Waiting for Grace

by Oakes, Hayley

  “Are you any good at shopping?” I said with my head cocked to the side.

  “Sure am,” he said, “the best.”

  ***

  After that, Carl and I didn’t go out together, because I wasn’t allowed, but we met in secret at his flat. It was so exciting and dangerous and at eighteen Carl was so much more grown up than any boys I had known. He had a weathered look and had definitely lived a harsher life than I had enjoyed. He might have seemed trouble at first, leaning against that door frame smoking, but deep down he was a gentle giant. My parents trusted me and didn’t suspect a thing and after Christmas that year we had sex for the first time. What I couldn’t have known then was that after the third or fourth time of having sex, I was pregnant.

  We spent so much time in his flat just watching television, eating dinner, listening to music, and playing board games that the sex thing just seemed to happen, naturally. Everything about Carl made butterflies flit around my stomach. Just the sight of him after hours apart made me crave him. It was an August night that summer that Carl asked me if I was pregnant. I had gained weight, but I assumed it was happening because I wasn’t dancing as much because it was summer. I was so angry, fuming in fact, and I stormed out of his flat and accused him of calling me fat. I walked home in a rage but started to wonder if what he was saying made sense, we hadn’t been careful, and my stomach was carrying a lot of the weight. I decided to ignore it until I was sure.

  A few weeks passed and Carl broached the subject again, but I was terrified to admit that he was right. I had felt the baby move, but was just wishing it away. My parents would kill me and what on Earth did Carl have to offer me, the life of a butcher’s wife? I wanted to be the next Audrey Hepburn. When I started school again, I was too fat for any of my dancing costumes and so just attended drama classes, spending less and less time with Carl, ignoring him, in fact. I didn’t walk past the shop anymore and I certainly didn’t go ‘round to his flat. He had no way of contacting me and so I hid away.

  By October I was huge but hiding it well under baggy clothes and high-waisted trousers. In the corridor one day I noticed one of my old high school teachers, Miss Snow, now Mrs Banford. She was pregnant and proudly displaying her bump like I couldn’t, so I decided to ask her for some advice, I didn’t have many more options.

  “Erm … Mrs Banford,” I said, approaching her in the corridor, “please may I have a word?”

  “Of course.” She smiled kindly.

  We retreated into an empty classroom and I began to cry. “I’m pregnant,” I whispered, “I just don’t know what to do.” She looked at me and then my stomach and the shock registered on her face.

  “Oh, Diane.” She hugged me and held me to her rounding stomach. I let her hold me, no one had for such a long time. “Come here, hun, it’s never as bad as you think sweetheart, this really isn’t going to go away, and I think we need to tell someone.”

  “No,” I swiped the tears away, “my parents will freak, I can’t tell them, they’ll kill me.”

  “Diane,” she soothed, “parents rarely react as badly to these things as we think, give them some credit, they love you and want the best for you and once this baby arrives I am sure they will love it just as much as they do you. Now I would strongly advise that you tell them, and I’m sure it’ll all be okay.” She laid her arm over my shoulder and we discussed it some more.

  That night I told my dad and he never looked me in the eye again.

  ***

  I didn’t get the chance to tell Carl. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. The doctor confirmed that my baby was due in less than a month, and so I was sent to stay with Irene’s Auntie Agnes in Southampton to have the baby. It wasn’t hell. She was nice, a little old fashioned, and quite judgmental, but she looked after me, and I was company for her for a few weeks. Being there gave me a chance to breathe and think about what I really wanted. My Dad was definitely the boss and going against him was the last thing you did. He would never forgive me for doing this, but his solution made everything okay. Irene was desperate for another child. This baby would be that, and I would return to college and go away to university as planned. Everyone would just think the baby was adopted. I had to agree that it solved all my issues and to be honest, I couldn’t wait to expel the foetus just so it would be over and done with.

