Page 42 of The Hidden Daughter (The Lost Daughters #7)
PRESENT DAY
Charlotte stopped outside her grandmother’s house and stretched, her body already aching from her run.
She’d started to run for longer and longer each day, pushing herself to her limits to clear her head each morning, and so far, it had been working.
Between running and work, she was too tired to lie awake each night in bed tossing and turning, and most of the time it kept her mind from pulling her back into the past. She’d wanted a fresh start in Oslo, and she was determined to give herself one, despite the rocky start she’d had.
It had been a few months now since Harrison had left, and it was still taking all her willpower not to think about him or google him to see what he was doing.
But now that enough time had passed, she was starting to see that she was absolutely fine on her own, just like she’d always been.
Her brother Erik had been to visit, keen to see the new hotel and even more interested in having a little family reunion of sorts now that she’d mended fences with their dad.
The sting of pain about the way Harrison had left was still there, but she’d begun to make her peace with it as best she could, moving on with her life and refusing to dwell on what could have been.
‘Morning.’ Her grandmother called out to her as she let herself back in. Charlotte lifted her head, surprised to smell something sweet in the air.
‘Morning,’ she called back, following her nose into the kitchen. ‘You’ve made us breakfast?’ Her grandmother wasn’t usually in the kitchen so early; she was usually tucked up in bed still with a good book.
‘Lotte, I think it’s time that we had a little talk.’
She groaned. This felt like being a teenager all over again. ‘I promise I’m moving out soon, I have an apartment to look at later today and—’
‘I don’t want you to move out,’ her grandmother said. ‘Actually, I think you should move out because no one wants to live with their grandmother at your age, but I want to make sure you’re okay. I’m worried about you.’
‘And you thought waffles and coffee was the way to get me to open up?’
Her grandmother laughed. ‘Did it work?’
‘It did, actually.’ Charlotte sighed and sat down at the table. ‘But honestly, if you’re worried about me, I’m fine. I have work, I’m fit, I have a shortlist of apartments to look at and—’
‘I’m not asking if you have your life together, Charlotte,’ her grandmother said as she set a plate in front of her and a steaming mug of black coffee, just how she liked it.
‘You left home at eighteen, I know you’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself, but I want to know how you’re feeling, or if there’s anything I can do for you. ’
She took a bite of waffle before speaking, wanting to think about how she answered her grandmother’s question.
‘Right now, I’m feeling like it’s impossible to have everything.
That what we’re told when we’re little girls, that we can do anything, is a lie.
Because I think it’s easier to do one thing well, and for me that’s my job.
I’m just lucky that I love what I do, and if I get lonely, I can always get a dog. ’
Her grandmother’s gaze softened and she sat down across from Charlotte. ‘You still miss him?’
Charlotte immediately had tears spring to her eyes, and she hated that just one mention of him could have that effect on her.
‘Like you wouldn’t believe. But I’m trying every day not to think about him.
I mean, how can I miss someone I only knew for such a short time?
It’s ridiculous, and I keep telling myself that. ’
Her grandmother patted her hand before rising and going over to the counter. She returned with her own plate of waffles and coffee.
‘It’s not the length of time we’re with someone, it’s the connection we have. Amalie’s story alone should have taught you that—the great love she had for a man she only spent one summer with, but whom she remembered clear as day all these decades later. You don’t have to pretend with me.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘I know, but I can’t compare what I had with Harrison to what she had with Oskar. It’s nothing like it.’
Her grandmother shrugged. ‘Maybe not, but maybe he was your Oskar? My point is, just because you’ve lost him, it doesn’t mean you can’t find happiness again.
If he was your Oskar, then maybe it means you have an Alexander waiting for you somewhere in the world.
Preferably in Oslo, of course, because I have no intention of letting you leave here again. ’
She leaned over and gave her grandmother a hug.
‘Well, in the meantime, I’m very happy to eat my feelings, so I’ll take waffles any morning they’re on offer.
