In Her Mothers' Shoes (51 page)

‘Did you ever think of telling her children?’

‘Oh yes, many, many times. Especially when they were older. But then I’d see her looking so sad and I just didn’t have the heart.’

Kate didn’t like to think of her mother being sad; it felt like it was her fault. ‘Has she always been sad?’

‘Mainly these past twenty or so years, since the Adoption Law changed. I think she was terrified it would all come out and she’d be exposed.’

‘It’s all out now, though.’

‘Yes, at last. And look how good she is. I haven’t seen her so happy in years.’

Kate smiled, savouring the moment. Each time Liz smiled now, she would feel a little less guilty for being the cause of her grief.

She asked him if he’d ever met her birth father, if he knew anything about him, but Jerry said no, Liz had never brought him home and had never spoken of him.

‘I wasn’t supposed to know about it, of course. But she never spoke of having a boyfriend at the time. She kept him a secret. Until she had to confess to Mother, of course. But I only found out about that after Father died and I discovered her letters to you. She told you everything.’

‘Except I never got to read them. Do they still exist?’

‘I don’t know. I gave them back to Liz. She never said what she did with them.’

He told her about the Liz he used to know, when they were both at school – about her likes and dislikes, her schooldays, her favourite books and her dolls, her love of helping in the garden and swimming at the beach, her first job at the draughtsman’s office and how she gave it up to get married and start a family.

‘I always thought she had it in her to go a long way, to have a real career. But she never had a chance to get any further than the bottom rung of the ladder.’ He sighed. ‘That’s what women did in those days.’

‘It’s all changed now, thank heavens.’ David joined them by the fireplace, holding the mantelpiece with one hand, his mug of tea in the other. ‘I can’t imagine how we’d cope on one income.’

‘I’m sorry, I’ve been neglecting you.’ Kate touched his arm.

‘I’m fine. I’ve been talking to Jessie and her husband Michael.’

Angela came up to Jerry and offered him more tea.

While they were talking, David bent down and whispered in Kate’s ear. ‘Michael’s not that keen on you. I thought I’d better warn you. He reckons you’ll upset Liz and make her condition worse.’

‘Oh? Did Jessie agree with him?’

‘She didn’t seem too worried. But Michael was quite rude. He doesn’t like you at all.’

Kate looked across at Jerry, who was still talking to Angela, and lowered her voice. ‘I think Michael’s a bit odd. He came up when I was talking to Jessie and interrupted, as if I wasn’t there. He seemed a bit geeky, you know, with that posh accent. And totally lacking in the social skills.’

‘Well he is a computer nerd.’ David glanced around, checking they weren’t overheard. ‘I wouldn’t worry about him. You can’t expect everyone to accept you straight away.’

Kate could see Michael out the corner of her eye talking to Rick. He seemed to have Rick cornered and was berating him about something. ‘I think I’ll keep away from him,’ she said.

Over the next hour or so, Kate made sure she spoke to everyone else she hadn’t already met, including Johnny and Emma, as well as those she had. She spent more time with her mother and Penny. It was then, with just the three of them together, Penny and Kate kneeling beside her chair, that Liz talked about how it had been after Kate was born.

‘After all that labour, after all that pain, they just took you away from me,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t allowed to hold my little baby.’ And she said it in such a sad, little-girl voice that Kate thought she was going to cry.

Stealing a look at Penny, she could see her lip trembling. Kate took her mother’s hand. ‘I’m here now,’ she said and felt a faint squeeze in return.

Liz was briefly distracted by James and Johnny laughing loudly through the double doorway into the next room. ‘Look at that,’ she said, indicating towards the two boys. ‘The next generation. I wonder what they’re up to.’

‘I’ll go and see.’ Kate stood and went through to the computer, where the boys had found a mutual friend on Facebook. Amelia and Emily were sitting at the dining table deep in conversation; it seemed to be about their jobs.

‘Everything all right in here?’

Amelia looked at James and rolled her eyes; James and Johnny grunted ‘Yeah.’

‘Good. It’ll be time to go soon. Half an hour maybe.’

There were protests from all of them. She returned to Liz and Penny and reported back.

Jessie and Michael left first, followed by Jerry and his family. It was time to go. She asked Rick to call a taxi and – her offer of help with the dishes quickly declined – talked to Rick and Kim until it arrived.

Rick smiled at Kate’s profuse thanks and said it had all been worth it to see his mother smiling.

‘She didn’t say much though,’ Kate said. ‘I thought she might say something about how you found out about me and about us all being together now.’

‘She wouldn’t do that. She’s never said much, never really shown much emotion. I can remember when we were little, she was quite demonstrative, she’d give us a hug occasionally. But once we were at school, no. She’s always been very buttoned up.’

‘That must have been hard sometimes.’

