When I get back to the house I go straight to my bed, hide under the sheets and start crying.
The problem living where we do is that there are six of us in the room, so you are never alone and you can never cry in peace. Eldrey is lying on her front on her bed looking sore, probably thanks to another belting from Mr Paterson, but she kindly goes to get Jonesy, who comes up to see me. Mrs Paterson also comes up after a while.
I can’t tell them for a long time, I just cry and cry, and then when I try to tell them what happened I start to cry again.
Eventually I tell them what Mum accidentally said. How the reason she probably never came was that she was at home with her other daughter, the one she chose to keep.
‘At least you have a mum,’ Jonesy says. It doesn’t help.
Mrs Paterson just rubs my back while I cry. I’ve got snot all over the bed and in my hair so she goes to get a towel and rubs my face clean. She tells me it will be all right.
Mrs Paterson has to be strict because there are so many of us, but sometimes she will sit and listen to you and hold your hand. I say some horrible things about my mum and she lets me. I’ve often wondered why Mr and Mrs Paterson don’t have children of their own. Maybe they can’t, or maybe they think they can help more children by working here. It has to have been her idea if that’s the case.
The anger passes and I start to breathe normally again. I take out a hankie and blow my nose. Every day I understand a little bit more about myself and why I am here. They should just change the name of this place from ‘the Homes’ to ‘the Unwanted’, cos that’s what we are, unwanted by our families and unwanted by God.
I ask Mrs Paterson, ‘If God didnae want us, why did he have us, or why did we get born to people who didn’t want us?’
Mrs Paterson says, ‘God wants us all, Lesley. He wants and loves us. Sometimes the path he chooses for us is obscure, but it all becomes clear in the end.’
‘But what if that’s too late, miss? What about Jane? What if she didn’t find out her path before she died?’
‘I don’t know, Lesley, I can’t answer for God. Would you like to speak to the minister?’
‘I want to speak to Eadie.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Mrs Paterson says.
I look at her, and I think I have started to see a pattern. Mrs Paterson doesn’t mention God much, it’s Mr Paterson who says grace, and neither of them goes to church on the weekend, but the moment I ask a difficult question it’s ‘God loves us all’ and ‘God has his plan’, like it’s a giant excuse for the unexplainable.
*
I don’t go down for tea. Jonesy doesn’t go down either, she just stays with me and we lie together in my bed. I sometimes feel the only person I’ve got in this world is Jonesy. She tells me I am the only person she has really loved, other than Tim Fitzgerald who’s two years older than her, brilliant at football and ‘a pure dream’, but that if she has to choose between the two of us she will choose me. That makes me smile for a while. Then I am sad again.
I just want my mum to explain why she didn’t want me. I will ask Gran when she comes again, but I think she might be in on it too. She must know I have a sister, but then why didn’t she tell me? Why are these people lying to me? Do all grown-ups lie?
Today I have gained a sister and lost a mother and probably a grandmother all in one day. Nothing has changed, but what I know now I can’t un-know, and it makes me so sick. It’s just so unfair.
By the time I fall asleep my head hurts with all the crying. I decide that I am never going to cry again over my mum, she isn’t worth it. My tears will only be for people I love and she will never be in that category. I will never expect anything from her so she can never let me down.