Page 39 of The Pieces of Us

The large hard-backed envelope is waiting for me when I get home from work the day after my inaugural sea swim.

It stands out among the usual junk mail, with PLEASE DO NOT BEND written along the bottom.

There’s a National Records of Scotland logo in the corner.

I hug it against my chest. There’s nothing and nobody stopping me from tearing it open.

Lena has taken Minnie to meet Ada at the park and Ruby is still at school, taking an extra study class for her next exam.

She’ll be the only twenty-two-week-pregnant pupil sitting Higher Maths but she seems to be taking it in her stride.

I don’t know what conversations she has with Lauren and Sophie about her future, but all I care about is that their bond is as tight as ever.

Her teachers are as supportive as I could hope for, and I’d have been disappointed if they weren’t.

Ruby is a good student who just happens to be pregnant.

I start to push at the corner of the envelope seal with my thumbnail. I’ve waited weeks for this. Once the seal is open, I stop before I go any further and walk into Minnie’s room.

With the envelope pressed against my chest, I look around at her things: the row of Irish nesting dolls on the window sill, the stacks of Argos catalogues against the wall, a lone jar of mint imperials on her bedside table, slippers peeking out from under her bed.

The photo collage, filled with faces of people who mean something.

I’ve added to it since Minnie moved in. There’s a photo of Lena, and one of Lisa and Charlie, grinning together over their fish and chips in my kitchen.

A recent one of Ruby and Sean to help Minnie remember the name of her great-grandchild’s father.

I sit at the kitchen table and search for Elvis Presley on Spotify. I listen to ‘It’s Now or Never’ with my eyes closed, thinking of a young, happy Minnie dancing around her ironing board on a Sunday evening.

Then I open the envelope.

The first place my eyes go to is the section for my parents’ names, and I’m immediately confused. According to what’s in front of me, Minnie and Hugh are my birth parents. But then I notice text in the margin:

Declaration of Corrections as of 4 December 1978: The birth parent names provided at the time of registration of the birth are incorrect. The correct birth parent names are as follows:

MOTHER: Elizabeth Sarah Muir

FATHER: Unknown

Elizabeth Sarah Muir. E. S. M. I rush to my bedroom, retrieve the bangle and curl my fingers round it. I was right.

Back in the kitchen, I take a photo of the certificate and send it to Lisa, then dial her number.

‘I’ve sent you a photo,’ I tell her. ‘Of my birth certificate.’

‘I’ve got it,’ she says. ‘Hang on … I’m looking. I’ll put you on speakerphone … I need to zoom in.’

I wait, staring at the piece of paper in front of me.

‘OK. I’m googling the name. Hold on,’ she says firmly. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I don’t know,’ I tell her. ‘This doesn’t feel real.’

I read the words in the margin again with a clearer mind.

‘Elizabeth Sarah Muir,’ I say the words out loud. My biological mother’s name. ‘Lis, I have a name. The initials. E. S. M … it’s the baby bangle. I knew it.’

I hear her intake of breath. ‘You did.’

I stare at the piece of paper again. FATHER: Unknown.

‘No father’s name,’ I murmur.

‘So Minnie and Hugh adopted you, but why were their names on your original birth certificate?’ Lisa says what I’m thinking.

‘A private adoption? Not legal? They obviously met Elizabeth at the very least … How else would Minnie have her baby bangle? And why did she keep it all these years and not tell me about her?’

‘That’s what we need to find out.’

‘Elizabeth Sarah Muir,’ I whisper. ‘Lisa, Minnie knew Beth. There was a connection. The way she speaks about her … there’s fondness there. And she had the bangle …’

‘I think you’re right,’ Lisa says. ‘You need to try again with Minnie.’

‘I will,’ I tell her. ‘But I can also try to find Beth myself.’ I open the web browser on my phone and type the name into the search bar with shaky fingers. ‘Wow. There are a lot of Elizabeth Muirs. This could take a while. I’ll try it with her middle name first. Hopefully she used it.’

‘I’ll keep searching too. Try Facebook. Listen, I need to join a study session. I love you. Let me know if you find anything?’

I scroll through a few pages of search results and am relieved to realize that there aren’t as many Elizabeth Sarah Muirs with a digital footprint.

But none of them fit. The sixty-two-year-old history professor from Vancouver is not my mother.

Nor is the twenty-eight-year-old single mother from Leeds or the fifty-five-year-old bank manager from London.

I dive as deep as I can into each Elizabeth Sarah Muir and can’t find even the most tenuous link to Glasgow around the time I was born.

Out of nowhere, Adagio for Strings blasts from the living room. ‘I could really do with some help here, Min,’ I mutter, forcing myself to abandon my search for now.

