This Child of Mine

by Sinéad Moriarty

  I will always be your mother, whether you want me to or not. I will always love you, adore you and cherish you. I will always be here for you.

  I will wait for you every day of my life.

  But for now, I’m setting you free. Be safe, be well, be wonderful, my darling girl.

  Love always,

  Mum xx

  The next day, when Joe came to collect her from hospital, Anna posted the letter to Sophie, then asked Joe to drive her out to Hope’s grave. He wanted to take her straight back to the apartment and tuck her up in bed, but Anna begged, ‘Please, Joe, I need to do this. It’s part of my healing. Please.’

  He finally agreed and linked her arm as they walked through the graveyard, looking for Hope’s headstone.

  ‘There,’ Anna croaked, pointing to the little white cross. She walked over slowly and bent down. ‘Hope Roberts, 24 January 1993. Sometimes love is for a moment. Sometimes love is for a lifetime. Sometimes a moment is a lifetime.’

  That was when the dam broke and Anna finally let go of it all: the grief, the fear, the terror, the worry, the heartache, the love, the loss, the lies, the hiding, the pretending, the guilt, the pain. It all came flooding out.

  She wailed, she wept, she screamed, she beat the earth with her fists, she allowed herself to feel everything. The years of pent-up emotion and stress, the suppressed sentiments and feelings all tumbled out.

  Through it all, Joe sat on the other side of the headstone and the only thing he said was ‘Let it out. Let the poison out. It’s eating you up inside.’

  Eventually Anna’s sobbing slowed. She was spent. There was nothing left inside her. She sat in the grass beside Hope’s grave and wiped her face with a tissue Joe handed her.

  ‘Feel better?’ he asked.

  Anna paused. The strange thing was, she did. She felt as if something buried deep inside her, like a sickness, had come out. As if the crying had expelled it from her being. All the grief for Hope, the worry about Sophie finding out the truth and the guilt about what she had done that she had buried at the bottom of her soul had been ripped up and spat out. She felt like an empty shell, suddenly and violently relieved of so much anxiety and strain. She felt as though she had purged her past and faced her demons.

  She hugged her knees to her chest. ‘Yes, I do, actually. I feel … I can’t explain it … it sounds so odd … but I feel relieved.’

  Joe smiled. ‘Of course you do. You’ve been harbouring a terrible secret for years. No wonder your ulcer was so bad. The pressure of carrying that burden around was literally tearing you up inside.’

  ‘You’re right. I only realize it now that the secret is out. I suppose I was living on a tightrope, always covering my tracks, always watching what I said, hiding my past and discarding the first forty years of my life. There was no Anna before Sophie. That person didn’t exist.’

  Joe stood up and stretched his legs. ‘But that Anna did exist. I knew her and she was wonderful. Life dealt her some very hard blows but there were good times too. You were a happy child, your parents were mad about you and so was Barry. In the beginning you and he had a great relationship, but Hope’s death broke you. It’s OK to look back now. You can talk about your past and show Sophie where you grew up and went to school and worked as a teacher and the church you got married in, and all the things children like to know about their parents. In a way this liberates you from the shackles you had to impose on yourself.’

  Anna thought about it. He was right. She was free to tell Sophie about her marriage, show her the wedding photos, the house she’d grown up in and all her favourite places in Ireland where she had gone on holidays as a child. If Sophie forgave her, she’d take her to Kerry. She had very happy memories of summers spent in Dingle on the beautiful sandy beaches, swimming in the freezing water, collecting shells, building sandcastles and eating ice-creams in the rain. She could tell Sophie everything. She could talk to her about the years she had struggled to get pregnant and how she had so desperately wanted a child, and that when she’d been pregnant with Hope, she was sure it was going to work out. But it hadn’t and it had broken her. She’d tell Sophie about meeting Barry and falling in love, their honeymoon in Capri, and how happy and carefree she had once been. Maybe she’d take Sophie there one day and stay in the same hotel. Maybe … if her daughter forgave her.

  ‘Anna!’ Joe shook her arm.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘We need to get you home. You must rest.’

