‘Mum?’ Paige called as she let herself into her parents’ house. Her voice echoed and a bark sounded from out the back. ‘She must be out,’ she told Josie as she ushered her friend inside. ‘I’ll just let Molly in and then grab the album.’
‘She won’t mind us being here or borrowing it without her permission?’ Josie asked as she shrugged out of her jacket.
‘Nah, course not.’ She led Josie through the house and into the kitchen, where they found the dog—face pressed up against the glass door begging to be let in.
‘She’s gorgeous,’ Josie said as Paige opened the door and Molly rushed over to investigate the visitor.
‘She’s a pathetic guard dog, but yeah, she’s pretty special. Can I get you a tea or coffee?’
‘Aren’t you a beautiful girl?’ Josie looked up from where she was rubbing Molly’s neck and making smoochy noises. ‘After the day I’ve had at school today, I could murder a coffee.’
‘Coming right up, but just warning you Mum doesn’t have a fancy machine.’
‘That’s fine. As my mum used to say, as long as it’s hot and wet, it’s perfect.’
Paige laughed, then grabbed the kettle to fill at the sink. ‘So what was so terrible about your day?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual, kids complaining about …’
But Paige didn’t hear the rest of Josie’s sentence. Between the kettle and the sink, lying on the kitchen bench, was a letter. At first she didn’t think anything of it and was simply about to move it out of the way in case she spilt anything on it, but as she picked it up, she couldn’t help taking a closer look. It was from the Department for Child Protection Western Australia and it was about an adoption.
‘Oh my God.’ Paige’s heart crashed into her chest.
Josie looked up from where she was still lavishing affection on the dog. ‘Are you okay?’
But Paige seemed to have forgotten how to speak. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the letter in her hand.
‘Paige?’ Josie came up beside her. ‘What’s the matter?’
Paige looked into her new friend’s eyes, still in shock. ‘This piece of paper says my mum adopted out a child. When she was a teenager.’
Josie’s eyes grew wide. ‘Seriously? And you never knew?’
‘No.’ The shock stimulated her tear ducts and she swallowed to try and stop a flood of them. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Can I see?’
Without thinking that her mum might not want someone she barely knew looking at her private paperwork, Paige passed the piece of paper to her friend.
Barely before Josie’s eyes had dropped to the paper, she too gasped. ‘That’s me.’
Paige was unable to comprehend Josie’s words. ‘What?’
‘I’m adopted,’ Josie told her. ‘And before I married Nik my surname was Van Dijk. That’s my birthdate and that’s the hospital I was born in.’
‘Josephine.’ As Paige said the word goosebumps painted her skin. She’d only ever known Josie as Josie and had been in such shock when she’d first seen the letter that she hadn’t even realised the baby on this paper shared the same first name as her friend.
‘Yes.’ The letter was shaking in Josie’s hands.
‘That makes you and me sisters.’ She swayed a little and tears threatened at this joyful but shocking news.
‘Half-sisters,’ Josie said, her tone terse. ‘I’m sorry, Paige, I’ve got to go.’ Then, she grabbed her handbag from where she’d dumped it on the floor near Molly and hightailed it out of the house.
Only after Paige heard Josie’s car reversing out of the driveway, did she realise she’d taken the letter with her. She was deliberating whether to chase after her when she realised her car was still at the café where she and Josie had met earlier to discuss her involvement with the picture book projects. Chat had somehow digressed from how Paige would assist the kids to wedding talk and Josie had mentioned she’d love to see the photos from Rebecca’s wedding. They’d decided to carpool, which meant Paige was stranded.
But in lieu of what had just come to light, this seemed the least of her issues. There had to be some kind of mistake.
The kettle whistled and Paige whirled around to switch it off; in the time it had taken to boil, her whole world had changed. And a cup of coffee didn’t seem nearly adequate for dealing with this revelation. She yanked open the fridge, relieved to find an unopened bottle of wine on the bottom shelf. After pouring herself a large glass, she sat down at the table—a lot of things might not make sense right now but at least one thing suddenly did. She hadn’t been imagining her mother’s weirdness around Josie. Had she known the connection when she’d been asking all those questions? How long had she had this information? And did her father know too?
He had to, otherwise her mum wouldn’t have left the letter lying around in the kitchen. That felt like a double betrayal. All these years she’d thought them a tight-knit team of three and yet they’d been keeping this ginormous secret from her. She understood that maybe it wasn’t the kind of thing you told a child, but she’d been an adult for almost a decade now. And who was Josie’s father? Could it be a boy from the band her mum had been in in high school? It had to be—she remembered her mum mentioning the group a few times and her grandparents had always shut the conversation down pronto.
Dammit, who else was complicit in keeping this from her?
She was about to call Solomon and fill him in, when she heard a key in the front door. She and Molly met her dad in the hallway. He took one look at her and his face fell.
‘Honey? What’s wrong? Have you and Sol had a fight?’
Paige snorted. Right now Sol was the only person she knew she could rely on not to let her down.
‘No. I found the letter about Mum’s other daughter.’