I find Minnie lying on the couch, her eyes closed, smiling. I wait until the music finishes, then turn down the volume on the iPad. ‘Hey, I feel like making some art. Want to join me?’

She sits up slowly and stuffs her feet into her slippers. ‘That sounds like fun.’

‘Great.’ I help her settle on the floor, then open a box of crayons and spread an old roll of lining paper – stored in the loft of Minnie’s house for decades – across the floor. Her hoarding habit comes in handy sometimes. ‘What shall we draw?’

She takes a blue crayon and draws a large childlike flower. ‘I know you like flowers,’ she says matter-of-factly.

‘I love flowers.’ I smile at her. I wish we could draw flowers together just for the fun of it, but there are things I need to know.

‘I like this big paper,’ Minnie tells me. ‘They should get this at the Memory Cafe. Their paper is far too small. Ridiculous.’ She’s ditched the blue crayon and opted for orange for enormous petals at the top of a skinny stem.

‘Brilliant flower, Min. Hey … I’ve got an idea. Shall we put some names inside the petals? Names of people we love.’

‘Like my photo wall?’

‘Exactly.’ I fill three petals with the names Minnie, Cat, Ruby. ‘OK. Who else?’

‘Ada,’ she says.

‘Ada! Yes, of course.’ I give Ada her own petal, then do the same for Lisa, Pete and Lena.

‘What about your new friend? The nice man who brought pizza.’

‘Asim … sure, why not?’ I still haven’t told Asim about Beth, for no other reason than his phone calls give me breathing space from the pressures in my life that occupy so much of my time and energy.

I talk to him about Minnie’s illness, of course, but even that tends to lift me up rather than drag me down.

I write Asim inside a petal with a flourish, and Minnie nods approvingly.

‘What about Beth? You’ve spoken about her. I’m wondering if she was special to you. I get the feeling that she was an important person.’

She screws up her face. ‘Beth.’

‘Yes, Beth. I think … her full name is Elizabeth?’

She laughs. ‘Well, you should know that.’

‘I should?’

‘Of course you should,’ she scoffs. She has a red crayon now and is using it to draw a row of fat hearts.

‘OK. Well, do you think we should write “Beth” or “Elizabeth”?’ I don’t want to push her too hard when there’s still a chance – however small – that she could actually offer something without being questioned too hard.

‘“Beth” is shorter,’ she says. ‘It will fit.’

‘You’re absolutely right,’ I tell her. ‘“Beth” fits perfectly inside your petal. I’m going to add it to this flower, beside your name and mine.’

‘I haven’t seen Beth for a while,’ she says.

My heart quickens. It takes all my effort to keep my voice calm. ‘Really? Can you remember how old you were when you last saw her?’

‘This age, of course.’ She makes no attempt to control her voice.

‘You saw Beth recently?’

‘I saw her this morning, silly.’ She laughs.

She’s talking about Ruby, of course; I feel like a fool for hoping for anything different.

‘You’re right. Silly me. Well, she’ll be home soon. You keep drawing those beautiful hearts and flowers and I’ll go and make us a cup of tea.’

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Can I have a biscuit as well?’

I return a few minutes later with the tea tray, the crucial packet of chocolate Hobnobs tucked under my arm.

‘I’ve written some more names.’ Minnie points to the paper, every inch of which is now covered in her shaky script.

Carol

Coleen

Ruth

Linda

Kaye

Nadia

Sherrie

Janet

Sheree

Jane

‘Have I forgotten someone? I always forget someone, don’t I?’ She reads the names out quietly to herself.

I wait for her to finish, then hand her a biscuit. ‘You’ve done a brilliant job, Min.’

She bites into the biscuit, her eyes still on her list. ‘ Denise . I can’t believe I forgot Denise. She makes me laugh so she does. Denise.’

‘And Denise is your … friend?’

‘Of course.’ Minnie grabs a crayon and writes Denise at the end of the list.

I know Minnie’s consultant would be delighted that she’s managed to remember the names of eleven Loose Women panellists. I hold on to that thought as I look at Beth’s name.

Hovering outside Ruby’s bedroom door after dinner, I’m met with silence. I don’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping, but I tell myself she’ll be listening to music with her headphones on and slowly open the door.

She does have her headphones on and is lying down with her hands resting lightly on her belly, her eyes closed. I unravel the blanket from the end of her bed and spread it over her.

‘Hey,’ she whispers, her eyes open.

‘Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ I say, but the truth is I want her attention. I need to tell her the huge thing I’ve been carrying around for weeks.

I sit at the edge of her bed, tuck the blanket round her. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘I’m good,’ she says, her eyes heavy. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was studying … Are you OK? Your face looks weird.’