Page 71 of All Our Missing Pieces

Isn’t there someone – a midwife or someone – who could help me here?

That would be wicked, Orla.

So she took over and arranged everything.

It will be for the best, Orla.

I believed her; I trusted her. There was no one else I had to trust. And it did seem like it was for the best, right up until that moment when I lay alone in my bed in the maternity hospital, my body opened and stitched together again, my breasts swollen, surrounded by women nursing their babies, their proud husbands visiting them, their relatives bringing flowers and teddies.

In the weeks that followed, I thought something would happen, somehow, to change it. Declan would come and find me and say he knew why I had dropped out of college. He’d say he had never loved his wife but did love me, and wanted to be with me and our baby. The nuns would say that the couple who wanted her had changed their minds and were giving her back to me. My grandmother would say she’d had a change of heart and realised that she wanted to raise her great-granddaughter as her own, and we could all be a family together.

But none of those things happened, and I did nothing to make them happen. I stayed at my grandmother’s house in Clonmara for six weeks, until I knew that the adoption was final, until my body had healed. Then I left for England and I never went back. I ran away.

Now, I have the chance to run away again. It happened yesterday, when I was returning from the supermarket laden with vegetables, tins of food for Maud and a pack of chicken breasts for Beatrice.

Approaching the house, I saw a young man putting a leaflet through the letterbox, and I knew straight away who he was and what he was doing there. All the places I’ve lived in the world, I’ve noticed that estate agents all look the same, with their cheap suits and their sharp haircuts, and I recognised him as one of that tribe.

When he saw me climb the stairs, he launched without hesitation into his sales pitch. This was a fine home. He could see that I was renovating it – had I considered having it valued? The area was becoming highly desirable and original Georgian properties were like unicorns. With skilful marketing, the house could be worth a great deal of money. If I were ever to consider… etc.

And I am considering. The temptation is so great – I can sell this house, move away and stay away. I’ve done it before. If I do it again, she will never find me.

But there is another option. I could, finally, apply to have my name on the Adoption Contact Register.

I can face my past, or I can leave it behind forever.

FORTY-FOUR

It was late on Saturday night when Beatrice and Neil arrived back in London. They’d spent Friday afternoon sightseeing, but Beatrice hadn’t been able to focus on the statue of Oscar Wilde, St Patrick’s Cathedral or the Guinness Storehouse. She’d tried to be enthusiastic because Neil was – she sensed because he was trying to take her mind off what they had discovered – but in her mind all she could see was those lines of bland, official typescript laying out her history.

All she could think was, Is she my mother? How will I feel if she is?

Ever since the idea of tracing her birth mother had occurred to her, she’d imagined what their reunion would be like. She’d dreamed of her pulling her into her arms, embracing her with tears of joy, saying that this was the happiest moment of her life. Or, at other times, she’d imagined her coldly rejecting Beatrice, saying that she’d never wanted a child and that hadn’t changed.

Now, she tried to picture Orla in those scenarios. But she couldn’t do it. Partly, she told herself, it was because of the shadowy presence of that possible sister – the out-of-favour one, the disgraced one. That prospect gave rise to other imaginings – which one would she want as a mother: cool, rational Orla or the hot-headed, rebellious other one?

She didn’t know. She couldn’t decide and it was all fantasy, anyway, until she did what she probably should have done months ago, back when Neil’s grandfather had confirmed that number five Damask Square had been the Doyles’ property, and simply come out and asked Orla.

Back then, she had been stopped by the fear that if Orla simply denied all knowledge of Beatrice, there would have been nothing she could do about it. Now, there was still that uncertainty but she had more information, more ammunition. She knew that the Doyle family had owned the house on Damask Square. She knew it had never changed hands until it passed from Orla’s grandmother to Orla. She knew that an unmarried woman named Doyle had given birth to a baby with Beatrice’s birth name on her birthday.

It was enough. It had to be enough.

So she had explored Dublin with Neil, eaten dinner and drunk a couple of pints with him, and gone to bed in her single room with only one thought on her mind: Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll talk to her.

But their flight home had been delayed by bad weather so by the time Beatrice reached the house it was after midnight and the place was in darkness. Despite her impatience, she knew that bursting into Orla’s bedroom and demanding answers while her landlady lay in bed would not lead to any desirable outcome, and besides, she was exhausted.

Not bothering to unpack her bag, she fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

When she woke up, she had a text message from Neil.

Everything ok? Call me if you need me. x

He’d added a kiss, which made Beatrice smile.

She got up, showered and sorted out her things. She put her dirty clothes in a bag to take to the launderette and made toast. She monosyllabically answered Livvie’s questions about how her trip had been, noticing with only mild interest that Livvie seemed somewhat monosyllabic herself.

Orla was out somewhere and so was Luke. Beatrice waited in an agony of impatience for the opportunity to catch her alone, but it was mid-afternoon before it came. From her bedroom window, she saw Orla in the garden below, alone. Luke and Livvie were nowhere to be seen and even the cat would be unlikely to brave the outdoors on this raw, overcast day with the promise of rain in the lowering clouds.

Orla was kneeling on what looked like a folded newspaper, digging in the earth with a trowel. From her high vantage point, Beatrice could see the thin curve of her spine under her waxed jacket, the strands of grey in her short hair catching the dying afternoon light.