Page 24 of The Spanish Daughter (The Lost Daughters #5)

23

LONDON, 1939

Valentina felt as if her heart was being torn in half. Her daughter had come into the world with a cry as fierce as a lion, her little fist thrust into the air defiantly as her eyes had slowly come to focus on her mother. And now, ten days later, Valentina already couldn’t imagine a moment without her daughter by her side, tucked into her arms. She fed vigorously as if the world depended upon it, slept fitfully, and spent most of her waking hours gazing at her mother, as Valentina did in return. She wanted to memorise every inch of her face, to never forget the softness of her head and the sweet smell of her breath, the thrust of her little fist in the air or the warmth of her tiny body tucked against hers.

Which was why five days had turned into seven, and seven had turned into fourteen. It was proving impossible to leave her beautiful daughter behind, but thankfully Hope had never questioned her, instead letting her spend every precious moment with her daughter.

‘Valentina,’ Hope said, knocking softly against the wood as she stood in the open doorway. ‘Could we talk for a moment?’

Valentina immediately moved over on the bed so Hope could come and sit beside her. In the time that she’d lived at Hope’s House, she’d come to see what a compassionate, loving woman Hope was, and she knew that she’d miss her for a long time to come once she did finally leave. Their ages might not be so far apart, but Hope had felt like the big sister she’d wished she’d always had—always seeming to know the right thing to say.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to leave her,’ Valentina whispered.

‘You’re certain there’s not a way that you could take her with you?’ Hope asked, gently. ‘I’ve never said this to any of my other mothers before, but is there any way you could keep her hidden in Argentina until you’re ready? Do you have any relatives you could call on while you sort through your family’s affairs?’

Valentina forced her gaze from her daughter’s face. ‘I’ve gone over this countless times in my mind, trying to figure out a way to keep her with me, but if I don’t succeed at keeping her concealed, then there’s no way my marriage could be annulled. We would be forced to return to my husband, both of us, and the only way I’d ever be able to divorce him would be if I left her with him. And I can’t do that. I won’t do that.’

Hope nodded. ‘I understand, I promise I do. I was only trying to think of a different way for you, if that’s what you wanted.’

Valentina thought of the last correspondence she’d had from her lawyer, and of her dwindling funds. Without his help, she wouldn’t have even been able to pay her passage back to Buenos Aires to fight her mother. There was no way she could take her daughter with her, as much as she wished she could. And the ongoing war in Europe had made everything difficult, particularly travel.

‘I don’t know if it will take weeks, months or even years to fight my family and receive my annulment,’ she said. ‘I have to actually make it home, we have to go through the courts, and?—’

‘Valentina, you know what’s best for you and your baby,’ Hope said. ‘I was only asking because your situation is so different to many of the other young women I help. I keep thinking about you asking me to keep her, that first day we met.’

‘She has to be a secret,’ Valentina murmured, her eyes fixed on her daughter again. ‘She’s the most precious thing in my life, but no one can know about her. No one can discover that I’ve had a baby.’ It wasn’t just her husband, it was the judges she would have to stand in front of, too. She had to plead her case as her father’s only child, an innocent young woman who’d been forced into a marriage that hadn’t been consummated, and who was ready to step into her father’s shoes. For a price, her husband would go along with it, of that she was almost certain, but not if he knew they had a child.

‘I want you to search for the best family for her,’ Valentina said. ‘If you find that family, then you’re to place her with them, and I will leave the box behind for her to discover when she’s older. It was selfish of me asking if you could look after her until I return, when I don’t have any idea when I’d be able to come for her.’

‘I will wait, for as long as I can,’ Hope said. ‘But I understand what you’re telling me. If the perfect family comes along…’

Hope’s eyes met hers, and Valentina couldn’t help but see they were filled with tears. She reached out and Hope took her hand, holding it tightly.

‘I don’t presume this ever gets any easier for you, does it?’ Valentina asked.

‘Some of the girls want to have their baby and get out of here as quickly as possible, almost as if they want to forget the entire ordeal and pretend it never happened,’ Hope said. ‘But sometimes, most times, the pain of separation is almost too much for the mother to bear. I have to tell myself each time that my job is to take some of that pain, to let them know that everything will be all right. Because it will be. No matter how bad the pain is, each day will get a little easier, until the loss becomes a simmer inside of you that somehow you learn to live with.’

Tears began to fill Valentina’s eyes. It sounded to her as if Hope knew her pain, as if she’d experienced something similar herself, which made her curious all over again. But Hope had never volunteered any information on why she’d started her house, and Valentina didn’t want to ask her.

‘I keep telling myself that I’m doing this for her, but in truth, I’m doing it for me. We could stay together, we could run away and never be found?—’

‘But what sort of life would you have together?’ Hope said softly. ‘There is no shame in acknowledging that you can’t give her the life she deserves, the life you want her to have.’

‘Exactly,’ Valentina said. ‘She deserves better.’

They sat in silence for a long moment, with Hope reaching out to stroke the top of the baby’s head as Valentina watched on.

‘Only the very best family for her,’ Valentina whispered, as her tears fell onto the baby’s blanket. ‘I want to watch her from afar and know that she’s better with them than she would have been with me. I want her to have a loving mother and father, parents who will cherish her.’

‘I promise, she will not leave this house with anyone less than wonderful. You can trust me, Valentina, I promise you can. I promised the very first young woman I helped not so long ago, a French mother named Evelina, the same thing, and I can say with my hand on my heart that I did. Just as I will do for you.’

