The following month, April, I went back to work. The company I was working for had been incredibly supportive and allowed me to extend my maternity leave because of the Gemma situation, but I knew that I had to try and start earning money again.
Beforehand, Gavin, my line manager, did everything he could to prepare me for coming back to work and even organised some occupational therapy for me – to assess how my job might need to be adapted because of the change in my circumstances. Previously, I had regularly been required to work extended hours and sometimes had to stay away from home overnight. Clearly, given everything that was going on, I could no longer do this. It was agreed that I would initially work three days a week and we would then review the situation going forward.
My first day back coincided with a big department meeting up in Manchester and I decided that I was going to brave it head-on and attend. Paul was working for the same company at the time and was also going to the meeting, so we arranged for Maddie and Alfie to stay with Max, my ex-husband. Lee, meanwhile, was staying over at his girlfriend’s and Paul’s mum came over to stay to look after Gemma and Lilly.
So there I was at the meeting, all suited and booted and ready to go. The people there were all so caring and understanding, and the head of department kicked off proceedings by welcoming me back. Everything was kept really light-hearted. I had been with the company for 10 years and had lots of friends whom I had stayed in touch with while I was away, so there was no awkwardness with close colleagues. Of course, some people there didn’t know me well and didn’t really know what to say to me, but that was fine – I realised it wasn’t exactly an everyday situation to be in.
The meeting went well and I was all set to get back to work and looking forward to getting back to my usual routine. Luckily, my job involved working with teams of young people and I was always called by my first name, so my workmates would be unlikely to spot the link between me and Gemma’s case. The court order came in really handy in this respect because my name was no longer being used in the press coverage. Obviously the senior management team was aware of it, but those who knew what was happening were very respectful and didn’t mention anything.
My job required me to audit stock in stores all over the south of England. It involved quite a lot of travelling, as the company was revamping the stores and implementing a new system. I was working between a number of stores, managing different teams in several areas, and I was looking forward to being able to step out of the chaos at home and be someone else for three days a week.
I knew it would be a real shock to the system to begin with, having to get up at 6.30am and getting the kids dressed, fed and off to nursery and school, but once I was sitting on the train for my commute into work, I would be able to breathe and step out of all of the stresses of Gemma’s situation. It was a great feeling to know I was going to be a working mum again.
I took pride in the way I dressed – I think it’s important to look professional for work – and it felt good to have to wear dresses and make-up again. I’d lived in loose, comfy clothes after Lilly was born, but now I was back being me. Working in all sorts of different locations meant I would have plenty of time on the train to get my thoughts together, to process what was going on at home and face the challenges ahead.
But my dream of getting life back on an even keel didn’t last long.
When I returned from Manchester with Paul, everything seemed fine at home. Paul’s mum said that she and Gemma had had a really nice time together with no dramas. Then Gemma took one look at me and snapped. I snapped back: ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ With that, she said, ‘I’m sick to death of this, I’m sick to death of you!’, and stormed upstairs.
She then came downstairs with her bags packed, saying she was going to stay with Max. She claimed I wasn’t telling her everything and complained that I was siding with the police and the social workers. I knew she was in a very bad place, but I’d always tried so hard to tell her everything I knew about the case. I had given her a list of numbers of everyone involved and had told her that they would be only too happy to go through any details with her, but she never once called anyone.
I just wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear – she wanted me to tell her that everything would turn out alright and that she would soon be back with Forrest – and she hated me for it. She knew, too, that I hated the parasites who were trying to befriend her, but as far as she was concerned, they were the only ones on her side. The way she saw it, I was just against her the whole time.
She called Max and he came and picked her up. He shrugged – he knew that I’d tried my hardest to make things work with her, but he wanted to be a good dad for her, too.
When I called Max later that night to check everything was OK, he told me that he thought she just needed some space away from the constant phone calls and appointments with the police, support workers and various other people involved with the case. I could understand that, but I was worried she might run away again. I was also concerned that she had become unhealthily close to that woman in Hertfordshire. After all, that awful woman had been to see Forrest in prison, and I am sure that she would have been only too happy to offer Gemma a place to stay.
For the time being, though, she was staying put at Max’s and I was getting regular reports back that things were OK. Max and I have differing views on parenting at times. He wanted to allow Gemma more space, but I was concerned about how she had been affected by everything that had happened over the past few months. I thought she was broken and needed much closer attention. I wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest had she decided to head up to Hertfordshire on the spur of the moment, or turned up on the doorstep of Forrest’s parents.
In the past, when we had previously had typical parent–child disagreements, Gemma and I always stayed in touch by text – the odd word such as ‘You OK?’ or ‘Goodnight’, things like that. We both hated falling out with each other and those texts were very important to us both because we knew, underneath it all, that we still loved each other very much. I know it seems odd to some people that we can be not speaking to each other and yet still texting one another, but that’s just the way we are. So when the texts from Gemma totally stopped I was heartbroken. She didn’t want anything to do with me. I wrote her a long email, telling her how much I loved her, and I continued to send her ‘I love you’ texts, but I got no reply.
I tried nice texts, loving texts and then, finally, an angry text. The second I sent it I regretted it. I immediately sent an apology text, but heard nothing back.
After a few days, I thought that’s it, she’s not coming back. I remember sitting watching the ABBA film, Mamma Mia!, and hearing the song, ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’, about a young girl growing up and leaving home. Tears started to stream down my face – I knew my darling Gemma had slipped through my fingers, too.
Every line of that song was so poignant – ‘That feeling that I’m losing her forever. I let precious time go by. Then when she’s gone, there’s that odd melancholy feeling, and a sense of guilt I can’t deny. Each time I think I’m close to knowing, she keeps on growing, slipping through my fingers all the time …’
I had lost her and there was nothing I could do about it.
In desperation, I spoke to Sarah and she said that I should try writing all of my feelings in a letter to Gemma, so I did, scanning pictures of her when she was a little girl and sharing the memories I had of her. I wanted her to remember how much we’d been through together and I was in floods of tears as I wrote to her. I lost count of how many times I started the letter, but finally I finished it and posted it off to her.
But still I heard nothing back from her.
I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but she was to stay at her dad’s until after the trial. I missed her so much and blamed myself for driving her away.