Page 81 of All Our Missing Pieces

Then I tried to see things from Beatrice’s point of view, and it was with a guilty, sinking heart that I realised how it must look.

Still, I asked, ‘Why do you think that was?’

‘Because Orla doesn’t like me,’ Beatrice said in a small voice. ‘I made her not like me – it was my fault. It could have been different. I’d thought that when I told her, she’d change her mind about me.’

‘You knew, Beatrice,’ I said, ‘but she didn’t. It would have been a total shock for her. She’d have needed time to process it all.’

Beatrice shook her head, tears starting again in her eyes. ‘I’ve fucked it up. It was what I always wanted and now…’

‘Hey, don’t be mad. It’s not too late. You just need to give it time, let her get used to the idea. It’s hard for her, too.’

Beatrice looked at me and I saw a glimmer of her usual confidence.

‘You might not look that similar to her,’ I went on, ‘not on the surface, anyway. But there are things about you that are just the same. When I hear you walk across the landing, it often takes me a few seconds to realise it’s not her. Your singing voice is the same, even though you can hold a tune and she can’t. Your hands are the same. She’s your mother. You’ll get there.’

A smile appeared on Beatrice’s face, sudden and shining, the way Orla smiled.

‘You need to give each other a chance,’ I urged.

‘I was so angry,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘About her having given me away. I was horrible to her. And I was mean as hell to Neil, too.’

Neil? She’d mentioned going to Dublin with someone called Neil – presumably her boyfriend.

‘If he knows what you’ve been going through, he’ll understand,’ I said. ‘And if he doesn’t, then he’s not worth having, right? Talk to him. Say you’re sorry. It’ll all work out. I promise.’

‘Really?’ She looked up at me, hopeful as a child. Then her face fell again. ‘But – Slate and Parker. Nothing can make that work out.’

‘Beatrice.’ I tried to keep my voice gentle, to scrape together reserves of kindness and wisdom I didn’t know I had. ‘Sometimes things change. Sometimes you lose people not because you’ve done anything wrong but just because stuff happens. Life happens. And then you just have to make the best of it.’

Abruptly, she pulled her feet out from under my duvet and stood up, leaving the wad of damp tissues on my bed.

‘Thanks, Livvie. Thanks for listening.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘I should let you go to bed.’

‘It’s fine. Honestly, you can talk to me any time you want.’

‘Thanks,’ she said again. ‘I’m glad I came. I’m sorry I haven’t been a better friend.’

She hasn’t really been a friend at all, I thought. But that hadn’t only been down to her.

‘Me too,’ I said.

She reached down and gave me an awkward half-hug, her long hair brushing against my lips.

She doesn’t much like touching people, I thought. Same as Orla.

‘Goodnight, Livvie.’

She left. I heard her bedroom door open and close, and I was alone. I’d planned to make myself something to eat, but I didn’t feel hungry now. I turned out the light and lay on the bed in the warm place Beatrice had left, staring up at the ceiling in the dark.

I couldn’t heal the wounds that had been left on Beatrice’s and Orla’s hearts. But I felt the beginning of a realisation that hurt so badly I almost started crying myself: if they were to reconcile, salvage any kind of relationship as birth mother and daughter, the relationship I’d come to cherish between Orla and me would be a barrier between them.

My own words, uttered on the spur of the moment like an agony aunt on a deadline, came back to me: Sometimes you lose people not because you’ve done anything wrong but just because stuff happens.

Things change, I’d said. Things were going to change for me – it was inevitable. For me and for Luke and for Orla as well as for Beatrice. They’d have to change.