Page 39 of The Hidden Daughter (The Lost Daughters #7)

PRESENT DAY

‘Harrison, what do you say we go out for brunch soon and then come back to…’

Charlotte stopped, her long wet hair wrapped in a towel and her body enveloped in Harrison’s thick towelling robe. She’d been in the shower for ten minutes, luxuriating in the hot water that had been almost impossible to step out from under, and in that time, it seemed that everything had changed.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, still standing in the same spot as she surveyed the suitcase half packed on the bed and the wardrobe almost bare.

Harrison had been in bed when she’d risen, and now he was throwing clothes and belongings into his suitcase with a methodical-looking urgency that scared her.

‘Harrison?’ she asked, closing the distance between them and placing her hand on his shoulder.

He spun around, and she had the strangest feeling that she was looking at a stranger. He couldn’t look her in the eye, and she could see how upset he was. It was written all over his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte.’

‘Sorry for what?’ she asked, confused. ‘What are you apologising for and why are you packing?’

‘I can’t do this,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper as he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I thought I could, but I just can’t.’

‘Us?’ she asked, incredulously. ‘You’re trying to tell me that you can’t do us?’

He turned and threw more things into his case, but she pushed his shoulder, forcing him to turn around; demanding that he turn around.

‘Why are you doing this? What’s changed?’ She looked around the room as if she’d missed something, as if there would be something glaringly obvious blinking at her and telling her what had gone wrong in the short time she’d been gone. ‘I don’t understand.’

This time his eyes slowly met hers. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte. I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not ready for this. I’m going back to London. I just… I can’t do this.’

‘To London?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Earlier this morning we were in bed, we had an amazing time last night at the opening, I thought we were…’

He shook his head and zipped up his bag as she stood, helpless, in the middle of his room. ‘I can’t face losing anyone else again, and every time I look at you…’

Charlotte swallowed. ‘You see your wife?’ she whispered.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘I mean, it is, but…’ He tipped his head back, like he couldn’t find the words he needed, or maybe he’d hoped to disappear when she was in the shower so that he didn’t even have to face her.

‘I thought this was the start of something special, but you know what? You’re just like everything else good in my life. Eventually, everyone I love leaves me. I should have seen this coming.’

Harrison reached for her, but Charlotte pulled away and stepped back, shaking her head.

‘No, you don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘You don’t treat me like you love me and then just up and leave.’ That’s what my mother did to me. She made me think that she loved me, and then she disappeared as if I’d meant nothing to her at all.

Charlotte’s skin burnt with the shame and hurt of it all, like someone had set fire to her. She wrapped the robe even tighter around herself, feeling like such a fool, hating that she’d let herself fall for him.

‘Just tell me,’ she asked, her throat choking up with emotion. ‘Would you have left without saying goodbye? Were you trying to pack before I came out of the shower?’

‘I would never have left without saying goodbye,’ Harrison said. ‘But I can’t do this, Charlotte. I can’t open myself up and risk losing you. I couldn’t live through that again. I’m not ready now, and I don’t know if I ever will be.’

‘But what if it’s worth it? I know what it’s like to lose someone, to have that person disappear from your life, but don’t we have to at least try? Isn’t that what life is about, trusting that the next time will be different?’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I just can’t.’

She quickly brushed her eyes, not wanting to cry but finding the tears impossible to stop.

They were falling furiously now, and the fact that Harrison had tears in his eyes didn’t make her feel any better.

Because he was the one choosing to leave.

He was the one who was breaking her heart. He was the one doing this to them.

‘Just go then,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want, just go. Please.’

‘I didn’t mean it to end like this,’ he said.

‘And yet you’re doing it anyway.’

Harrison stood and she turned her back, waiting for him to go. She listened to the thud of his suitcase as he pulled it from the bed, but it was the crack in his voice that really sent a knife through her heart.

‘Stay here as long as you want, the room is paid for,’ he said. ‘And I am sorry, Charlotte. I do wish things could have been different for us.’