And Valentina believed her, because Hope was one of the few people in her life who had treated her with true respect and kindness, and she knew unreservedly that she could trust her with her precious daughter. There was no one else in this world she would trust with this responsibility—somehow a woman she’d barely known a few months seemed to be more trustworthy than anyone from her former life.

Except for you, Papa. Because you would have let me marry Felipe, and then I would never have been faced with having to give up my own child in the first place.

Valentina tried so hard not to cry, not wanting her daughter to have her mother’s tears landing on her soft cheeks as they said their final goodbye, but it was impossible not to. She’d walked her around the garden and marvelled at her dewy, newborn skin; whispered to her as the sun rose and she’d held her to her breast for the final time; nuzzling her soft, downy head as she’d rocked her to sleep in her arms. And now, as the hour of her leaving approached, Valentina felt an internal pull that threatened to upend all of her careful plans.

I can’t do this. I can’t leave her.

‘Valentina?’ Hope’s voice pulled her from her thoughts as she entered the room.

‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘What kind of mother am I if I leave her?’

Hope’s hand fell across her shoulders as she stared into Valentina’s eyes. ‘You would be the kind of mother who’s putting her child first,’ she said. ‘Not everyone is brave enough to do what you’re doing. If you truly believe that you cannot provide for your baby, if you won’t be able to prosper together, then you can know in your heart that you’re doing the right thing.’

‘If it’s right, then why does it feel so wrong?’

‘Because the love a mother feels for a child, the moment they’re born, is often like nothing else we’ve ever experienced before. It’s not immediate for every mother, but you knew your time with your daughter was limited from the moment she was born, and that gave you an urgency to have the precious moments you did with her.’

‘Have you had anyone suitable contact you about…?’ Valentina found that she couldn’t even say the words.

‘I have a small list of couples who are desperate for a child of their own. Many have tried for years to have a family,’ Hope said. ‘But I wanted to wait until you’d left, until I knew you weren’t going to change your mind. Or in case you wanted to meet them first.’

Valentina shook her head and looked up at the light, staring at it as she tried to stop the tears that kept threatening to spill all over again.

‘When I pass her to you for the last time, I’m going to walk away and not look back,’ Valentina said, swallowing her emotion down. ‘It’s not because I don’t love her, or because my heart isn’t breaking, because I do and it is, but if I look back I won’t be able to keep going.’

Hope squeezed her shoulder. ‘I understand. More than you could ever imagine, Valentina, I understand.’

Valentina leaned down and kissed her daughter’s forehead, whispering her lips back and forth.

‘May I ask you a personal question?’ Hope asked, quietly.

Valentina smiled at her baby as her tiny fingers caught her mother’s. ‘Of course.’

‘How old are you? I feel that you’re one of the youngest mothers to come through my doors, although you have the strength and demeanour of someone much older.’

‘I’m eighteen,’ she said. ‘Although I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime already.’ My father died before my eighteenth birthday. I’ve lived a year now without him in my life.

‘Valentina, no one your age should be faced with having a baby alone,’ she said. ‘Whenever you start to doubt yourself, remember that it wasn’t so long ago that you were a child yourself.’

‘But I didn’t have her alone, I had you,’ she said, as Hope leaned in and put an arm around her. ‘I’ll be forever grateful that I wasn’t alone.’

‘Even so, what you’ve been through would be unimaginable to so many young women. You should be having fun and going to dances, not hiding from a husband in a foreign country and giving birth alone.’

‘The thing is, I fell in love when I was only fourteen, maybe even earlier. I knew for years whom I wanted to marry, the man I was destined to be with, and he would never have let me come here alone. Felipe would have wrapped me in his arms and never let me go.’

‘And you’re hoping to reunite with this man? This Felipe?’

‘I can’t imagine living my life without him, any more than I can conceive of living without my daughter,’ she said. ‘Right now, it’s the only thing about my life that I know for sure, that I’ll be returning to him once this nightmare with my family is over.’

‘Then make it happen,’ Hope said. ‘We only get one life, Valentina, and you deserve for it to be the very best. Don’t stop until you have everything you want. If Felipe is half the man you say he is, fight as hard as you can to get back to him.’

When Hope let go of her, Valentina glanced at her bags, packed and waiting near the door. It’s time . She wasn’t ready, but then she doubted if she would ever be ready. The car was waiting, and if she didn’t leave soon she’d miss her passage back to Buenos Aires. She was lucky she was even able to get home with the war continuing to rage on, and she only hoped she wouldn’t be turned back because of it.

And so she leaned over and kissed Hope’s cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Before holding her daughter one last time, feathering kisses over her face, her lips and then her fingers as she whispered to her, ‘One day it will be different. One day we’ll be together again, and it will be the two of us against the world. I’ll never stop searching for you, my love. I promise.’

She had no more words, and she knew she was only making it harder on herself saying goodbye, so she passed her to Hope, looking into the other woman’s eyes, and then turning around.

Valentina’s cries came from deep inside her chest, each breath an almost impossible pull of her lungs as she stood, her eyes shut, her back to the daughter she so desperately wanted to take with her, until she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and walk out of the door to the waiting car.

Goodbye, my love , she said silently in her mind.

And then as tears blurred her vision: I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me for what I’ve done .