‘It was. When I was a bit older, I used to look at her and try to understand why she was like that. Jessie would be upset about her boyfriend and Mum just didn’t respond. She’d tell Jessie she’d soon get over it. Same with me. But now I know what Mum has been through, I can understand why she was always holding herself back.’

‘Hopefully that’s come to an end. Look at her now.’ He indicated through the hall door into the living room where Liz was surrounded by family, still holding court, beaming happily. ‘We should have done this ages ago, sis,’ he said.

~   ~  ~

In the back of the taxi, squashed on either side, James and Amelia competed to tell Kate about their cousins. After the detail of their work, studies, likes and dislikes, she asked if they had discussed how they came to be related.

‘Of course.’ James did an eye-roll. ‘That’s why we were there.’

‘Yeah, we talked about it, but not for long.’ Amelia turned her eyes from the passing streetscape to Kate. ‘It wasn’t a big deal, really. We mostly talked about our families and work and how weird it was we looked a bit like each other.’

Kate smiled. All those years Liz had protected her family from finding out about her illegitimate daughter, living in fear of being shamed once again – and they didn’t care. ‘It wasn’t a big deal,’ as Amelia had said. All they cared about was having new cousins who looked a bit like them, who had interests in common.

James turned on his smartphone and tapped its face a few times. Kate could see his Facebook page come up on the screen. ‘Oh mint. Johnny’s put his photos up already.’ He held it up to his sister. ‘You and Emily. Peas in a pod. And look, she’s as short as you are.’

~   ~   ~

There was a text from Rick on Kate’s mobile. Rick was in regular contact, often by text – though not as often as Jessie, an inveterate texter – and had also emailed several times since the afternoon tea party a month earlier.

‘Just home from Sunday with Mum.’ The text said. ‘She cracking jokes now better than ever. Doc taken her off medication. Yay.’

Kate was so thrilled she phoned him.

‘Hey, sis,’ he answered.

‘Hey, bro.’

They both chuckled.

‘It’s unbelievable, eh? Mum’s started reducing her medication. The doctor says she’ll be off it completely in a month or less. We’re all over the moon.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘No need for her to be on it. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Now the family all knows about you and she can see we’re all fine with it, she’s no longer weighed down by all that guilt and shame, she’s free.’

‘You really think that’s it?’

‘Of course. You little ray of sunshine. Mind you, we’re not going to tell the doctor why she’s so much happier. I don’t think she’s quite up to telling everyone about you yet.’

‘No?’ Kate teased.

‘Well if you want to come and live up here, I guess everyone would see for themselves.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, by the way, Johnny was here with Jessie at the weekend. Did you know Jessie’s kids and your kids still hook up on Facebook?’

‘Still? I wondered if they’d stay in touch. Funny how a couple of generations on, things can change so much.’

~   ~   ~

It was Cup Day. The New Zealand Cup was running at Riccarton Racecourse; many of her friends had dressed up, borrowed hats bearing long curling feathers and swathes of netting, and headed off to the races in a show of support for Christchurch, still reeling a year on from its first big earthquake. Kate had turned down invitations to the members’ stand and even a ticket to a hospitality tent. She wanted to stay home.

David took the hospitality pass and the binoculars and persuaded James to drive him to the racecourse. She had the afternoon to herself.

All year, she had been meaning to go through her mother’s things, but the time had disappeared in earthquake repairs, family activities – there were two families to keep her busy now – and work. She’d promised herself that she would spend the holiday weekend going through the boxes of papers, photographs, ornaments and treasures they’d saved from her mother’s house before selling it. 

Cleaning out the house had been a mammoth task, taking trailer-load after trailer-load to the tip, removing the mountain of stuff her mother had hoarded in the garage, the spare bedrooms, the attic and in the seemingly endless line of cupboards and drawers. Kate hadn’t realised what a hoarder Mum was until she’d come to clean it up.

‘I’m doing a drawer every week,’ Mum would promise when Kate commented on the state of the garage, or the cardboard boxes full of photos.

‘I don’t even know half those people,’ Kate would say, fingering the sepia portraits of grim-looking men and women posing around ornate high-backed chairs and potted palms. ‘You have to write their names on the back.’ But Mum never did. It pained Kate, but she had to throw most of them away. What was the point of keeping photos of stern, stiff-collared men and unsmiling women you didn’t know? There was no one left to identify them; all Mum’s friends had died years ago.

On the Thursday, before the bank closed for the holiday weekend, Kate went into her parents’ branch and asked to access the deed box her father had kept locked away ever since she could remember. She’d heard Mum and Dad talk about it often enough but had never seen it and had never thought to ask her mother in her later years what was in it. It seemed rude, somehow, to bring the subject up, as if she were admitting she knew Mum might not be around much longer and should therefore hand over the means to retrieve whatever was in it. Besides, her parents seemed to have coped perfectly well without accessing it in years, so she’d assumed that whatever heirlooms were hidden inside couldn’t be of much value or use.