The Other Daughter

by Caroline Bishop

  It wasn’t the first time Sylvia’s thoughts had drifted back to Anna and her baby; they’d occupied her mind frequently since she’d left Switzerland three weeks ago. She remembered finding Anna crying in the hospital, the look of utter desolation in her face. Though Sylvia couldn’t tell her so, she’d recognised how daunted Anna must have felt to have a baby to care for, at the age of sixteen, with little money and no family to help her. Though she had Daniel, there was an ingrained sadness about her that Sylvia guessed came from being without close family for so long.

  An aloneness.

  She hoped it wouldn’t always be so. She hoped having Hedi would give her back the sense of family life she lost when she was ripped away from her mother and sister.

  ‘Speaking of beautiful things,’ Maggie said. ‘Where did that come from?’ She nodded to the shiny new electric typewriter sitting on the desk in the bay window.

  ‘Jim,’ Sylvia said.

  Maggie ran her hands over the keys. ‘Must have cost a packet.’

  ‘An investment, that’s what he said.’

  She’d blamed it on the hormones when she cried after Jim came home with it one day, but actually she was knocked off kilter by his generosity and the message behind it – that he was offering her this beautiful new machine so she could keep writing, freelancing, if she wanted to.

  ‘Any extra cash would come in handy, after all,’ he’d joked. But she knew it wasn’t about that. She knew he finally understood that, while motherhood had turned out to be far more enriching than she could have imagined, writing was just as intrinsic to her happiness, to her sense of self.

  Though right now she couldn’t imagine being away from Jessica for one second, she remained resolved to go back to work after her maternity leave was up, to wrestle her job back from Diane. It felt more important than ever to show her daughter that women could pursue the career they wanted.

  So she would be a mother and work. She would work and be a mother.

  She would damn well have her cake and eat it too.

  It wouldn’t be easy, but she would try. And with Jim’s support, she would do it. That’s just the way it would be.

  When Maggie had gone, she sat down at the desk in front of the typewriter and looked out of the window. The trees were moulting, and the heat of the summer felt a long time ago. She put her fingers on the keys, feeling their smoothness, their weight. She looked down at her daughter, still sleeping. There was a pile of washing that needed doing, but she supposed that could wait. She needed to go to the shop before it closed to get groceries, but perhaps they could order takeaway tonight. She should sleep, but what difference would half an hour really make? Perhaps, instead, she could use the time to start writing what she needed to, what she felt she owed to another mother in another country.

  She didn’t know if the material she’d gathered before her trip was interrupted by Jessica’s arrival was enough, if the article would pass muster with Roger. But she would try.

  She picked up her notebook, covered in shorthand, and flipped back to the beginning.

  She inserted a sheet of paper in her wonderful new typewriter and punched a letter: B.

  Brigitte.

  AUGUST 2016 Vevey, Switzerland

  JESS

  It’s funny how everything can change in a moment. Yesterday my life was a set of memories, experiences and supposed facts that made up my personal timeline. But now I know that another life was running simultaneously in the background all along. A parallel life with different memories and experiences that, but for one snap decision, would have been mine.

  I check into a hotel in Vevey. I can’t go back to Julia and Michel’s place right now. I have too much to think about. I need to be on my own. Plus I have something vital to do. Something I am desperate to do and yet, at the same time, can’t quite bring myself to. So for now I lie on the bed at the ridiculously expensive hotel and think, trying to let it all sink in. Somehow, my spinning brain plucks out the singular, uncomplicated thought that I don’t have my toothbrush with me.

  I turn my head and see the letter Anna gave me, visible in my open handbag. I can’t believe it’s there, this physical evidence of a past I didn’t know I had.

  A few days ago Anna was a phantom, a mystery who may or may not exist. Someone rooted in a time so long ago that I couldn’t fathom she could also exist now.

  But she does.