  Anna looked down at Hope’s grave. It was surrounded by weeds and overgrown grass. ‘I can’t leave her like this. I have to make it nice for her. I’ve neglected her for seventeen years and it’s time I made it up to her.’ She looked up at her best friend, her Joe. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Anna looked into his kind green eyes. ‘Thanks, Joe, I’d be lost without you. You’re all I’ve got.’

  ‘You’ve got Sophie too. She’ll come back to you. Give it time.’

  Anna prayed he was right.

  33.

  Laura

  Dublin, July 2011

  Laura had an urgent call from Frank, asking her to meet him in his office at eleven. He said it was important. Laura was reluctant to be apart from Sophie, but Frank had sounded very serious and said he’d explain face to face.

  When Laura arrived at his building and crossed the lobby to his office, she could hear raised voices. She walked in and came face to face with David, Tanya, Joan, Mandy and Frank, sitting in a circle drinking coffee and arguing.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  Frank rushed over to her. ‘Don’t be alarmed. David called a meeting to discuss some of the legal issues arising from Sophie’s return.’

  Laura glared at David. ‘I thought I made myself clear. I’m not ready to press charges.’

  ‘I know. Look, we’re not suggesting taking any immediate action, we’re just meeting to discuss possibilities and options. Joan and Frank were keen to look at the legal implications of Jody’s abduction.’

  Laura looked at her mother.

  ‘I want that woman locked up,’ Joan declared.

  Frank guided Laura to a chair beside David. ‘It’s no harm to talk it over.’

  ‘Why is Mandy here? She’s too young for this,’ Laura hissed at David.

  ‘I am bloody not,’ Mandy contradicted. ‘This affects me, too, you know. There’s no way you’re making any decisions about this without me.’

  ‘I can assure you, Laura, I’d rather be anywhere but here.’ Tanya pouted. ‘But I’m going to make damn sure this does not turn into a public embarrassment for my family. I don’t want salacious media attention on my doorstep. If anything is going to happen, it’ll have to be done quietly.’

  ‘For once we agree on something.’ Laura smiled grimly and put her handbag down beside her.

  David cleared his throat. ‘I called this meeting because I firmly believe that this woman – Anna Roberts – who abducted Jody needs to be brought to justice.’

  ‘Hear hear,’ Joan said.

  ‘Lock her up.’ Mandy cheered.

  ‘She deserves to be punished,’ Frank said, ‘but let’s not be too hasty.’

  ‘If we press charges the media will get hold of the story,’ Tanya reminded them. ‘Why can’t you just threaten her legally and scare her off?’

  ‘You could hire underworld thugs to rough her up and tell her to get a one-way ticket to Australia,’ Mandy suggested.

  ‘You’ve been watching too much TV.’ David frowned.

  ‘Anna committed a terrible crime,’ Frank said, ‘and she shouldn’t be allowed to walk away scot-free, but we need to think carefully before we get the police and lawyers involved.’

  ‘I know she kidnapped her, and it was awful, but she didn’t harm her.’ Laura surprised herself by defending Anna. ‘Sophie seems to have had a good life.’

  ‘She does seem remarkably together,’ Frank agreed. ‘She’s turned out to be a
smashing girl.’

  ‘That’s nonsense!’ Joan raged. ‘She was born that way. Jody had the loveliest nature I ever saw in a child. That woman had nothing to do with it. Jody was always going to turn out well. She was a wonderful baby. That woman had no right to take her and she wouldn’t have been able to if Laura hadn’t been passed out drunk.’

  ‘Mum!’ Frank snapped.

  ‘What?’ Tanya swivelled around to face Laura. ‘Were you?’

  ‘Thank you, Mum. Yes, Tanya, I was.’

  Tanya pursed her lips. ‘Well, that makes it all clearer. Anna obviously thought you were unfit to look after a child.’

  ‘Of course she did, as would I, if I’d seen a poor child neglected by her mother,’ Joan added.

  ‘Laura was twenty!’ Frank exclaimed.

  ‘Little more than a child herself,’ David defended her.

  ‘I wasn’t drinking myself into drunken comas at that age,’ Tanya observed.

  ‘You were too busy staring at yourself in the mirror,’ Mandy muttered.

