Page 54 of The Pieces of Us

I open the living-room door slowly. She’s on the sofa, her finger tapping on the iPad.

‘Hey, Minnie.’ I sit beside her without removing my bag or taking off my coat.

She looks at me. ‘Hello, dear. I’m playing.’ Like it’s not the first time she’s seen me in four days.

‘I missed you,’ I tell her. ‘But Lena and Ruby tell me you’ve had a great time.’

‘I missed you too,’ she says. ‘Did you go somewhere?’

‘Yes, I did. I went to Ireland. I’m just back.’

‘You went to Ireland ? Whatever for?’

‘Well … I met some nice people there. A nice lady called Sandra.’ I say it casually, watching her face closely for a reaction.

‘I knew a Sandra once,’ she tells me without looking up from the screen.

‘You did?’

‘Yes. She worked at the butcher’s round from Woolworths. Had five weans at home. Run ragged, she was.’

This Sandra is not my Sandra. But that’s OK. I don’t need Minnie to answer any questions for me. I just need her to be here, and safe, and as happy as she can be. I now have all the information I need to contact Sandra in the hope that she can answer some of the questions that keep coming.

‘It’s dead.’ She sighs, sliding the iPad behind a cushion. ‘Do you want to play cards?’

‘I’d love to play cards, Minnie.’

I let her take the lead, picking up her unique rules surprisingly quickly. A single ace warrants a loud snap; whenever a heart appears the entire deck is gathered up, shuffled and split between us. We play until she starts yawning.

‘Do you want to have a nap, Minnie?’

She doesn’t reply, but lets me slip her neck pillow behind her head and spread a blanket over her legs. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ I whisper.

She shakes her head.

‘You know I love you, right?’ It’s all I want to say to her right now, and it’s because I want to hear her say it back to me. I want to take the words and wrap them in tissue paper, and keep them somewhere safe, like the adoption assessment that’s still in my underwear drawer.

She looks at me closely and lifts a hand to stroke my cheek. ‘Aren’t you beautiful?’ she says. ‘I’m so lucky.’

I clasp her hand against my face, and then she tells me all I need to know.

‘You’ll always be my baby.’

It’s amazing how quickly life goes back to normal, although the usual routine of working and caring for Minnie is peppered with reminders that a brand-new normal is on the way for all of us.

Ruby is thirty weeks pregnant – cabbage emojis aplenty – and spends most of her time fluctuating between mild panic and complete inertia.

It helps to take my mind off what happened in Donegal until I’m having a heart-to-heart with Lisa in my kitchen.

Or assembling a bouquet of roses for Pete that happen to be the same shade and plumpness as the ones in abundance in Myrna’s back garden.

Or watching Minnie enjoy the magic table with Jack at the Memory Cafe, while I drink and chat to Sam.

Our new friends. Sometimes Minnie’s face angles a certain way and it’s as if I’m looking at Sandra.

I’m slowly learning to be vulnerable with Asim, but the downside of feeling safe with a man – for the first time in my life – is that sometimes all the pain just overflows.

I love having Sandra and the promise of other family members in my life – whenever I’m ready for them – but the circumstances that brought me into the world cast a shadow I don’t know how to escape from.

So I focus on Ruby, and feel grateful for Sean and his steadfast commitment to bringing her jars of peanut butter and chocolate milkshakes and whatever else she can’t live without, and all the time, in the background, I’m thinking about Minnie, who’s been the mother I’ve needed all along.

Lisa thinks I should go to therapy. I tell her I’m too busy.

It’s time to shop for baby clothes, but Lena is sick and there’s nobody who can cover for her, so Ruby and I have no choice but to take Minnie with us.

‘We’re going to buy things for the baby,’ I tell her as I buckle her into the passenger seat.

‘Ooh, lovely,’ she says. ‘Boy or girl?’

I catch Ruby’s eye in the rear-view mirror before I start driving; we exchange a small smile. ‘We don’t know yet.’

‘OK,’ Minnie says. ‘Can we have songs?’

I’m just about to turn the radio on when Ruby pipes up. ‘I’ll Spotify. And you really need to get a new audio system in this car so I can Bluetooth it.’

‘I’ll add it to my list,’ I say, but she probably doesn’t hear me over Ed Sheeran.

‘You like this one, Gran?’ Ruby says.

‘Do I? Oh yes, I think I do.’ Minnie taps her fingers on her knees, not quite keeping the beat of the music. ‘Is he the Scottish one?’