  The problem arose when I had my baby girl at Aunt Agnes’s home, and when they gave her to me I instantly fell in love. She was perfect and she looked just like big, strong Carl. My Carl, oh God. I adored her and we stayed a week with Aunt Agnes where I breast fed her, dressed her, loved her. It was hard. I was exhausted, but she was mine. Dad picked us up after that week, and I tried to say I wanted to keep her, tried to utter the words but nothing came out. You didn’t defy Jeff Cooper and I was lucky I had survived, thus far. Irene doted on the baby, when they arrived Irene wanted to call her Rachel, but I had already named her. “It’s Grace Amelia,” I snapped. “You get my baby, but I get the name.” Irene showed some uncharacteristic compassion and smiled at me with sympathy, nodding.

  “Grace is good and strong.”

  “It was my mother’s middle name and Amelia is a little like Alma, don’t you think?” I said, staring down at my daughter in my arms. She nodded again and smiled slightly, nothing more was ever said on the matter.

  ***

  After a week at home I was back at college, but every night when Grace cried I wanted to be the one who soothed her. At night I would lie in bed and sob silently as I heard Irene walking the corridor with my Grace. My room used to be the joyous room of a teenager in love with Carl McGregor, in love with life, and the movies, but now it was just a reminder of the stupid kid I used to be. A week was all it took and one night after dinner I went to Carl. My Dad hadn’t even asked whom the boy was, that would be too much of a conversation for him, and I don’t think he actually cared. I was ruined in his eyes now, anyway.

  “Diane,” Carl said, shocked to see me at the door.

  “I need to get away,” I said, marching inside.

  “What?”

  “I need to leave this town, never come back and I want you to take me, you owe me that.”

  “What? No hello, no sorry, no explanation. Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Look Carl, you got me pregnant, you ruined my life, and I need to get the hell away.”

  “Oh so you admit now you had my baby and where the hell is my baby by the way?” he screamed. “I deserve an explanation, Diane, you just disappear and you break my fucking heart and now you’re here demanding all sorts.”

  I began to cry, I broke down in front of him and sobbed. Sobbed in front of the only other person who truly knew my secret, and I let myself go. “It was a girl, I named her Grace; my dad and step mother are going to keep her.”

  “What?” he gasped. “You gave her away, without even asking me?”

  “I’m sorry,” I shook my head and the tears fell heavier, as I sank to the floor. “She's so beautiful Carl, so perfect, she deserves better than what I have to give.”

  “They should be helping you, not taking her off you.” He raged. “I can help you, I can be there and pay for everything, go and get her back!”

  “No,” I shook my head, “they wouldn’t allow it.”

  “She's our baby for fuck’s sake,” he spat.

  “Carl,” I stood and walked over to him, pressing myself against his chest and taking his face in my hands, “do you still love me?”

  He groaned and could barely meet my eyes, “Yes, God I do, but I hate you right now, too.”

  “Then let’s go, I can’t watch them bring her up and just be her sister. I can’t do that.”

  “Then go and get her and we’ll all just go together.”

  “And what? Live in your car with a baby? I hate it, but she’s better off with them, they have money, they can give her what we can’t, and one day we’ll come back, be parents she can be proud of.”

  “Di, I’m not sure I can do
this. How can we just leave our baby behind?”

  “Because it’s the best thing for her.”

  “Then shouldn’t we stay and keep an eye on her.”

  “I can’t,” I whimpered, hugging him close to me. “I can’t be here and not be her mum.” Carl finally relented and that night we packed his stuff and I packed a couple of bags, all my things seemed so childish now and I wanted none of it. I just wanted a new life and Carl was a means to that. He left without much fuss, he was used to moving on, and I think he’d had enough of Poulton, anyway. There were too many bad memories. He loved me and was willing to try and make things work even though there was a massive obstacle. I blamed him for making me pregnant and he hated me for the way I dealt with it. When we drove away that night we both had our issues and it didn’t take a psychic to see it would be hard work to get past them. The only thing I left was a note.

