‘I’m sorry she’s gone.’
She nods, gives me a small smile. ‘I know you are.’
I look at her with new eyes. All the assumptions I’ve made about her have dissolved into nothing and I realise I’ve never known her at all. And while she may not be my parents’ child, the other daughter, we have more in common than I took the time to see.
‘You know, when I first arrived here, Léa told me you’d said to her she could achieve anything she wanted in life if she put her mind to it. It’s stuck with me because that’s exactly what my mother always said to me.’
Julia smiles. ‘She sounds like a wise woman.’
‘But it’s not always true, though, is it? I thought it was, growing up. I saw Mum, a successful journalist, just as Dad was, and I thought I could make whatever life I wanted, like she had. I thought I’d become a respected teacher, find a lovely husband, have a couple of kids. But here I am, with none of that right now, and it’s been painful to realise that life doesn’t always work out as Mum made me believe it could. Sometimes circumstances just work against you.’
I think back to my lowest point, a couple of weeks after Patrick and I split up, the shame and despair of standing in Peacock’s office, crying.
If things were different, I could have been going on maternity leave.
If the IVF had worked the first time.
If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed by the DNA results that I’d been able to continue the draining cycle of hormone injections and scans and disappointment.
If Patrick hadn’t cheated.
If I hadn’t lost my sense of self by walking into that blood donation van.
‘I still believe what your mother told you is true,’ Julia says. ‘Of course, it isn’t always easy – and you’ve been through some hard times. But you can pick yourself up and try again.’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know where to go from here.’
‘You have more than you think. You have your health, and that’s so important. It sounds like you’re close to your father, which is something I never had. And you are a respected teacher – you’ve made a huge impact on my children and for that I’m very grateful, however… envious I may have been of that.’
I blink to fight back the emotion prickling my eyes. Maybe she’s right; I can forge a new future, a good future, even if it isn’t the one I always thought I’d have. But first I need to get past what’s holding me back. ‘If you’d found out what I have, would you want to meet them?’ I say.
Julia sighs. ‘I can’t imagine what it must feel like, Jess. So I don’t know. I think you can only do what feels right to you. But I do think meeting them might be the first step in your new start, don’t you agree?’
My phone pings but I leave it in my bag.
‘I felt paralysed, you know, when I went to Reichenbach. I felt paralysed when I saw him. I was staring at the person who might be my real father and I couldn’t do it.’
‘Maybe it wasn’t the right time. But it doesn’t mean you’ll always feel like that. I can come with you, if you want. Or I could talk to him beforehand, be your mediator.’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Yes.’ She reaches forward and puts her hand on my arm. ‘We have to help each other now, not be jealous. We’ve both had everything all wrong.’
And just like that I know she’s on my side.
‘Back in a minute.’ She gets up and heads inside, presumably for the toilet. I look out towards the lake where a boat is sliding into port. It reminds me of when I first arrived here, of my mission to discover the truth and my need for a Swiss cure. So far I’ve failed on the first count, but perhaps, now, after today’s cathartic unburdening, I might be able to succeed on the second.
I remember my phone and fish it out of my bag to read whatever message was sent. My heart lurches when I see the email.
Dear Jessica,
I’m sorry for my long silence. I knew that one day this could happen, but for many years I haven’t decided how I would deal with it. I would like to meet you. I think that, perhaps, you have already seen me, one day in Reichenbach. Something made me think it was you there, outside my house. But first you have to meet someone else. Anna must explain what happened in Lausanne in 1976. It is her story to tell. I hope, after that, you will still want to meet me. She lives in Germany now with her husband. Her number is…
‘Jess? What’s wrong?’ Julia’s face is creased in concern when she comes back into the garden. I hand her my phone. She reads the message and looks at me.
‘You’ve found her.’
I nod. My body is shaking, like I’m low on blood sugar. I raise my glass, feel the dry, cold wine slip down my throat.
‘Are you going to call her?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then I will. If you want me to, I’ll call her right now.’
I breathe out a long breath. Do I want that? She takes my hand, squeezes it. ‘That’s what you came here for, n’est-ce pas?’
I nod. Julia takes a last, hard look at me, punches the number into her mobile and goes into the living room. There’s a pause, and then I hear her voice, speaking German. I fixate on a sailboat on the lake and try not to think about what she might be saying, what Anna might be telling her in response. I just look at the sailboat as it moves slowly through a dark patch on the water, blown by the light wind, and wonder where life’s going to take me now. It’s ten minutes before Julia finally comes back into the garden. She stands in the doorway and I see tears in her eyes.
‘Does she want to meet me?’ I say.
She nods.
SEPTEMBER 1976 Lausanne, Switzerland
SYLVIA
They looked so similar. That’s what struck her. Both hairless, wrinkled, red-faced bundles. Both with several days in an incubator ahead of them. Both so tiny; little hands curled into small fists, as though they were spoiling for a fight. She supposed they were. Fighting to get out of there.
