Page 15 of The Pieces of Us

I leave them alone to catch up over a tray of tea and biscuits, Minnie still admiring the earrings.

Half an hour later, Ada appears in the kitchen and joins me at the table, where I’m reading an article about late-stage Alzheimer’s.

I probably shouldn’t but I can’t help myself.

I figure it’s better than ending up down yet another adoption rabbit hole.

‘She’s nodded off,’ Ada says.

I sigh. ‘It’s happening more and more. Some of her pills make her sleepy. And I think just living with the illness is exhausting. Trying to remember things to make sense of what’s going on. To do the impossible.’

Ada clasps her hands round one of mine and her grip is strong, releasing more tears.

It’s comforting, but feeling how strong Ada is reminds me that Minnie is not.

Her hands are often tightly clenched, like a boxer’s fists.

I have to keep her fingernails trimmed short to avoid cuts in her palms and have Ruby’s Build-A-Bear there to encourage her fingers to soften, to take hold of its velvety paw.

If Minnie is profoundly anxious, her hands go like the clappers: wringing, rubbing, pulling at her clothes.

And then there are the tremors – an unavoidable side effect of her medication, we’ve been told.

I’ve always told Ruby that her gran’s hands helped to guide her into the world. That Minnie was the first person to see Ruby’s face.

‘She’s absolutely beautiful, Cat,’ she sobbed.

‘She?’ I started crying too, my arms shaking on the bed.

‘You’re not done yet, Cat,’ my midwife said. ‘We’ve still got the body to go.’

‘You said she !’ I yelled at Minnie. ‘How do you know she’s a she ?!’

‘I just know,’ she said, and I could tell she was smiling even though I couldn’t see her face. She placed her hands on my back, just under my ribcage, and held me. I pushed against her, and my daughter made her entrance.

From that transformative November night Minnie’s hands were our anchors.

They comforted us, nourished us, supported us, guided us through all the challenges and heartaches of our specific brand of single parenting – spectacular on the best days, merciless on the worst. It was always intense, but Minnie acted as a buffer, a peacekeeper, a distraction, an occasional bad cop to make me seem like the not-so-bad cop.

In Tomás’s absence, Minnie was my ear when I needed to talk about schoolwork, bounce ideas around, vent about behaviour, surrender in the face of pre-teen hormones.

Sometimes I dream about Minnie’s hands on my back, but it’s not a dream about childbirth. I’m simply lying down with her palms pressed against my spine, flooding my whole body with warmth. It’s wonderful. In the dream there are no doubts that she’s my mother.

‘Let the tears flow, pet,’ Ada says softly. ‘Better out than in. Here –’ She rummages in her pocket for a tissue, still pinning me to the table with one strong hand.

‘Sorry, Ada.’ I blow my nose with my free hand.

‘I’m here to help, pet. You know that, right?’

I nod and look at her with heavy eyes. If Minnie had shared her deepest secret with anyone, it would have been Ada.

Not much in my past runs as deep or as dark as a secret adoption, but I’ve certainly confessed things to Lisa that I’ve made her promise to take to her grave.

I wonder if Ada ever made the same promise to Minnie, and if she would break it now.

‘Ada, I need to tell you something.’

‘Of course, pet.’

It doesn’t take long to fill her in – I still know none of the why .

Ada stares at me. ‘I don’t understand.’

I breathe through the rush of disappointment. It’s clear that she knows nothing. ‘Me neither. I don’t understand any of it.’

‘Have you asked her about it?’

‘She doesn’t know what day it is, Ada. I’ve tried to ask … it’s impossible.’

Ada would do anything to help. I know she would.

She’s from a generation of women who sorted things out, who just got on with it and made it better, against all odds.

But this is a problem that can’t be solved with a stoical attitude or elbow grease or an unfaltering belief that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger .

‘When did you meet Minnie?’ I ask her.

She nods, understanding that if I get answers to enough basic questions, I might be lucky enough to stumble across the right one.

‘It was the early eighties. She’d been at Woolworths six months when I got the job.

You’d just started school – your dad had died only the year before.

’ She wrinkles her brow, concentrating on the past. I give her time, thinking of Minnie dressed for work in navy blue and white.

My school uniform, over my white shirt, was the same shade of blue.

‘We’re twins,’ she’d say as she brushed my hair in front of the hall mirror.

She used to bring me home pick and mix from her Friday shift.

When seven-inch singles replaced fizzy cola bottles as my number-one pocket money splurge, she always gave me a list of the month’s new releases.

