Page 52 of The Pieces of Us

‘And here I am now. With you, in the garden of a B & B in Donegal. It’s crazy.’

We’re both exhausted. She squeezes my hand. ‘It’s late, and you must be worn out. Could we meet again tomorrow?’

‘I would love that, Sandra.’

‘I’m going to get some of Beth’s things together for you this evening. I only have a few bits, but they belong with you. And … can I let our brothers and sisters know you’re here? Don’t worry – none of them live nearby. I’m sure I’m more than enough for you to deal with right now.’

I laugh, feeling the swell of another wave of emotion. ‘I’m so happy I found you, Sandra. Of course you can.’

I walk her out to the street, to her red Mini.

‘I need to let you go, before I ask you a million more questions.’ I don’t want her to leave.

I want to sit with her all night and find out everything about Beth, and her parents, and her brothers and sisters.

I want Sandra to recreate every scene so that I can try to slip into it.

I want to know what kind of girl Beth was and what she liked and what she dreamed of.

More than anything, I want to understand more of the story of my birth and everything that came after it.

But I say goodbye and watch the car until it’s out of sight.

I run up the stairs, my mind spinning, burst into our room. ‘Beth’s dead,’ I gasp, and it’s now that my legs collapse.

‘ What? ’ Asim’s by my side, helping me on to the bed. ‘Are you being serious?’

I tell him everything I know, my new reality starting to sink in. ‘I’d never really thought about the possibility that Beth might not be alive,’ I sob. ‘I’m so stupid.’

‘Hey.’ He takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look at him. ‘That’s the last thing you are.’

‘I’m sorry about before. I just …’

‘Shhh.’ Still holding my chin, he gently places his finger over my lips. ‘There’s no need, Cat. Whatever is happening between us is nothing compared to everything else.’

‘I don’t agree,’ I tell him. ‘You’re here. You’re with me. That’s amazing. The last thing I want is for you to think I don’t appreciate you. I just find it hard to show you that.’

‘I know.’ He pulls me towards him and I let myself relax against his body.

‘Asim …’ I lift my head and press my lips against his, and I know exactly what I need in this moment.

There’s no room for uncertainty. We gasp and giggle like teenagers, locking the door, closing the curtains, unbuttoning and unzipping.

‘Does this mean we’re friends again?’ His mouth is in my hair, his hands on the small of my back. There’s a current of something new in his voice.

‘We’re much more than friends,’ I tell him, before my mouth is back on his, before there’s no space between our skin.

I wake up with my mouth pressed against his bare shoulder. ‘Wow. How long have I been asleep?’

He strokes my back. ‘You’ve been drooling on me for at least half an hour.’

I groan and pull the cover over my head. ‘ Don’t. ’

He laughs. ‘It’s cute. I now know that you sleep with your mouth open and you drool.’ He pulls me into him. ‘Careful you don’t fall out. This bed is not made for two.’

I take the excuse to move closer.

‘Are you OK, Cat?’

‘I’m very OK, Asim.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he murmurs.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him. ‘I can’t promise I won’t push you away again. But I promise to try really hard not to.’

‘I’ll take that,’ he says, stroking my shoulder.

‘I don’t want to move, but I need to pee,’ I say with a laugh, sitting up and grabbing his T-shirt from the floor. ‘I’ll be back.’

In front of the bathroom mirror I look at my flushed cheeks, my tousled hair, Asim’s soft grey T-shirt against my skin. It’s been a while, Cat McAllister .

Sandra is back in her red Mini the next morning. ‘Cat, can I take you somewhere? It’s only a few minutes away. It’s beautiful, and it was important to Beth.’

I nod, knowing exactly where she’s going to take me. I wave to Asim standing at the front door of the B & B.

‘Is he …?’ Sandra’s voice trails off. My aunt, who knows nothing about my life.

‘Maybe,’ I tell her. Maybe .

She follows the winding path towards the coast. Sticking to getting-to-know-you chit-chat, I learn that she has two children, a son and a daughter, both studying at University College Dublin.

She lives with her husband, Peter – a carpenter – in a village about twenty minutes away.

I’m waiting for her to say more when my eyes are drawn to the ancient arches, carved out of rock, that have appeared in front of us.

‘We’re here,’ Sandra says. ‘We’ll walk and talk. This place is a little piece of Beth.’

‘It’s the Fairy Bridges. From the postcard.’

‘They’re our star attraction. Thousands of years old and the views are amazing. When the tide is high, the seawater blows up through the holes. It’s quite something.’

We walk the short distance from the car park. ‘Beth came here?’ I try to picture her on the cliffside, looking down at the Atlantic Ocean, seeing what I see.

‘All the time.’

‘Thank you for bringing me,’ I say.

‘You really do look like her,’ she tells me.

I stare at the faraway cliffs. ‘I always thought I looked like Minnie.’

‘Well, she and Beth were similar. Slim, dark hair, big green eyes.’

We spread our coats on the grass and sit down together. I hug my knees to my chest and watch the sea, waiting for Sandra to speak.

She starts with more details about Beth’s pregnancy, the lengths their parents went to, to keep it a secret. Beth’s sisters and brothers thought she was at college when she was in the home for unmarried mothers, living with nuns.

‘We grew up in a very traditional family, Cat. Which wasn’t unusual at that time in a town like ours. Our parents loved us, but they had high standards. And our mother was very religious. It was never an option for Beth to keep her baby. Or for the pregnancy not to be a secret.’

‘How did Minnie – Mary – come into this?’ I ask her. I’m trying hard not to interrupt, but the questions are firing into my mind like rockets.