‘She’ll be okay, you know,’ Sylvia said, even though she knew Anna couldn’t understand. A nurse had brought her to the nursery in a wheelchair, just hours after the operation that had made her feel like she’d been run over by a truck, and there she found Anna, staring at her daughter. Sylvia’s own baby – as yet unnamed, she was waiting for Jim – was in the incubator next to Anna’s, and the two little girls could have been twins, so alike they looked. They even lay in the same pose – tiny arms flung above their heads. She supposed all babies looked the same at this age. Only the ankle tags said whose baby was whose. Bébé Mela, Bébé Tallis.
Sylvia squeezed Anna’s hand and the girl looked at her, tears filling her eyes. She seemed traumatised, perhaps by the natural birth that Sylvia felt quietly lucky to have escaped, despite the pain she bore now, perhaps overwhelmed by the reality of having a baby, of the task ahead of her. Sylvia thought back to the day they met, of the hope and excitement she’d seen in Anna’s face, and her words during the interview, the love she was ready to give – but that all seemed to have vanished. Instead she saw simply a very young, very scared 16-year-old, daunted by what she’d done.
It felt like their roles had reversed, because for the first time since she’d found out she was pregnant, Sylvia felt calm, contented. She’d never much cared for other people’s babies. Didn’t know how to handle them. Didn’t know what to do when they cried. Didn’t understand their wordless communication. But when she’d seen her daughter for the first time a few hours earlier, and when she looked now at this little being, fresh out of the box, she didn’t feel fear; she felt, to her considerable relief, only love.
How? That, she didn’t know. Had it been there all along, waiting for this child to arrive, or was it a chemical reaction born of the fact that she shared her genes with this little body, that an invisible line connected them?
After months of anxiety and fear, a calmness had descended upon her. She loved her child. Maybe that meant she wouldn’t be a terrible moth
er, maybe she wouldn’t turn bitter with resentment. Maybe, in fact, there was a chance things wouldn’t turn out as badly as she’d feared.
Neither Daniel nor Jim was here. Jim was on his way, Sylvia knew, the nurse having spoken to him on the phone just after the surgery. Upset to have missed the birth, worried about both of them, he was on the next plane out. Daniel, Evelyne had told her, had turned up briefly after his shift at the construction site, when Anna was in labour, but had to leave again for the bakery and wasn’t there for the birth. Sylvia couldn’t help but worry for them. Would they have enough? Would Daniel handle his heavy workload? Would Anna cope with motherhood, all alone in that dingy flat? She wondered what was going through the girl’s mind now – whether thinking about all that was the reason she looked so miserable.
She supposed she wouldn’t see Anna again, once she’d taken her baby home to London, and the thought pained her. She’d write regularly to Evelyne, find out how she was doing. She and Anna had shared a profound experience in their lives that had led to a new beginning for both of them, but what directions would their lives take now – and the lives of these small beings in front of them? Two babies, born in the same place, at nearly the same time, but in all likelihood with such different experiences ahead. She hoped life would work out well for both girls, whatever it threw at them.
She squeezed Anna’s hand again, took a last look at her child and asked the nurse to wheel her back to her bed, leaving Anna alone in the room, quiet but for the beeps of the monitors and the occasional little sigh or almost-cry from the two newly minted bodies in the incubators.
* * *
When Jim finally arrived, bursting through the door to the ward like a building was on fire, Sylvia was half asleep, drifting in and out of vivid dreams the nurse said were probably caused by the painkillers. She forced herself awake to greet his anxious face and the million questions he’d clearly accumulated in his head during the hours he’d spent getting there. He wheeled her down the corridor to the nursery, and her heart swelled with pride on witnessing the look on his face when he saw his daughter for the first time. She felt teary then and fought back her emotion, not yet ready to admit to Jim how fiercely important it now felt to have this child in their lives, this child she hadn’t even thought she wanted.
‘Did you call Roger?’
Jim nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the baby in the incubator. Jessica, that’s what they would call her. Jessica Tallis-Millson. A rather grand name, Sylvia thought. A name with prospects. A name suitable for a CEO or an editor or a professor or whatever heady heights her daughter wanted to reach in life.
‘I did, and I gave him a piece of my mind while I was at it, for agreeing to your crazy idea to come out here again, at your stage.’
‘I didn’t exactly give him a lot of choice.’
‘That’s what he said.’ He dragged his gaze away from Jessica and smiled, kissing her on the top of her head. ‘Well, it’s done now, and you’re okay. You’re both okay. My girls.’ He grinned. ‘Just look at her – she’s gorgeous!’
Sylvia had to agree, though she wondered if all parents thought that, in awe as they surely were at this magic trick they had performed, conjuring new life like a rabbit out of a hat. She couldn’t yet say whether the baby looked anything like her or Jim. She seemed too small, too delicate, too young for any characteristics to be evident on her face. Sylvia supposed that would come later.
‘I’ll go to the embassy in Bern tomorrow and try to get the paperwork sorted. Then whenever she’s ready to be discharged, we can head home.’