‘No. You’re thinking of Paolo Nutini, maybe?’ I indicate and turn on to the road that will join the motorway in a few minutes.

‘He’s from Paisley,’ she says decisively.

‘Yes, that’s Paolo Nutini,’ I tell her.

‘Who?’

‘The singer from Paisley. We’re listening to Ed Sheeran.’

‘Who?’

Ruby has changed the song to one of Paolo Nutini’s, and it’s a good move.

‘The Scottish one,’ Minnie says approvingly.

‘Turn it up a bit,’ I tell Ruby, and for the rest of the journey Paolo’s voice is the only one in the car.

There’s no way Minnie can walk around the shopping centre, so our first task is to hire a wheelchair. ‘I want one like that,’ she says, pointing to a man heading swiftly towards the lift in a motorized chair.

‘Sure,’ I tell her, knowing fine well she can’t control a chair on her own, and that our only option is a manual model.

When Minnie is settled in the wheelchair, her red-leather handbag on her lap, Ruby nudges me out of the way. ‘I’ll push you, Gran.’

‘No running,’ I warn before they disappear.

‘Spoilsport,’ Ruby retaliates, and Minnie giggles. She giggles her way around Marks & Spencer, H&M and Gap, where we assemble a basic wardrobe of tiny garments in neutral colours, marvelling at the mere existence of a hoodie created for such a small body.

‘Ooh, you had a wee thing like that.’ Minnie’s wheelchair is the optimum height for yanking things off rails. She holds a tartan pinafore in the air. It has a pleated skirt and an embroidered heart on the bodice. ‘I’ll buy this.’

‘I wore something like that? When I was a baby?’ I put my hand over Ruby’s on the wheelchair handle. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’ Minnie nods, tracing the heart with her finger. ‘You had matching patent shoes with a strap. I always dressed you nice, so I did.’

‘I’m sure you did,’ I murmur, but she doesn’t hear me.

This isn’t a conversation for her – she’s on her own, in the memory. Back with me in my little tartan dress.

‘I remember waiting so patiently for your hair to grow, so I could put a matching bow in it as well. I’d lick my finger and run it across the top of your head, to see if any wee hairs would spring up.

Your dad used to take the mickey. A wee baldie, you were, until you were about two.

And then almost overnight all these gorgeous ringlets appeared. ’

Ruby grins. ‘Wee baldie Cat.’

‘This is just the same.’ Minnie turns her attention back to the pinafore. ‘I’m going to buy it for her.’

‘Gran, we don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy,’ Ruby says gently.

Minnie stares at her. ‘Of course she’s a girl. She might not have any hair, but she’s definitely a girl.’

I don’t even try to work out Minnie’s train of thought. She’s smiling, and that’s enough. ‘Let her buy it,’ I whisper to Ruby. ‘It’s important to her.’

We wheel Minnie to the till. ‘It’s for my little girl,’ she tells the sales assistant.

The young woman smiles. ‘It’s one of our best sellers.’

‘She doesn’t have any hair yet, mind you.’

The woman laughs politely. ‘Let me pop some tissue round it, keep it nice.’

‘Oh, aren’t you lovely?’ Minnie opens her handbag. ‘What’s the damage?’

‘Twenty-five pounds, please.’

‘Do you need some help, Gran?’ Ruby asks just as Minnie draws a fat roll of banknotes out of her bag, pulls off the elastic band and scatters several hundred pounds on the floor.

‘I think that’ll cover it,’ Ruby mutters.

I drop to my knees and start scooping up the notes. ‘Mum! What the – what is this? Where did you get all this money?’ I pause to slap a couple of twenties on to the counter. ‘I’m so sorry about this. Just give me a minute and we’ll be out of here.’

The sales assistant’s eyes are sympathetic as she hands me the change. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get someone to cover the till and I can help you.’

I give her a smile that I hope conveys my gratitude. ‘Ruby, take your gran out of here. Wait outside for me.’

‘That’s my pension!’ Minnie yells. ‘I’ve been saving for years.’

‘OK, OK.’ I stuff a handful of notes back into her handbag. ‘You stay here and keep an eye on us. Look on the floor and tell me if you see any notes, OK?’ I pat her hand.

‘Why don’t you hold this?’ The sales assistant leans over the counter, offers Minnie the crisp white paper bag with the tissue-wrapped tartan pinafore inside.

It’s the perfect distraction – she delves into the bag, rips open the parcel and starts stroking the fabric.

Ruby slowly moves the wheelchair backwards and they wait in a quiet corner of the shop until Minnie’s secret stash of cash is safely back in her bag.