‘She never said anything to you that suggested I was adopted? Even indirectly? The slightest wee thing that sounded strange to you?’

‘She didn’t, Cat. I’m so sorry, pet.’ Ada sighs. ‘I know I’m getting on a bit, but I wouldn’t forget something like that.’

‘You’re as sharp as a tack, Ada,’ I tell her, and another image appears: her and Minnie deep in conversation over white wine at our breakfast bar.

I’d listen to them talk about cover-ups in the Catholic Church, the Iron Lady vs the miners, the Lockerbie bombing, not understanding much but absorbed in their passionate voices.

Those two could have run the world if they hadn’t worked in Woolworths.

They talked about everything, so why not this?

I breathe deeply, trying to focus my mind. ‘Was there anyone in Minnie’s life at that point she might have confided in? Other friends?’

‘Everyone liked her, pet. But she didn’t have a lot of time for a social life. All her free time revolved around you.’

If Minnie didn’t share her secret with Ada, it’s unlikely she’d have shared it with anyone else. ‘Oh God, Ada.’ I put my head in my hands. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Can you try to speak to your mum again, love? Even if she can tell you the smallest thing … It’s worth a try, no?’

‘It’s not that easy, Ada. She … she’s not the same woman.

’ She’s not the woman who worked in Woolworths on Dumbarton Road until its doors closed for the final time.

She’s not the woman who wasn’t one syllable off beat when she sang nearly all six minutes of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ .

She’s not the woman who took everything life threw at us in her stride, who made motherhood seem easy, who could more than hold her own in the headmaster’s office, who was the most quick-witted person I knew.

She’s her closest friend, but Ada doesn’t know the woman Minnie is now.

She sees glimpses of the distress and the confusion and the anxiety and the rapid mood swings.

She’s heard the repetitive questions and noticed the muscle weakness.

But she’s not there when Minnie refuses to get out of the bath and starts thrashing her arms and legs when I try to lift her.

When she stares at the walls, at the giant spiders she believes are running up and down them.

When she hangs off the handle on the inside of the front door, begging me to release her.

When her desperate wails wake me up during the night and it takes me a moment to realize it’s my mother and not my daughter crying out for help.

Minnie’s still asleep when Ada leaves. ‘Leave her be, pet,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back next week. You call if you need anything, you hear me?’

I hug her and stand at my front door until she’s at the bottom of the stairs, then don’t know what to do with myself, so I start cleaning the flat.

By the time Ruby gets home from school, it’s spotless.

It wasn’t quite the same as Pete’s mindful flower arranging, but focusing on eradicating every smudge, stain and speck of dust from our home helped keep my mind busy.

Ruby slams the front door behind her, her phone glued to her ear as she complains loudly about something that happened in geography.

She gives me a wave, but takes the rant straight into her bedroom, emerging an hour later to ask what’s for dinner.

I feel a pang of guilt that I’ve been so preoccupied by thoughts of adoption that I haven’t been paying as much attention to her as I normally would.

‘Pizza?’

‘Sure.’

‘Stay and chat to me? It won’t take long to cook.’

She pulls a face. ‘I’m tired. I’ll go and sit with Gran.’

I’m always pleased when she spends time with Minnie, but I’m beginning to wonder whether there’s more to this than being a doting granddaughter.

I don’t doubt that she adores Minnie, but Ruby knows if she stays in the kitchen with me, there’s a high likelihood of being asked what’s wrong.

On the contrary, the living room is an interrogation-free zone while Minnie’s around.

Twenty minutes later, the pizza is on the table. For once I don’t try to make conversation until after our plates are empty. When Minnie asks to watch ‘the dancing show’, I jump at the chance to sit in front of the television and be distracted by dramatic moves and flamboyant costumes.

We choose an episode of Strictly Come Dancing from several years ago. ‘I used to do that,’ Minnie says matter-of-factly without taking her eyes off the screen, her hand in the bowl of popcorn wedged between her and Ruby on the couch. The sequinned couple move as one, swaying hips and electric feet.

‘You can rumba?’ Ruby says through a mouthful of popcorn.

Minnie laughs. ‘What’s rumba?’

‘It’s that, Gran.’ Ruby points at the television. ‘What they’re doing.’

‘Oh no, I did the jive. With your papa.’

I stare at her. ‘You and Dad danced?’

‘We were the best in the class,’ Minnie says proudly. ‘The jive was our favourite. He wasn’t a tall man, you know. Felt most comfortable out of hold.’