Charlotte listened to him leave, waited until the door had opened and shut and she’d heard his footfalls down the hall, before she slid to the floor, crumpling forwards until her forehead touched the carpet. And then she cried so hard that her body trembled and her lungs gasped for air.

All these years she’d protected her heart, not letting anyone close enough to hurt her. Then along came Harrison, and she’d been so quick to let down her guard that she hadn’t even seen the end coming.

Charlotte walked into the room to see her great-grandmother, but Amalie was asleep, and so she sat quietly beside her and reached for her hand.

She didn’t know why she’d come back to see her again, and she knew there was only a short time before the nurses would ask her to leave for the night, but she hadn’t known where else to go.

‘I think I need your help, Amalie,’ she whispered, thankful when her great-grandmother stirred, her eyes fluttering open.

She made a little noise in her throat, and Charlotte stroked her hand, scared of how paper-thin the skin was, of what old age could do to a person.

She clutched her fingers and tried not to cry as she spoke to her, as she asked what she’d come here to say.

For there seemed no one else in the world who could understand the pain Charlotte was going through more than Amalie.

‘How did you survive a broken heart?’

Amalie was silent, her breath even and telling Charlotte that perhaps she’d fallen back to sleep, but a nurse came in then. Her smile was kind as she saw Charlotte’s tears, and she passed her a tissue box.

‘There’s nothing easy about seeing someone you love fade away,’ the nurse said. ‘Please don’t feel as if you have to hide your tears from me.’

Charlotte nodded politely, not about to tell her that her tears were for more than her great-grandmother.

‘Oh, and while I’m here, we found a letter among Amalie’s things today. We were searching for a photo she wanted, and we found this. I thought you or your grandmother might want it.’

Charlotte thanked her and took it, letting go of Amalie’s hand and settling back into the armchair beside the bed. Part of her wondered if she should have let her grandmother read it first, but her curiosity was too great.

To my darling daughter,

I’ve wrestled with telling you the truth every month, every year, every decade of your life, but something has always stopped me.

Your father was everything a father should be to their child—loving, kind, warm, respectful—and my reason for not telling you is because I never wanted to take any of that away from him.

I never wanted you to look at him differently or wonder about the decisions we made.

But the truth is that he was not your biological father, and that’s a secret we kept to protect you, and perhaps to protect him, too.

And as easy as it is to look back and wonder why the truth was never told, there is never a right time to reveal such a secret.

Once you’re a mother, you will understand that mothers will do anything to protect their child and not be parted from them.

I suppose I was always afraid that if I told you my secret, everything would fall apart, and I couldn’t stand to ever see you or your father with a broken heart, to shatter the wonderful bond that you shared.

Charlotte brushed away fresh tears and folded the letter, tucking it into her pocket so that she could give it to her grandmother when she went home.

‘Amalie,’ she whispered, leaning forwards and taking her hand again, thinking about the difficult decisions she’d been forced to make. ‘Amalie?’

The room suddenly felt empty, as if she was the only person there, and when Charlotte placed her palm gently on Amalie’s chest, her breath caught in her throat as the most terrifying feeling passed over her.

‘Amalie?’ she said, giving her a little shake with her hand. ‘Amalie!’

But Amalie didn’t move, and Charlotte knew then that she was gone. While she’d sat there and read her letter, she’d quietly slipped away.

‘Fly high, Amalie,’ Charlotte whispered, sitting back in the armchair and drawing her knees up to her chest as she stared at the white-haired little lady who’d shared so many secrets over her final days, tears openly falling now as her lower lip trembled. ‘We’re all going to miss you so much.’

Thank you, Charlotte thought. Thank you for telling us before it was too late. We’ll never forget the story that you shared with us.

If she hadn’t come home when she had, Charlotte would never have heard Amalie’s stories from the past; her secrets would have been lost forever.

And although she knew it had been painful for her grandmother to hear the truth about her conception, it was a story that deserved to be told.

Of a woman who’d loved two men, and who’d prospered when life had been so heavily stacked against her.

Who’d made a wonderful life for herself, despite her pain.