‘I didn’t know Gran was loaded,’ Ruby says under her breath as we put as much distance as possible between ourselves and Gap.

I sigh. ‘Me neither.’

‘Could have been worse. She could have pulled anything out of that bag. Dirty knickers … a severed head.’

I laugh in spite of myself, and then I can’t stop. Ruby laughs too, and Minnie joins in, even though she’s got no idea what she’s laughing at.

We head to Next and Ruby tries her best to keep us seeing the funny side of things.

She stops the wheelchair at every mirror we pass and sticks her tongue out at Minnie, who returns the compliment.

By the time we’ve reached Primark for new pyjamas for Ruby, Minnie’s fed up using her tongue as an insult and starts sticking up her middle finger to every mirror.

‘Let’s go to Nando’s,’ I tell Ruby. ‘We’ll come back for your jammies after we’ve eaten.’

‘Really? Nando’s? Lit.’

‘What’s “lit”?’ Minnie demands as we do a U-turn out of the shop.

Ruby and I look at each other and laugh. ‘Nothing, Gran,’ she says. ‘It just means … that something’s great. We’re going to Nando’s and you’re paying. You’ll love their chicken. You can eat it with your hands.’

‘I can? Lit .’

Minnie goes straight to bed when we get home, the tartan pinafore tucked under one arm and her handbag full of banknotes under the other. As soon as she’s asleep I’ll take care of that. And tomorrow the cash will be in her bank account.

I’m putting together a quick dinner when Ruby takes me by surprise. Her arms slip round my waist, forming a snug circle.

I smile, turning my head to plant a quick kiss on her cheek. ‘Hey.’

‘Today was fun.’

‘It was. And eventful.’

She laughs. ‘Gran’s so extra. That cash …’

The original plan had been for Ruby and me to spend a few hours at the shopping centre.

Work our way through the list and grab a bite to eat.

Exactly what we did with Minnie in tow – but with no scrambling around on the floor of Gap to retrieve the pension Minnie’s clearly been squirrelling away for years, no flipping the bird around Primark, no tartan pinafore nostalgia.

‘Is it weird when Gran talks about you being a baby?’

‘It is,’ I admit. ‘Or maybe not weird. Just different. I love hearing her old memories. Even when she reminds me I had a bald head. But part of me will always think about how different things might have been.’

‘If Beth had kept you, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Ruby knows everything now, after weeks of chatting during private moments.

Curious questions about her biological grandmother sometimes led to difficult details.

Initially I wasn’t sure how much to tell her about what happened to Beth.

Ruby might be having a baby of her own, but she’s still only sixteen – just like her biological grandmother was when she gave birth to me.

Ultimately I decided that Minnie keeping secrets from me – however good her intentions were – wasn’t something I wanted to repeat with my own daughter.

‘You’re so brave, Mum,’ she says, tightening her hold round my waist.

I lower the heat under the broccoli, stir the baked beans, trying to move my arms but keep my body still. I don’t want to break the circle of my daughter’s arms.

Ruby goes straight to her room after dinner. After I’ve seen to Minnie, I go to say goodnight. She’s sitting on her bed, staring at her knees.

‘Mum.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m shitting myself.’

I do the only thing that will make us comfortable in the space – lift my arm and let her lean against me.

Her body is warm, her breathing shallow.

‘Of course you are. Being pregnant is scary. I was terrified when I was pregnant with you. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

But do you know what? As soon as I held you for the first time, it all just made sense. ’

‘In what way?’

I stroke her ponytail. ‘I mean … that I knew you right away.’

She laughs. ‘I should think so. I’m your kid.’

‘You’ll see.’

‘What was it like, giving birth?’

‘Honestly? It hurt like hell, Rubes. But it’s a completely unique kind of pain.

One that turned into the most surreal, magical experience of my life.

Minnie was there when you were born, rubbing my back and reminding me to breathe.

In the meantime she had everyone and their granny trying to get hold of your dad.

He got there just after you were born.’ I lose myself in the memory, adding details as I remember them: getting cross with the maternity nurses who kept telling me to walk around to get things moving, feeling like she was going to fall out of me with every step I took, even though I was only two centimetres dilated.

Hearing the woman who arrived on the ward to have her second set of twins begging the nurses to let her have one more night before being induced because it was the first time she’d had a break from her two-year-old sons, and soon she’d have four boys to look after.

‘Then her waters broke and she was wheeled away, still pleading for an hour to read her magazine.’ I laugh and look down at Ruby.

She’s fast asleep.