I have no intention of letting any man break my heart ever again, or leaving here for the time being, so I’m very happy with being married to my work. ’
She could only imagine what her grandmother would have liked to say to that but, bless her, she just sighed and neglected to offer any further opinion on the topic.
And so they sat back and talked, eating, and Charlotte sipped her grandmother’s strong black coffee, and she couldn’t help but feel grateful for the time they were spending together.
It was the same with her father—ever since she’d arrived home, it truly felt as if she were catching up on lost time, and she wouldn’t have traded that for anything in the world.
Later that morning, having finally decided which apartment to rent, Charlotte signed the papers, meaning to take her grandmother furniture shopping with her the next day to celebrate.
But there was something else she wanted to do before it was time to get ready for work, and she knew that if she didn’t do it today, it would be one of those things that she might neglect forever.
She drove along the quiet street and parked farther down the road from the cemetery.
She’d almost turned around on the drive there, but Charlotte had forced herself to keep going, knowing that it was something she had to do.
And she’d wanted to come alone, so that she could sit quietly with her thoughts.
When she reached the gate, she stood for a moment before forcing herself forward, walking down the rows and trying to remember where to find her mother.
And then she found it. Only Charlotte had expected the stone to be covered in mud and dust, neglected for all the years she hadn’t been there.
Instead, she found a gravestone that had been recently wiped clean, with a small posy of flowers left there that had only just begun to wilt.
Saying she was surprised would have been an understatement.
Charlotte bent down, placing her hand on the stone and closing her eyes for a moment. Then she moved to her right, touching her fingertips lightly to the smaller stone beside it, the one that belonged to her baby sister.
She sat down on the grass and drew her knees up to her chin as she read their names.
I wish you were here, Mum. I wish we’d had the chance to reconnect like I have with Dad. I wish we’d had time to find our way back to each other. She sighed. I wish you’d never left us.
The thing that Charlotte would never know was whether her mother had ever wanted to reconnect.
When she’d left them, it had almost felt like a cruel magician’s trick.
One day she was there, the next she was gone.
There had been times when Charlotte’s grandmother had suggested that it was because her mother wasn’t right in her mind, that it had been losing her baby daughter that had tipped her over the edge and made her want to run away.
But Charlotte still didn’t know whether that was the reason, and she’d hated her for it all the more.
You still had me, Mum. You still had Erik, and we both needed you.
It wasn’t fair that you left us and started a new life with someone else.
She’d overheard her father on the phone one day having a heated conversation, and as a girl she’d often wondered what it was about, but as she’d grown, she’d come to understand that her mother had fought for the money she’d believed was hers.
She hadn’t fought for her kids, hadn’t returned for them and apologised for the pain she’d caused, but she’d fought for the money she needed to live.
That’s what had always made Charlotte wonder if losing her child had been an excuse, or the cause.
And the hard part was that she’d never know why; all she knew was that as a child she’d gone to school one day, and when she’d returned, she’d no longer had a mother. It had been akin to someone dying.
Whatever the reason, I just wish I’d had the chance to ask you why.
Charlotte hadn’t forgiven her mother so much as accepted what had happened so that she could make peace with her life, and she didn’t know whether she’d ever come back to visit her grave again, but she was pleased that she’d chosen to come today.
As she stood, looking down one last time, Charlotte reached into her pocket to take out her phone and call her father.
‘Hey, Dad,’ she said, when he answered.
‘I’m just heading in to see a patient, so I might have to call you back,’ he said. ‘Unless something’s wrong?’
She smiled into the phone. ‘Nothing’s wrong, I just…’ Charlotte took a breath. ‘I’m at the cemetery. I wanted to see Mum’s gravestone, and I noticed that someone has been tending the garden around it and keeping it clean.’
Charlotte waited, the silence deafening as she hoped he would say something.
‘You said something to me when you first came home, about worrying that you’d never have been able to forgive yourself if you hadn’t come back for her funeral, even after everything.
It made me realise that no matter how much she hurt us all, she was still your mother, and I wondered if I might not be able to forgive myself for not doing that one thing for you. ’