  I’ve looked into her eyes that are so like my own. I’ve felt her hand on mine. I’ve got her mobile number saved in my phone. And now I know Anna made contact with Mum, that before Evelyne died she insisted Anna tell Mum what she did – or she would. And there it is in my handbag, the proof that Mum knew, that she kept Anna’s secret to herself for nearly twenty years.

  A wave of nausea washes through me to think what that must have cost her, what burden she must have carried to know, without telling Dad or me, for so many years.

  I can’t eat, though it’s eight in the evening now. And I know I won’t sleep, though I’m exhausted from the emotion of it all. So I stand up from the bed, put my handbag over my shoulder and walk down to the lakeside. It’s getting dark, but the promenade is still buzzing with people strolling in the mild air. I sit on the wall, sling my legs over so I’m facing the mountains.

  Something about their constancy calms me; these peaks have been there long before I was born in a hospital down the road, and they’ll be there long after Anna’s gone and I’m gone and my convoluted life is remembered by no one. The mountains that have been the backdrop to my mission out here now seem a metaphor for my life. Anna’s decision sent two tectonic plates crashing together, altering the shape of our lives forever. One tiny but seismic moment, and so many lives were changed.

  I take the letter out of my bag. Despite what Anna said, I’m scared of opening it.

  But I do.

  It’s dated March 1996. I would have been at university then. Mum and Dad, newly on their own after nineteen years bringing up a child. Me, glugging watered-down lager in dingy clubs and going to rowing club socials, not because I rowed but because of the above-average quota of attractive men in attendance. I can’t believe this was happening in parallel, while I remained in both such innocence and such certainty about the foundations of my life.

  Dear Anna,

  I read, and my heart clenches at the familiar sight of my mother’s handwriting.

  It has taken me several months to write back to you because I didn’t want to give you a knee-jerk reaction. I am a writer, you know that, and I don’t like to write without thought. But my God, the thoughts have come tumbling out these last months. I have felt shock, rage, heartache, pity, more rage. I can’t understand what you did. But my conclusion now, after all these months of knowing this secret you told me, is that it’s done, and the main thing now is to deal with it in the best way we possibly can.

  I want to tell you something. When we first met, all those years ago, I saw how differently we viewed our pregnancies. I saw how full of hope and love you were. But I didn’t feel like that. I was scared I’d ruined my life, that I might resent my baby, that I wouldn’t love her. But, as we both know, motherhood is a funny thing. Whatever fears and worries you may have, there’s always love. It settles upon you the day your child is born and I can’t imagine it would ever disappear, whatever happens in our lives.

  When you told me what you’d done, one of the many thoughts running through my head was that my biological child had grown up without that intrinsic mother’s love. But I’ve read and reread your letter and I know you love her – the girl you named Hedi – because I feel it in your words. I’m glad she is well, and happy, and loved. My heart breaks that I haven’t known her. You’ve taken that away from me, Anna, and you can’t ever know how sad I am. Or perhaps you can, because you’ve done the same to yourself, haven’t you? And perhaps that’s worse, if that’s at all possible, to have been the instigator of your own pain. I don’t know yet if I can say I forgive you; perhaps that will come
in time. I promise I will try.

  I want to ask something of you that you must agree to. I hope you’ll think this is the least you can do for me: never look for Jessica. When you made that decision in the hospital, you made her mine. Mine she has always been and mine she will always remain. I have never felt such love as the love I feel for my daughter, and I will never give her up, or share her with the person who did. I believe it is best for both girls if neither of them ever knows what you did. So I will never try to meet Hedi – for her sake, for Jessica’s sake. And if either of them finds out one day, for whatever reason, then we will deal with that together, as best we can.

  I’m sorry for you, Anna. I have never forgotten the lost look on your face at the hospital, nor the things you told me about your childhood. I don’t believe that excuses what you did, but it does go some way to explain it. You had no right to act as you did. But the fact remains that I can’t be sorry for it, because if you hadn’t made that awful decision, I wouldn’t have Jessica.

