoe arrived in a black Volvo.

  He was wearing blue trousers and a white cotton shirt today, and the bags under his eyes were telling. Poor guy. Imagine coming on a business trip from New Zealand, hoping to persuade your mother to return there with you, only to find her dead.

  Noah led the way along by the river, and everyone trooped after him. Liane took Steve’s hand. Noah’s mother was carrying a bunch of what were surely home-grown roses, what a nice touch, and they were beautiful. They stopped by a little lilac tree, planted near the water and bloomless, though the trees around it were heavily laden with violet-hued flowers that were just past their best.

  Daria’s hands moved restlessly as soon as she laid her sticks on the ground, and Liane winced in sympathy. This might be tricky for Evie. Daria had decided that Margie’s death was enough for Evie to cope with the day after she’d been found, so neither little girl knew yet that Aiden was Margie’s son.

  Daria took Evie’s hand. ‘Daddy and I planted this tree while you were staying with Margie. Now we want it to be a place we can come to remember her.’

  Evie nodded, and Aiden stepped forward and crouched down beside the little girl.

  ‘Evie, do you know where Aiden lives?’

  Liane held her breath as Evie’s blue eyes locked with Aiden’s. ‘Bantry Bay?’

  ‘He used to live there. Who else did?’

  ‘Sammy and Maeve… and Bridie. And Mammy and her Ned.’

  ‘And what did they do there?’

  ‘We went fishing and swimming and Mammy sometimes bought ice cream. And we ate prawns. And it was the best place ever, but I don’t remember that.’

  Liane forced back tears. Evie’s little face was lit up. Look at the way she’d gelled straightaway with Aiden. How amazing.

  ‘Mammy was nice, wasn’t she? Evie, do you know who I am?’

  A shake.

  ‘I’m Aiden. Sammy’s my brother and Maeve and Bridie are my sisters, but it was a long, long time ago that we all lived in Bantry Bay with Mammy. Poor Mammy couldn’t think properly when she got old, you see. She thought you were her Bridie. But she saved you when your taxi crashed, didn’t she?’

  A solemn nod.

  Aiden put his hand on the little girl’s arm. ‘We’re all sad that Mammy’s gone to stay with the angels in heaven. But she was very, very happy to have her Bridie to look after for a little while.’

  Liane mopped her eyes as Evie turned to Daria for a cuddle. What a sad story it was, but Aiden had told it so well. Maeve was ‘with the angels’ now too, and poor little Bridie hadn’t seen her fifth birthday, but no need to mention that today.

  Daria’s eyes were glistening as she wiped Evie’s face with a tissue, and Liane hugged Frith against her side.

  Millie unwrapped her roses. ‘Evie, would you like to help me leave the flowers here for Mammy?’

  Noah’s dad produced a small plastic vase, the kind you can leave on a grave, and went to fill it in the river. He stuck it into the ground, and Millie handed the roses one by one to Evie.

  Evie placed the last one in the vase and went back to Daria and Noah. The couple were standing slightly apart, but they each took one of Evie’s hands, and gladness warmed through Liane. Who knew what the future held for these three, but surely they had a chance of being a family again?

  Daria lifted her sticks. ‘We’ll bring flowers here for Mammy as often as you want to, Evie. We won’t forget her, will we?’

  ‘Or the cats.’ Evie’s face lit up and she ran across to Frith. ‘Tabitha’s coming to live with us! And the kitties! And Mummy says you can have one, and Grandma Millie’s having one too!’

  Aiden’s deep laugh rang through the woodland. ‘Ach, Mammy’ll bless you all from heaven for looking after her kits so well. Evie-Bridie, we’ll stay in touch. I can’t lose my little sister now, can I?’

  Liane walked back to the car with Steve, her heart full. Hopefully, they would all stay in touch. Something was telling her Margie would have approved…

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, so much, to everyone who helped in the creation of this book.

  To Debi Alper for her insight, advice and editing, and to Alison Baillie for reading early versions and making so many valid comments.

  To my sons, Matthias for reading and checking the manuscript, and Pascal for IT help and work on my website.

  To my writing ‘family’, especially Louise Mangos, Cass Grafton, Alison Baillie, Mandy James and Jill Marsh, for their encouragement and support – 2020 has not been an easy year.

  Very special thanks go to the team at Hobeck Books, to Rebecca and Adrian for taking on Daria’s Daughter, and working so hard to turn a story on a word document into a beautiful book, to Lynn Curtis for editing and to Jayne Mapp for the amazing cover image, and to everyone who works behind the scenes.

  Last but definitely not least, to everyone on social media – I’m not naming anyone here as there are so many of you, but you know who you are – thank you SO MUCH.

  Linda Huber

  Author’s Note

  Daria’s Daughter is set in Glasgow, my old home town and the place where I grew up. Some of the places named in the book are fictional, but most are real. The hospitals where Daria and Frith are treated are based on the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Children, which were opened in 2015 on the site of the old Southern General Hospital, where both my mother and I used to work. Writing this book brought back so many memories, and I’d like to thank staff of the SGH and the QEUH for looking after both my parents in the last years of their lives.

  Linda Huber

  About the Author

  Linda grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, but went to work in Switzerland for a year aged twenty-two, and she has lived there ever since. Her day jobs have included working as a physiotherapist in hospitals and schools for handicapped children, teaching English in a medieval castle, and several extremely strenuous years as a full-time mum to two boys, a dog and a rapidly expanding number of guinea pigs, most of whom have now fortunately left home. After spending large chunks of the last few years moving house, she has now settled in a beautiful flat on the banks of Lake Constance in north-east Switzerland.

  Her writing career began in the nineties, when she had over fifty short stories published in women’s magazines before finding the love of her writing life, psychological suspense fiction. Her first book was published in 2013 and followed by eight others, all standalone novels set in the UK.

  Linda says she finds her plot ideas in little incidents and moments in daily life – talking to a fellow wedding guest about adoptions, a Swiss documentary about fraudsters, a BBC TV programme about family trees.

  For Linda it is when you start to think ‘what if…’, that is when the story really starts.

  Also by Linda Huber

  The Runaway

  Stolen Sister

  Death Wish

  Baby Dear

  Ward Zero

  Chosen Child

  The Attic Room

  The Cold Cold Sea

  The Paradise Trees

  Hobeck Books – the home of great stories

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  Echo Rock by Robert Daws

  Old Dogs, Old Tricks by A B Morgan

  The Silence of the Rabbit by Wendy Turbin

  Never Mind the Baubles: An Anthology of Twisted Winter Tales by the Hobeck Team (including all the current Hobeck authors and Hobeck’s two publishers)

  Here She Lies by Kerena Swan

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