  ‘You should get a mirror and look in it from time to time,’ Tanya riposted.

  ‘Don’t you dare –’

  ‘Please, can we all just focus on the issue at hand?’ David pleaded.

  ‘Whether Laura was drunk or not doesn’t change anything. It does not justify abducting a child,’ Frank pointed out. ‘For God’s sake, if everyone took a child they saw beside a drunk mother, the country would be in chaos.’

  ‘Passed out is different from drunk,’ Tanya reminded him.

  ‘Thank you, Tanya.’ Laura was furious that David’s wife was witnessing all of this. It was so humiliating. ‘I know I acted appallingly and, believe me, I have paid a huge price for it. But Frank’s right. Regardless of my behaviour, Anna did not have the right to take my child.’

  ‘It was abduction, which was and is a criminal offence,’ David reminded them all.

  ‘So we get her locked up in jail with all the other criminals and throw away the key. She’ll never see Jody again and that’ll be the end of it,’ Joan said.

  ‘No, it won’t.’ Mandy shook her head. They all turned to look at her. ‘It won’t be the end of it. Look, I’m on your side. I agree that Anna should be punished, but Sophie adores her. It’d be like you all saying that Mum should be locked up and never allowed see me again – I’d never forgive you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mandy.’ Laura’s throat was tight.

  ‘Don’t get all emotional on me, Mum. I’ll lose my train of thought. Where was I?’ Mandy frowned. ‘Oh, yes. Although what Anna did to our family was shocking, she was never mean to Sophie. In fact, she was a great mother to her and Sophie loves her. Sure she’s angry with her and she’s confused, but she still loves her. You can’t wipe out seventeen years of devotion. It would kill Sophie to see Anna in prison.’

  ‘But she knows now she was abducted. She knows her mother is a criminal. She knows who her real family are. Surely she’ll understand that justice must be done,’ David said.

  Laura sighed. ‘Yes, but, David, don’t you see? Anna is the only mother Sophie has ever known. It was just the two of them for her whole life.’

  Joan slapped her hand on the desk. ‘Not her whole life. She had a loving family here for nineteen months.’

  ‘She doesn’t remember any of that,’ Laura reminded them.

  ‘I don’t remember anything until I was three when I fell off the slide and broke my arm and Mum was hysterical,’ Mandy said. ‘She kept screaming, “I’m a bad mother, I’m a bad mother,” and the doctor kept saying, “But accidents happen, she’ll be fine.”’

  Laura shuddered. Whenever anything happened to Mandy she overreacted: it was the guilt.

  ‘You’re a great mother,’ David said, pressing Laura’s hand.

  Tanya scowled at him. ‘Can we move on? I don’t want to be here all day.’

  ‘I want justice for seventeen stolen years,’ Joan said. ‘I haven’t had a day’s peace since the child disappeared. My life was ruined that day. Ruined.’

  ‘Come on, Gran, she’s back. Can you at least cut Mum some slack and crack a smile? Look, I find the whole grumpy-old-lady thing funny but it’s time to lighten up.’

  Laura smiled gratefully at Mandy.

  Joan, though, was furious. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, young lady. You have no idea what I’ve been through. Your mother’s actions have caused me a lifetime of pain.’

  ‘Jody’s back now, Mum. Let’s focus on the future,’ Laura said, through gritted teeth.

  ‘You might be able to forget, but I can’t. You don’t just wake up one morning and forget years of suffering and misery. Maybe you can push the past away and pretend it never happened but I can’t. I can’t forget. I suffered so much, I –’

  Laura jumped up, her face bright red with anger. ‘Jesus Christ, Mum! You weren’t the only one who suffered. I did too. I’ve been sick with grief. Part of me died that day too. Forget? Do you honestly think an hour went by, over the last seventeen years, when I didn’t think about my baby? I was in Hell. And I had the guilt to deal with as well. It’s a bloody miracle I didn’t go insane with it. It ate me up.’

  Joan’s cheeks flushed. ‘You can’t blame me for your guilt. It was your fault she went missing. You let her go.’

  ‘I know! I beat myself up about it all the time. And if for one second I did forget about it, you were always right behind me reminding me of it. Never letting me forget what a failure I was. Never letting me forget what a disappointment I was. Even when Jody was born you made me feel worthless.’