  I wish you luck, love and good health, Anna. I wish everything in the world for Hedi. I will always think of her. I will always be willing her to succeed, to be healthy and happy. But I don’t want to hear any more. This is the end of it. Our lives touched briefly all those years ago in Switzerland and were altered forever. It’s madness to think about it. But it’s done, so we will leave it there.

  Love your daughter, as I love mine. Be well, be happy.

  Yours,

  Sylvia

  I put the letter down and look out at the mountains, fat tears streaming down my face. She still loved me, despite knowing the truth. She didn’t want a different daughter, a better daughter, a more ambitious, sorted, successful daughter, she wanted me – and so, I now know, does Dad. It feels like a cloud has lifted and I’m suddenly seeing what’s been there all along. I think of how much I adore Léa, how sometimes she feels like mine; I think of Maggie, who has always been like a second mother to me; and I see Anna, who gave me up out of love, but who clearly loves Hedi just as much. Biology isn’t everything, after all.

  I feel like I’ve got my life back, and all the history embodied by those family photos is mine to cherish once again. It may not have been the life I was meant to have, but it was mine. However unusual, this has been my place in the world since the beginning. I breathe out a long, shaky breath and feel the tension in my shoulders release, the pressure in my head ease, as relief floods through my veins. And I realise this relief is not only for what’s gone before, but for what my future could bring, too.

  Biology isn’t everything.

  What possibilities could be open to me, if only I remember that?

  My phone pings and I reach into my bag and fish it out.

  How did it go, guapa? Are you ok?

  I wipe my tears away and smile. I picture Jorge’s face – his unbrushed mop of hair, the amused look in his eyes after he pushed me in the pool – and I think how, during this mission into my past, he’s been the only thing that’s made me look forward and think about what happens after. About the future.

  I text back:

  Can we meet up this week? Because I need to go home. I’m okay, but I need to go home.

  The cake was a little uneven where Julia had cut off a burnt bit, but it tasted surprisingly good.

  ‘You know I didn’t mean you should stay at home and make cakes, don’t you?’ I say to her, testing our new-found entente cordiale.

  She laughs, runs her fingers through her hair. ‘Actually, Léa made it. She’s far better at it than me. But I supervised, and it was fun.’ She gives me a wry smile and I know she means it.

  ‘Jess! We got you something!’ Léa comes barrelling into the lounge, closely followed by Luca and Michel, a grin on his face. Léa’s holding her hands behind her back and when they reach us, Michel whispers something to his daughter and she brings out a pink box with a big white bow and hands it to me. ‘For you,’ she says.

  I look at Julia and she smiles. ‘Something to help you remember your time here.’

  I tug at the bow and open the box and pull out a large silver photo frame with three separate photos in it. In one, Léa and Luca are having a water fight in the paddling pool in the garden, me in the background looking on and laughing. I remember that day well. It was in my first week here, one afternoon when Maria was home. I hadn’t realised she’d taken it. The second photo is of me and the kids in the mountains; it must have been taken by Michel, just before Luca fell. We’re sitting on the grass eating bread and cheese, the lake spread out far below us. I’m red-faced but smiling. Léa is snuggled up to me, her head on my arm. The third is of the two kids alone; they’re standing by the pool at Pully getting ready to jump in, both pulling faces and trying not to laugh. I took it myself and Whatsapped it to Julia one day because I thought it was funny – and because I wanted to show her what she was missing out on, I recall with a flash of guilt.

  ‘You’ve given them some good times this summer,’ Julia says. ‘They’re going to miss you. We all will.’

  I look at the photos and feel a lump rise up in my throat. There have been some good times, but I’ve been so wrapped up in my own dramas that I almost didn’t notice. I came to Switzerland not only to find out about my past, but for a break from my messed-up life in London, for my Swiss cure. And I know that, somewhere along the way, that’s what I’ve had. As well as mourning my broken marriage, obsessing over Julia’s imagined perfection, tracking down Daniel and Anna, I’ve sunned myself on the most wonderful lakeshore, hiked up mountains to see views I’d never even thought could exist, watched music in the park at the world’s most famous jazz festival and laughed with two little kids who got me smiling even when I didn’t feel I had anything to smile for.

