‘This will come as a shock,’ a kindly faced nurse had said before a policeman came into my hospital room and told me the ‘truth’ about my mother.
Not that she is my mother. Not biologically, anyway. Martin holds my hand as the words wash over me, one by one. The new information overwhelming me.
Olivia Kearney. That’s my name. My first name. My real name. I have another mother. Carys. I have a father, Tom, who’s alive and real and who’d wanted me. My ‘mother’ had taken me from my home, in Derry. Where I have set up home. There’s an irony in that, I suppose. It was where my mother had been from all along. And her family.
‘We were contacted by Ms Johnston’s ex-husband. He’d seen an article about you in the local paper, put two and two together.’
She’d been married. My mother. What life had she led before me?
‘He’d tried to contact her directly but she never replied, so he came to the police. When we ran a check on our systems, the incident in which you were injured in her home showed up. That’s when we looked further.’
All this time, my mother’s carefully constructed world was just one person away from falling down around her ears.
‘Can I see her – my mother, Angela?’ I ask.
The police officer looks surprised at my request. Martin is vocal in his shock. He doesn’t want me anywhere near her. Not now. Not ever. They don’t understand how I need to see her face, to see the truth of what she’s done in her expression. Perhaps even to hear her say she’s sorry.
‘She’s been moved to a secure location,’ DS Bradley says. ‘Awaiting psychiatric assessment, to see if she’s fit for trial. I think, maybe, in time …’
‘I just want to ask her why,’ I say to the police officer, who looks at me sympathetically.
‘We’re still piecing together what happened,’ he says. ‘But it seems she lost a child, a son, in the year before you were born. Very late in her pregnancy. She’d suffered a series of losses before, most in the early stages, but this one affected her more than the others.
‘She asked one of the police officers to bring her a storage box from her study, said she needed it with her. We didn’t, of course, but we were able to open it – found a locket with a curl of baby hair, a little pot with soil, some footprints …’
I think of my baby. Our baby. Clara. Already, the thought of something bad happening to her is unbearable. Even though I haven’t yet been well enough to hold her in my arms, have only been able to stroke her hand through the incubator, watching her tiny chest move up and down, her body fight for life, I know it’ll kill me, too, if she doesn’t make it.
My love for her exceeds each and every expectation I’ve ever had in my life about motherhood. I feel a pang for my mother, for Angela, or Louise, or whoever she is, for her loss.
But to inflict that loss on another woman?
‘We’ve made contact with your birth parents,’ DS Bradley says softly. ‘Informed them that we suspect you to be their missing child. I know this is a lot to take in, but we’ll have a family liaison officer and social workers to help you all through this process.’
‘Do they want to meet me?’ I’m scared. My whole life has turned on its head.
He nods. ‘But it doesn’t have to be rushed. I think everyone’s trying to process what’s happened. I think it’s important you all take time to try to come to terms with things.’
I wonder how I’ll ever – can ever – come to terms with everything. With the fact my whole life has been a lie. And those poor people. What must they have been going through all these years?
I feel my husband squeeze my hand softly. I look at him. His face is so filled with love, even after all that he’s been put through. I know he’ll be by my side through it all. Every step of the way. Through every challenge life will throw at us. And I know that Clara will help us both to heal and move on.