Sylvia nodded. Jessica was healthy, the doctors said, despite her tiny size. If all went well, by the end of the week she should be able to come out of the incubator and they could take her home. Sylvia couldn’t wait to be back in London, to introduce Jessica to her city, to settle her into the flat, for their lives as a trio to start properly. Nerves fluttered in her chest. Would this initial euphoria last? Would it compensate for missing out on the adrenaline highs her work gave her? Shell-shocked from the operation, woozy with tiredness and painkillers, flooded with love for this little person, she’d hardly thought about work these last few hours. Yet Jim’s arrival had reminded her of home, of London, of their life together, and she felt growing frustration at the way in which her workflow had been so abruptly interrupted. Anna’s interview notes were still in her handbag. She’d had to abandon her plans to search for Anna’s sister and do more research about the Swiss care system – she didn’t even know if she had enough to write a decent piece. But when she looked at that little face, at her daughter’s flawless skin and tiny fingers, the frustration eased a little.
‘Look at that,’ Jim said. ‘She’s got a tiny freckle on her left foot, third toe in.’
Sylvia peered at her daughter’s squirming foot, poking out of the blanket she had just kicked off, and saw the little brown mark, as small as a pinprick. She hadn’t noticed it before, and it momentarily surprised her that she didn’t already know every inch of the body she had herself created. But then Jessica was so new to this world, so freshly made, and Sylvia so overwhelmed, that she supposed it wasn’t surprising at all. She’d only held her daughter once, briefly, before the nurse said she had to go back in the incubator and presented her with a breast pump in exchange.
‘We’ve got so much to discover about her,’ Jim said. ‘What colour will her hair be? How tall will she be? Will she have a good singing voice?’
‘That’s doubtful, judging by the two of us.’
‘Will she be good at sports? Will she want to follow us into journalism? Will she like Marmite? I want to know everything.’
Sylvia took his hand and leaned into him, gazing at the incubator. ‘You will. We have a lifetime to find out.’
He smiled at her. ‘I can’t wait.’
They kissed her, Jessica Tallis-Millson, and headed out of the room, past the other babies in their cribs, their tiny warm breaths mingling in the air as one.
AUGUST 2016 Montreux/Lutry, Switzerland
JESS
From
Jess, you’ve found her! After all this time, after everything that’s happened. I’m so pleased for you, darling. Will you meet her? I hope so. I think you need to.
You know, this whole journey of yours has brought back a lot of memories for me. I remember so clearly when I first saw you as a baby. You were so beautiful, so tiny, and I felt such love for you right from the moment I met you. And you know, I can’t imagine you not being part of my life all these years. It makes me feel quite ill to think that, if the hospital hadn’t got things so wrong, I wouldn’t have had you in my life. It’s brought me such joy to see you grow up as you have, I’ve felt so proud to have you as my goddaughter.
I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now, at the prospect of finally meeting Anna. From what Daniel said in his email, I presume she must already know you’re hers. Why? For how long? How did she find out? Did she try to find you? I’m sure you have all these questions churning around in your head – and you deserve the answers, Jess, you really do. I hope you get them – and that it brings you the peace you need.
If you decide to meet her, just remember that we are all there with you in spirit – me, your dad, and your mum – we’re there holding your hand in this. We’re your family, darling, whatever happens.
Now, tell me more about this Jorge chap…
‘Are you going to meet her?’
We’re sitting on rocks on the lakeshore, holding drinks from a pop-up bar that seems way too cool for elegant, posh Montreux.
I nod. ‘Julia said Anna will come to Switzerland next week, wants to meet me in Lutry, where she says she used to go sometimes, back when she lived around here.’ I still don’t know if I want to. I don’t know how I feel about any of this anymore. But I know I have to go through with it. I have to end this somehow. I need to know how, and why, I came to live someone else’s life. Tears prick the backs of my eyes
and, to my embarrassment, I can’t suppress a loud, ugly sniffle.
Jorge looks at me. ‘Come here.’ He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in to him. I smell a mixture of sweat and suncream and musky man-ness. It’s comforting. Warm. Lovely. If only I could just stay like this, and not have to face up to everything I’ve done, everything that’s been done to me.
‘It feels like a betrayal.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Of my parents. Of Mum, especially. She didn’t know. She thought I was her daughter, through and through. And now it’s like I’m looking to replace her with this new mother. I can’t bear to think that she might think… I can’t…’
He squeezes my shoulder. ‘You know it’s not like that. You’re never going to feel any differently about your mum. Nothing that comes in the future can take away what happened in the years you had with her.’
I sniff, nod. I know that’s true. But what I can’t ever know is how she would feel if she knew what I now know: that I wasn’t her real daughter. Would she love me less? And does Dad, now? Can he, in his heart of hearts, think of me in the same way as he did before?
‘I haven’t told Dad I’ve found them,’ I say. ‘But I have to meet her, don’t I? I can’t just walk away from this now.’
He nods. ‘Even if you just meet her once. Then you can move on, knowing what happened. Closure, that’s what they say in America, right?’
‘Closure.’ I ponder the word. A few years ago there was nothing to close. I knew who I was – or at least, I thought I did. It feels so long ago now. So much has changed. I take my head off his shoulder and sit up, looking out at two paddleboarders drifting past us on the placid lake. ‘I wonder where I’d be now, if Dad and I hadn’t stumbled across that blood donation van. I wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure. Still in London, I guess. Still married. Still in my job.’
The Other Daughter Page 25