  ‘I’m going to miss you all too,’ I say, ‘I really will.’

  Léa starts to cry and buries her face in my stomach. ‘Don’t go, Jess. Can’t you stay?’

  I shake my head. ‘You’re going back to school next week. And I have to go home,’ I say. ‘I have some things I need to do.’

  ‘But you must come back,’ Michel says. ‘You’re welcome any time.’

  ‘Maybe next summer?’ Julia suggests. A wave of shame floods through me. After the way I’ve been with her, after my terrible behaviour and my even worse thoughts, she would still have me back.

  ‘That means a lot,’ I say. ‘Maybe I will. But we’ll see. A year is a long time, and right now I have no idea what I’m going to do to fill it. But I promise I’ll come and visit sometime. And you must keep in touch. Send me emails,’ I say to the kids, ‘to show me how your English is progressing.’

  ‘It’s a deal!’ Léa grins and gives me a high five, and I’m pleased to see I’ve clearly taught her something.

  Michel carries my suitcase out to the waiting taxi and after hugs and kisses and tears from the kids, I’m in the car and going back to the station, eight weeks after I arrived on their doorstep in the same fashion. I board the train for the airport and make sure to sit on the left-hand side for the best view of the lake and mountains. I take out my phone and start a new email. There’s still something I have to do.

  Dear Daniel,

  I’m writing to say goodbye. I have decided we shouldn’t meet, for now. I’ve thought long and hard about this, but I think it’s the right thing to do. I met with Anna and she told me everything. So many revelations. I’m glad I finally know the truth. I needed answers. But part of me wishes I had never found out. I’m left wondering what sort of person I would be if Anna hadn’t made that decision. I’m wondering what impact a Swiss upbringing would have made on me, how you and Anna would have shaped me. I’ll never know. But what I do know is that I am who I am, now, and that’s okay. It’s taken me too long to figure that out, but I got there in the end.

  I read the letter my mother sent to Anna. She didn’t want us to ever meet, and I think I understand why. Mum died four years ago, but I still have Dad. He didn’t want me to come here to try and find you.
I thought he was worried he might love me less, if I found you. But now I know he was just scared of losing me to another father, another family. And so I’ve decided I would rather not meet you, for his sake. We all have to live with the consequences of what happened back then, and make the best of it. And the best of it is that we have love in our lives. I have Dad, the only father I’ve ever known. You have Hedi, and Anna told me how much you love her. Let’s be grateful for that, and move on.

  I hope you understand.

  Jessica

  PS. I really think Linda Keller in the Gasthaus Hirschen would say yes if you wanted to ask her out for a drink.

  The train pulls into the station at Geneva Airport and I lug my case off the carriage and up the escalator. At the top, I look up and my stomach jolts. I can’t help a grin spreading across my face as I understand he’s been waiting for me.

  ‘Time for a coffee?’

  I check my watch and nod. Jorge takes my case from me and wheels it towards a cafe clearly designed for tourists, with its red and white motifs and cowprint armchairs.

  ‘What have you got in there, rocks?’

  I shrug. ‘Yes, actually. I took some pebbles from the beach at Lutry the other day.’ I know I’m going to put them in a vase when I get home, a physical reminder of the day I met Anna – and said goodbye to her again.

  He shakes his head at me and rolls his eyes. I laugh. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t understand. Who could? This crazy life of mine isn’t something anyone else has. It’s mine. Unique. I’m going to have to deal with it on my own. But that’s okay, I know now. For the past two years, this search has occupied my every thought. It’s infected my life, destroyed my marriage, suspended my career, sent me half-crazy with fear and worry and jealousy and obsession. But now it’s over. I have that magical thing – closure – and I’m glad. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.