‘Mary couldn’t have children. She and Hugh tried, had all sorts of tests. The doctors told them there was no hope. You were the best gift anybody could have given them.’ She doesn’t add that the decision was taken away from Beth, but that much is clear.

‘My dad died when I was three,’ I tell her.

‘Oh, Cat. I didn’t know that. There was no contact between us by that time. I’m so sorry. We were at their wedding. Hugh was a lovely man.’

‘He was,’ I agree.

‘Beth missed you so much, Cat.’ Sandra looks at me with tears in her eyes, and I cling to her words, trying to wrap them round the sadness and loss and crushing defeat I’m carrying. I’ll never hear any of this from Beth herself and that makes my heart break.

‘I don’t understand, Sandra. Minnie was your cousin. Why the big secret? Why no contact? The note inside the nesting doll … asking Minnie not to tell me about her …’

Sandra nods. ‘Beth sent her the dolls. For you, really. Something from Ireland. But she found it too difficult to stay in touch. She was so young, Cat.’

‘And Minnie did what Beth asked her to do,’ I murmur. ‘She never told me anything.’ I run through everything Sandra’s told me in my mind, but it’s still not fitting together.

‘I tried to find a record of my adoption – I was told there’s none. But there was a social services assessment … where does that come into it all? And the correction on my birth certificate?’

She sighs. ‘I can’t say for sure, Cat. But it sounds like Mary wanted to put things right.

To acknowledge Beth as your birth mother.

To make that aspect official, at least. Beth should have been named as your mother on your birth certificate.

But my parents wanted there to be no trace of her pregnancy. ’

‘I guess that makes sense.’ More questions spill out of me.

Did Beth have any other children? Did she ever get married?

Sandra shakes her head no to both. ‘But she found a wonderful love,’ she says.

‘She lived in Belfast with Emily for fifteen years. Emily’s still there now.

I know she’ll want to meet you. When you’re ready. ’

‘And my father, Sandra, do you have no idea who he is? I assume he was a local boy?’

She looks away, across the ocean. ‘Not exactly, Cat.’

‘Tell me,’ I urge her.

‘Just before she turned sixteen, Beth started working for a local man for a few hours a week. He was powerful and had a lot of influence in the community. He was someone my parents wanted to impress.’

I can see her face changing, her eyes getting heavier.

‘Our parents never spoke about him, not a word. But Beth shared a lot with me in the few years before she died. And I do remember things. Things that didn’t mean much at the time.

I’ve often wished she’d confided in me, but I’m not sure what good it would have done. I was even younger than she was.’

‘How old was he?’

‘I’m not sure. In his forties at least.’ I wait for her to say it. To leave no doubt in my mind. ‘He groomed her, Cat. We didn’t even have a name for it back then. She had no idea what was going on.’

‘Did he rape her?’ I lace my fingers together and squeeze down on to my hands. It was one thing to accept that I was the result of a mistake. This is something else altogether.

‘He did, Cat.’

‘So Beth was sent away to have me. Forced to give me up. Punished. What happened to him?’ I stare at the water. He’ll never be my father. He’s a menacing grip, a shock of frigid air, a long, dark shadow.

‘He and his wife moved up north not long after Beth got pregnant. I heard they moved abroad eventually. Canada, I think.’

‘Did you meet him?’

She nods. ‘There was something about him that made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Years later, I found a book. Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer . With an inscription on the inside cover. It didn’t make sense to me then.’

‘What did it say?’

‘ For Beth, my miracle .’

I wait, the revulsion building.

‘It’s a reference to the book,’ she says, her voice faltering. ‘ My miracle .’

She’s crying heavy tears now. ‘Everybody thought they were doing the right thing. Believe me, I’ve been angry too. I’m so sorry, Cat. For everything.’

‘You don’t need to apologize,’ I whisper.

‘Someone does.’

I put my arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry too. That it’s falling on you to tell me all this.’

‘I have so many amazing things to tell you about Beth,’ she says. ‘She was a wonderful woman, Cat. She dedicated her life to charity, helping women and children. She made a difference. I was – am – so proud of her.’

‘What did she like? When she was a teenager? Before she had me. Before … him.’

Sandra smiles. ‘She loved music. Joni Mitchell. The Carpenters. But ABBA the most. It was always ABBA.’

‘I don’t mind a bit of ABBA.’ I put my hand in my pocket for a tissue, remembering what I tucked in there this morning.

Sandra lifts the baby bangle from my outstretched palm. ‘Elizabeth Sarah Muir. A gift from Nana. Beth wanted Mary to have it for you. I’m so glad it found its way to you eventually, Cat. And the postcard. The note. They’re all little pieces of you. Of Beth.’

We talk for another hour, dipping into lots of different conversations that could take a lifetime to finish, until we start to get cold. I help Sandra to her feet and drape her coat over her shoulders. ‘I’ve kept you out here too long. Let’s go.’

‘Wait. I want to show you something else before we leave.’ She starts walking – slow, deliberate steps across the bridge – and stops at a carved stone seat. ‘Bundoran’s Wishing Chair,’ she says. ‘You might think it’s all nonsense. But I’d love you to make a wish.’

‘When in Rome …’

She smiles through her tears. ‘Exactly. So, sit down slowly, hold on to both arms and take a minute to appreciate the scenery, then make a wish – but don’t say it out loud. And if you don’t feel completely stupid by this point, tap the chair twice when you stand up. It sets the wish apparently.’

‘This is a bit more complicated than blowing out birthday cake candles.’

‘Beth sat there,’ she tells me as I sink on to the grass.

‘I hope her wish came true,’ I say.

‘And I hope yours does, Cat.’ She turns away, leaving me to reflect.

I make my wish and tap the chair twice, and then I close my eyes and think of Beth.