  ‘You were nineteen! What mother wants their teenage daughter getting drunk and having sex with a stranger? Of course I was furious with you. Of course I was disappointed. None of that was what your father and I wanted for you.’

  Laura thumped her chest. ‘I was heartbroken when Dad died. I loved him. He made me feel brilliant about myself, but you always made me feel like crap. I was never good enough for you. I was lost without Dad. I went off the rails because I missed him so much. I was devastated – why can’t you see that? I wasn’t a bad person, I was a heartbroken teenager.’

  ‘It’s always about you,’ Joan sputtered. ‘Poor Laura. Poor little Laura. What about me? He was my husband! I missed him too. My heart was broken too. I had to raise two kids on my own. I was so lonely I thought I’d die from it. I was grieving too, Laura.’

  ‘But you never talked about him. You never asked me how I was feeling. I needed you, Mum. I needed to talk about Dad and how sad I was, but you never let me. Whenever I brought up his name you changed the subject.’

  Joan closed her eyes. ‘I had to. It was too painful. Harry was my rock. I was lost without him. I was only just keeping myself together. I was trying to stay strong for you and Frank. But you never see that. All you see is your own pain. All you ever see is Laura’s side of the story.’

  Laura threw her arms into the air in exasperation. ‘Jesus, Mum, I was sixteen when he died. I was just a kid.’

  ‘You were out of control. I didn’t know what to do with you. And look what it led to – look at all the sadness you caused us.’

  Frank stepped in. ‘Come on, guys, calm down, don’t say things you’ll regret.’

  ‘I’ve been biting my tongue for years,’ Laura spat. ‘I’ve had it. I’m sorry I’ve been such a let-down to you, Mum, but I’m doing the best I can. And it would be really nice if for once in your bloody life you’d give me a break. Jody’s home now, back where she belongs. Can you please just let me enjoy this time with my daughter without constantly reminding me of my terrible deeds? I didn’t do it on purpose! I was young and naïve and, yes, selfish and stupid but I wasn’t an evil person. I made a mistake and I’ve paid for it every day for seventeen bloody years. You have to stop blaming me, Mum.’ She began to sob. ‘You have to stop now. Please just STOP! I can’t take any more.’

  There was silence in the room as Laura sat down unsteadily and tried to regain her composure. Mandy touched her mot
her’s hand gently.

  Joan sank back into her chair and took out a tissue. She wiped her eyes. ‘You weren’t a let-down, Laura. You were a lovely child, like Jody. But you were a nightmare of a teenager and that’s just fact. I have no intention of ruining anything for anyone and I very much object to your accusation that I always made you feel bad about yourself. That’s a very cruel thing to say. I embraced Jody with both arms. I loved her and minded her like my own. You seem to forget that part.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Laura said quietly. ‘You were amazing with her and I’ll always be grateful to you. She adored you. I know I was a mess, and I’m not proud of it.’

  Tanya clapped her hands. ‘I think that’s enough family drama for one day. David, can you move things along? We need to collect the girls from ballet at two.’

  David stood up. ‘Right. We should agree on a plan of action. Do we want to explore pressing charges?’

  ‘Definitely.’ Joan was adamant.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do,’ Frank said.

  ‘Laura?’ David asked.

  Laura put down her untouched cup of coffee. ‘I want to, I really want to see Anna brought to justice, but I’m worried about Sophie. We have to think about Sophie.’

  ‘She’ll get over it. Children are very resilient,’ Tanya informed her. ‘But, David, how are you going to keep it out of the papers? I am not having our family dragged through the tabloids like some kind of freak show. I’m telling you right now, if this comes out there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘He’s familiar with that. He lives with you,’ Mandy muttered. Frank chuckled.

  ‘What did you say?’ Tanya glared at Mandy.

  ‘She said he knows you well.’ Laura saved her daughter.

  Frank sat behind his desk, fiddling with a pen. ‘Laura’s right. We need to be very careful around Sophie. She’s had a lot to deal with lately. It might be a step too far to suddenly announce we’re going after Anna.’