Page 77 of The Holiday Cottage

“It’s okay, Mum.”

“Everyone said it was a teenage phase. That she was testing the limits. But she didn’t grow out of it. We considered moving to get her away from the people she hung around with, but in the end we decided that wasn’t fair on Sara, or indeed practical. This was our home, and also our business and there was no guarantee that moving would help.” She didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt Sara push a tissue into her hand. She blew her nose. “Phillip and I blamed ourselves, of course. We assumed there was something we must have done wrong.”

Sara inhaled sharply. “Mum—”

“The truth is we think we have a strong influence over who our children become, but perhaps we don’t. And that’s hard to accept. As a parent you tend to blame yourself for everything.” Dorothy took a deep breath. “She got pregnant and that seemed to calm her down. She never told us who the father was, and we didn’t push her. We were just so relieved that she was spending more time at home. She took a job in the local shop and worked until she had you. For a few months we were hopeful this was the beginning of a fresh start.”

Imogen stirred. “But it wasn’t.”

“You were a week old when she walked out.” It still stunned Dorothy. “She’d met someone, she said. And she was moving to London. She didn’t want to have any contact with us.” She stared down at her hands. She would rather have not relived this part. “We had a terrible argument. I said things—awful things, I admit it. I lectured her on responsibility. Told her that she had a child now and had to step up. I wish I’d handled it more sensitively. I wish I hadn’t said the things I said.”

“She still would have left,” Sara said quietly, “It would have made no difference. And she said awful things too. Truly awful.”

Dorothy glanced at Sara, both of them remembering.

“It was terrible, but we had to keep going because we had you. In the middle of all that stress and anguish, you were the joy. And you were such a sunny baby right from the beginning. We raised you as our own. You adored Sara. We tried to put you in your own room when you turned eighteen months, but you just wanted to sleep in the bed with Sara.”

“That’s true.” Sara gave a hesitant smile. “Wherever I was, there you were.”

“You used to wait by the door for Sara to come home from school.” Dorothy blinked several times. “Despite everything, it was a happy time. We were all settled. This was our life. And then four years later, a week before Christmas, Tina suddenly appeared with no warning and said she was taking you. She was in a new relationship, she was living in London and had a job. She picked you up, and oh, you were screaming—” Dorothy broke off. She could still hear those screams. Feel the anguish. “Tina was a stranger to you. You didn’t know her. You clung to Sara. I remember she was wearing a scarf around her neck and you almost strangled her because you just wouldn’t let go. We tried to talk to Tina, to persuade her to at least stay with us for a while and get to know you, but she said she didn’t want us judging her, and telling her where she was going wrong the whole time. I told her we wouldn’t judge her, we just wanted to support her, but she wouldn’t listen. She had a car waiting outside and she took you. Clothes, toys—she left them all behind.”

“She wouldn’t even take Bunny,” Sara said, and Imogen looked at her, confused.

“Bunny?”

“I gave it to you when you were born. You slept with it every night. You wouldn’t let us take it away long enough to wash it. I knew you wouldn’t sleep without it so I raced after her car, but she wouldn’t stop. I could hear you screaming in the back seat. It took a long time to get that scream out of my head.”

“Maybe we would have driven after her.” Dorothy kept talking. She knew that if she didn’t finish the story now, she never would. “I don’t know. But Phillip collapsed about half an hour after she drove off. Massive stroke.” She took another breath. “He had blood pressure problems, and the additional stress of losing you proved to be too much. He died after three days in the hospital and our whole world changed.”

“I’m sorry.” Imogen had tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Dorothy knew she couldn’t crumple. Not now. Not having come this far.

“I’ll keep this part short. We contacted social services and a lawyer. We didn’t even know where Tina lived. Where she’d taken you. Eventually, we did find her and we sent a message, letting her know that her dad had died. She didn’t respond.” And that had been the lowest point. She’d wondered then who Tina was, because she felt like a stranger. “She didn’t come to the funeral. It was an incredibly tough time. As well as processing the loss of your grandfather, and you, I was trying to keep the company going.”

“I honestly don’t know how you did it,” Sara murmured. “You were incredible.”

“You just do,” Dorothy said. “You get out of bed every day and do what needs to be done and mostly you don’t even know yourself how you’re doing it. It was weeks before we were able to focus on Tina properly. Anyway, social services decided you should stay with her. She was your mother and they saw no risk to you. She was in a steady relationship. Getting married.” She tried to keep her voice steady. Tried not to let the despair and upset of that time invade her words. “We tried to stay in your life. We visited once and you were so upset and confused. Tina decided she didn’t want us visiting at all. She said it unsettled you. That you needed to learn that your home was with her. And it’s true that seeing us did unsettle you, but I was never sure if that was more because you picked up Tina’s tension.”

“You were so little,” Sara said softly. “And you looked so confused by everything. It was horrible.”

Dorothy reached out and gave Sara’s hand a squeeze. “So we stayed away. We stayed away because that was what Tina demanded, but don’t think for a moment that it was easy. And I blamed myself. If I hadn’t spoken to her the way I did when she walked out that first time, maybe she would have seen us as a support instead of the enemy.”

Sara opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but then shook her head. “Go on.”

“I saw a lawyer.” Dorothy paused. “Did you know that grandparents have no automatic right to see their grandchildren? There are ways, but I decided that all the conflict wasn’t good for you. We agreed to take a step back. Tina promised she’d pass on letters, so I wrote to you every month, and on your fifth birthday Sara and I traveled to see you with presents and a cake, hoping that this might be the start of something more regular. Time had passed, we hoped things would be different, but Tina had taken you out. You weren’t there.”

“I wrote to you too.” Sara glanced at Dorothy, who nodded.

“Tina returned those letters. On your seventh birthday we turned up unannounced, hoping to see you. You were on your way to the park with Tina and a man who presumably was her husband. We tried to talk, but you didn’t recognize us and Tina wanted us to leave. She said she wanted a chance to make her own family, without us breathing over her. And that was it.”

“We kept writing to you,” Sara said. “But we never heard anything back.”

“And we assumed that if you wanted to make contact when you were older, then you’d do it. But you never did. And that’s fine,” Dorothy said quickly. “It was a difficult situation, I can see that. And we lived with it. We tried to accept it, although I thought about you constantly and wondered how you were doing. Sometimes I thought about reaching out again, but the fact that you hadn’t reached out to us made me think it wasn’t something you wanted. When you walked into the meeting room that day, I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was you.”

Imogen had been sitting frozen to the spot as she listened, but now she shook her head. “How could I have reached out? I didn’t know anything about you. And I didn’t see any letters.” Her voice sounded strange. “There were no letters. Whenever I asked my mother why we didn’t have family, she said you’d rejected her. She said you didn’t want us in your life.”

The sudden punch of emotion made it hard to breathe.

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