Page 67 of Quiet Longing

Later, I stood at Arrivals at the airport waiting for Mom. Uncle Padraig had offered for his driver, Stephen, to bring me, but I’d insisted on getting the bus. As soon as she stepped through the gates, I ran for her, hugging her tight.

“It’s so good to see you,” Mom breathed.

“You, too,” I replied. “I’ve missed you like crazy.”

We took a cab back to the house since I wasn’t going to subject my mother to public transport after her long plane journey. Aunt Jo and Nuala were home, and even Uncle Padraig came back on his lunch break to welcome her. I was oddly emotional seeing Mom reunited with her brother, especially since they’d fought for so long. Aunt Jo seemed friendly but reserved. There was also something tense in the set of Padraig’s shoulders that put me on edge. I started to fret that they were all keeping something monumental from me, but I couldn’t fathom what it might be.

I was on a knife’s edge by the time we finished lunch. Mom asked if I’d come with her for a walk on the beach. I got the sense she was readying herself for thebigconversation. My mom wasn’t the most laidback person, but I’d also never seen her so tense, which only functioned to increase my worrying.

We strolled across the strand for a few minutes in quiet before she spoke. “Charlotte, I have something I need to talk toyou about.” She sounded stressed. When I glanced at her hands, I saw they were shaking.

“Mom? What’s wrong? You’re pale.”

She motioned to a bench up near the grassy area. “Maybe we should go sit up there.”

I nodded, following her to the bench, but then when we sat, she still didn’t speak.

“You’re making me worry,” I said, twisting to face her and taking her hand in mine. “Whatever it is, you can just tell me. I’m sure it’s not as bad as—”

“I’m not your mother,” she whispered in a choked voice, cutting me off, and my mouth fell open. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring at her when I finally found my voice, my words disbelieving, “What are you talking about? Of course, you are.”

She shook her head, a tear spilling down her cheek. My heart raced, and my brain refused to comprehend.

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and it’s all my own fault,” Mom continued, and I sat, frozen and silent, listening to her speak. “I’m a terrible person, Charlotte, really. I’ve been incredibly selfish.”

“You’re not selfish. I’m sure if you just explain, then I can try to understand,” I said, my pulse racing so fast I felt like I wasn’t in my own body.

She wasn’t my mother? What did that even mean?

Mom sucked in a deep breath and started talking. “Before I met your father, I’d been in a long-term relationship with a man named Lionel. He was a good, kind man. We’d been trying for a baby, but it turned out my chances of getting pregnant were low. I had fertility issues, but Lionel and I were determined to keep trying. It eventually put a strain on us both. The relationship suffered, and we broke up. Around the same time, your father was seeing one of your Aunt Jo’s sisters, the youngest one, Nadine.”

At this, my world flipped upside down. It literally felt like the bench I sat on was spinning.

“Dad was with Nadine? I don’t understand. Didn’t she die?” My mind went back to that photo I saw of Jo and all her sisters, Nuala telling me about each of her aunts.

Mom sniffed and nodded, more tears falling. “She was a few months pregnant when Lionel and I separated. I only knew about it because Jo and my brother offered for me to stay with them while I found a new flat. Jo confided in me that her sister was having a baby, but she had some mental health issues that seemed to be worsening.”

“She had schizophrenia,” I said, my voice sounding far away even to my own ears. “Nuala told me.”

“Yes, she received the diagnosis midway through her pregnancy. Awful news. It threw the poor woman into a tailspin.” My mind raced forward, piecing the story together and feeling sick when I saw the direction it was heading. “Jo and her entire family were worried about her, about the baby. After Nadine gave birth, her state grew even worse, and she disappeared from the hospital. No one knew where she went. The following week, she was found in a hostel a few towns away, but—”

“She took her life,” I whispered, my voice choked, and Mom nodded. My entire body was shaking with adrenaline when I went on, “I was her baby?”

Again, she nodded, growing even paler as her eyes met mine. “Your father was alone, his partner had just died, and there was this tiny baby who needed to be cared for. Jo stepped in and offered to mind you for a few weeks while he grieved, but her youngest sister had committed suicide, and she was grieving, too. So, I took over.” She paused to squeeze my hand, tears in her eyes, before she continued recounting the story.

“I took care of you while they all dealt with their grief, and I fell head over heels in love with you, Charlotte. You were the best thing I’d ever known. I knew I’d never have my own child, but getting that chance to love someone else’s was everything to me. Then your father emerged from his mourning. He was so thankful to me for caring for you, and I think he saw how much I loved you, and it made him fall in love with me a little, too.”

Listening to her, I started to cry. I hadn’t known any of this, and it was just too sad and shocking. The circumstances of my birth were completely traumatising for everyone in my family, and I had absolutely no knowledge of it. My mind went to the picture of Jo and her sisters as I tried to recall Nadine, what she looked like. She had hazel eyes, soft features, and dark blonde hair. I always thought I’m simply favoured my dad because I looked so much like him and nothing like Mom. Now I realised why that was, and my stomach bottomed out.

“We married only a few months later,” Mom went on. “But I was anxious and insecure. I felt inadequate for not being your biological mother, and a part of me fretted that your father was still in love with Nadine. I begged him to let me raise you as my own, to never tell you who your real mother was. I wanted you to be mine, but I also didn’t want you growing up with the stigma of Nadine’s mental illness hanging over you. I didn’t want you worrying about the hereditary aspect, wondering if the same would befall you.”

A sinking feeling hit. In all the drama of this revelation, I hadn’t even thought about Nadine’s condition. I was only eighteen, and Nadine, my birth mother, hadn’t been diagnosed until her early twenties. Did that mean there was a chance I might develop it, too? Was that what awaited me in my future?

“Your Aunt Jo and her side of the family were completely against it. They wanted you to know where you came from, and I see now they were right, and I was wrong, but I was wrappedup in my own issues, and I couldn’t see the clear picture. I convinced your father to move back to America, to Boston, where he grew up and start a new life for ourselves away from everyone who might remind him of the woman he’d lost.”

“So, that’s what you did,” I said flatly.

“Jo and Padraig came to visit us those first couple years, bringing the kids so you could know your cousins. But then one year, Jo tried pushing the issue of telling you about Nadine again, and I lashed out. Padraig and I fought, too, since he agreed with his wife. It’s why we didn’t speak for all those years.”

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