I wonder if what Minnie’s telling us is true. ‘You’ve never told me that. Why have you never told me that?’

She shrugs. ‘Maybe you weren’t listening.’

‘Cheers,’ I mutter, but I acknowledge that it could be true, that maybe I didn’t listen enough when I should have, when there were things to hear that were worth remembering. Before I knew how precious these snippets of her past life would be. What else have I missed over the years?

‘Maybe someone will do the jive,’ Ruby says. ‘You can give us your expert opinion, Gran. We need to get you a score paddle.’

‘The old bloke is my favourite. Se-VEN!’

‘Len,’ Ruby tells her.

‘It’s the waltz now,’ says Minnie. ‘Would you look at that dress? Fit for a princess, that is. Ooh, look at her footwork.’

I nudge Ruby. ‘Gran’s clearly decided she’s the head judge.’

We watch the rest of the show, trying to predict the scores, cheering when the occasional ten is revealed, Ruby educating me – amid much eye-rolling – on the celebrities I don’t recognize. I’ll take the eye-rolling over the lack of communication any day.

Finally it’s time for the jive. The celebrity dancer, a male newsreader I do recognize, is agonizingly out of time and out of breath. It’s the worst dance of the night, but Minnie’s face is glowing.

‘He’s rubbish,’ Ruby whispers to me. ‘Looks like he’s going to fall over his own feet. Or kick the pro dancer in the shin.’

I smile. ‘Shoosh.’

Minnie doesn’t agree with our critique. She claps along with the studio audience with more enthusiasm than she gave the top-scoring dancers. It’s not the pigeon-toed newsreader she’s applauding, I realize. It’s Hugh, the man I don’t remember, who will always be the world’s best jive dancer.

‘Well, wasn’t that wonderful?’ Minnie says as the judges apologetically display four ‘5’ paddles. ‘Can we watch it again?’

She looks happy, excited but also relaxed. The last thing I want to do is burst her bubble.

‘I don’t mind watching another one,’ Ruby says.

‘Let’s do it,’ I tell her.

I try to tease some details out of Minnie.

How did she and Hugh get into dancing? Where did they do it?

When? For how long? Did they have friends there?

I hear the tension grow in my voice with each question, along with desperation to find out something about their early marriage, their lives before I came along.

Minnie looks at me blankly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says. She forms the words slowly and carefully, as if she’s trying to find a missing piece. Figure out why she doesn’t know. It’s too much for her, of course.

Ruby saves the day. ‘Do we need more popcorn, Gran? Do you want a drink?’

‘Ooh, I’d love a wee sherry.’

Ruby looks at me and I nod. ‘There’s a bottle of Croft Original in one of the kitchen cupboards.’

The three of us watch another episode of Strictly until Minnie’s breathing intensifies and her head tips forward. Ruby’s still awake but looks exhausted. ‘Get to bed, sweetheart,’ I urge, and she doesn’t argue.

It’s not often we sit like this, Minnie and me.

She falls asleep here at least twice a day, oblivious to the chaos of daily life elsewhere in the flat.

I can’t remember the last time I relaxed into the experience of being next to her, listening to her breath, feeling the soft, springy hair on the top of her head against my cheek.

I should take her to her bed, and then take myself to mine. ‘Two more minutes,’ I whisper to myself. I manage to pull the crocheted blanket over us without waking her up, then let my head sink against the back of the couch.

When I open my eyes I don’t know how much time has passed, but neither of us has moved.

Minnie is snoring softly. I don’t want to wake her, but I know how important it is to stick to her routine.

I squeeze her hand. ‘Min, it’s bedtime.’ I squeeze and speak, squeeze and speak, until she lifts her head from my shoulder and lets me pull her to her feet.

‘What’s happened?’ she croaks as we head for the bathroom. ‘Where is she?’

‘Ruby’s in bed. We watched Strictly and you fell asleep. Then I fell asleep. We both must be tired.’

‘ Strictly ?’

‘The TV show … the dancing. You love it. You were telling me about jiving with my dad.’

She looks up at me. ‘Eh? What are you talking about?’

I shake my head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Let’s brush your teeth and get you tucked up in bed, yeah?’

She doesn’t resist, and we go through the motions without fuss. She even lets me wipe the toothpaste from under her bottom lip with a flannel.

‘We were dancing,’ she says as I’m helping her into bed.

My heart lifts. ‘You and Dad?’

‘Yes.’ She smiles. ‘Me and your dad.’