  Dad,

  I’m sorry but I can’t watch you be everything to my daughter when I cannot be. I love you and her and I’ll miss you all. Please make sure that Grace knows who her real Mummy is and when she’s eighteen I’ll be back.

  Everyone deserves to know where he or she came from.

  Grace is my gift to you but please respect my wishes and make sure she knows how much I loved her. I love her like only a mother can.

  Diane xxx

  The first year was hard. We had hardly any money and we struggled to get along and also to be adults. We were teenagers. Looking back now, we were babies. We drove south and eventually found some work in Bristol. It wasn’t much but we managed to rent a bedsit and save for a flat. We bickered a lot and I hated him for lowering me to this standard of living. It was in the bedsit one night that we finally had it out after a few drinks with some new friends we had made at work.

  “You’ve turned me into a loser,” I shouted. “Look at this shitty bedsit. I was going to be a movie star.”

  “The only person keeping you from that is you,” he raged.

  “Oh yeah, well you got me pregnant and ruined my life.”

  “Oh yeah, well you were there, too, and it takes two to tango.”

  “You should have been careful!” I shouted. “You should have known what would happen.”

  “Oh really? Well you should have told everyone sooner. Jesus Diane, you hid it for so long that there were no options.”

  “What, like abortion?” I shouted. “You would rather Grace be dead?”

  “No!” he screamed. “I would have liked to have laid eyes on her at least, or provided a better option than this.” He motioned around the room. “I could have saved, we could have planned; it didn’t need to be like this. You took every choice I had away from me.”

  I looked to floor, “You took my life from me,” I whispered.

  “No, Diane, you have your life, you could be exactly who you were before, your parents gave you that option, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Spoilt Diane is gone and now you are the woman living with the choices you made. What happened to us was a miracle, but we weren’t ready.” He put his arms around me, “If you want to be famous then let’s go, let’s go to London, you can do whatever you want and I’ll pay the bills.”

  “Carl, how can we do that? How can you still want me when you see how much I blame you?”

  “This isn’t about me or you Diane, this is about us, okay?” He pulled me close. “You can scream all you want but it’ll always be me and you against the world, okay?” I looked up into his eyes and saw the same boy I fell in love with. These past few months seemed like they were tearing us apart, but in actual fact, they were making us stronger; we were a team.

  That night made me realise that we may always have our own blame to take for what happened and that was water under the bridge. It was about how we moved on from that and making the most of our futures that mattered now. We left Grace so she could have a better life and we owed it to ourselves to get that, too.

  After a few months we took our savings and moved to London. We managed to get a little flat in Bethnal Green. Carl got a job training to be a butcher again, and I worked as a housemaid at a hotel and studied drama in the daytime. We had a routine, we had dreams, and we had a life finally. I learned that Carl hadn’t destroyed my life, he had given me life, and he supported every dream that I had. In turn, I loved and cared for him. When I was twenty-one I came home from work one night to find the lounge lit by candles and filled with flowers. Carl was on one knee and had a small box in his hand.

  “Will you marry me, Diane? We belong together and it’s about time you were Mrs McGregor.” I jumped into his arms; it was a yes.

  We married a few months later in a small ceremony with only close friends, and a few months after that I finished my latest course to become a drama teacher. I wasn’t going to be a famous actress, but I was going to be the best drama teacher any kid needed, and I certainly hoped one of my students would be famous one day.

  Carl eventually took over the butcher’s shop that he worked in. I became a teacher at the local high school, we bought a house in the suburbs, and we had three boys, Jake, Lucas, and Ben. Every smile, every tear and every snotty nose was cherished as I knew what it was like to be the person who missed out on that. I never said and Carl didn’t mention it, but we did never get another girl. We loved our boys, they were perfect and well-behaved, and little gentlemen like their Dad, but we never managed to make up for the princess we gave away. I wouldn’t be wedding dress shopping with my daughter because I had given her away. I was the mother of sons, football, cricket, mud, bikes and more mud. I didn’t have dolls, butterflies and pink to deal with. I missed my daughter every day and often wondered what she looked like now and if she wondered about me. She never got in touch, I sent cards and addresses and phone numbers, but no one ever replied.

  There was one rule though, the stipulation that I wrote in my letter – on the 7th November 2005 I would return. My baby would be eighteen and like it or not we would be back in her life.

  Twenty-Six

  Now

  Robert drove away from my childhood home quickly and my life completely flashed before my eyes. Were there any signs? Did she ever slip up? Did she tell me when she was drunk? I couldn’t see anything, no clues, I couldn’t speak; the shock was too real. My head was swimming.

  “Please don’t take me to your parent’s house,” I said quietly, “I can’t face a crowd.”

  “Okay, we’ll go to a pub, I’ll drive a bit.”

  I nodded, but didn’t respond, just stared out of the window. If I had have returned with Robert that fateful day all those years ago, so many things would have been different. I would have been here when Diane came back, met her, she would have told me the truth, and I would have had perhaps some motherly love for the first time in my life. I would have found out I was pregnant, I wouldn’t have been alone, and I wouldn’t have struggled all those years with Maria. I shook those thoughts away. What ifs were not required here and everything that I had lived through thus far made me who I am today.

  “You okay?” Robert asked gently after we had driven for about ten minutes.

  I sighed, “I suppose so,” I sniffed, the tears welling in my eyes. “I’ve just got no idea who I am anymore.”

  “You do know Grace. You’re you no matter who your mum and dad are. You’re amazing and strong and clever.” He stopped and laced his fingers through mine. “And so beautiful that you take my breath away.”

  I smiled, but still not to him, turning to look out of the window again, his words were lovely, but they didn’t even scratch the surface. I had seen pictures of Diane. We did look alike and I had been in her room, laid on her bed, gone through her photo albums. I had an idea of who she was, what she liked, and what she looked like, but who was my father? Who was the man that I might be like? I wasn’t the person I always thought and no wonder my mum saw me as a hindrance. I wasn’t her little girl. I wasn’t the angel she carried in her stomach like Devon was to me. She would never love m
e like she had Jamie. I cried, but struggled to stifle the sob. It escaped from my mouth loudly.

  Robert pulled the car over and just grabbed me into his arms. “Shhhh,” he whispered kissing my face as he held me close. What else was there to say?

  I sobbed loudly for a little while and then questioned why I was crying. “I’m glad she’s not my mum,” I said, “but why would my mum leave?”

  “She was young,” he soothed.

  “So was I when I had Devon. Maybe she just wanted to forget that I ever existed. Maybe she wanted to move on.”

  “She wouldn’t have come back if that was the case,” he pulled back from me and laid his hand on my face softly, looking into my eyes, “my guess is she wanted you, but thought she was doing the right thing by leaving you. I bet she sees what happened to Irene and regrets that decision every day of her life, if she didn’t already regret it before.”

  I sniffed, “Why did no one ever want me?” I sighed. I wrapped my arms around my middle; I felt sick. “Why am I crying, I need to be strong.”

  “You don’t need to be anything.”

  “Oh God,” I gasped, “It seems to all make sense now, Diane leaving and without a trace, Mum always making her sound like a whore and never having enough love for me. I wasn’t her real child, so she didn’t have anything to keep her together.”

  “I’m no expert but Irene’s alcoholism probably had nothing to do with who was left for her to take care of and so much more to do with her ability to cope. It wasn’t you she didn’t want to live for; it was herself. She probably had an addiction before that your dad covered up.”

  “You always know what to say.” I sniffed. He held me for a while and I wasn’t sure how long. “I don’t want to go to a pub, and I can’t go back there with everyone.”