Her words seemed to have an effect on Daisy in particular. ‘We’ve enjoyed her company.’ The others didn’t disagree and Loretta hoped it was a good sign.
‘I’m sorry you all had to find out this way. I intended to have you come home, for you to realise you wanted to be sisters again in the truest sense, there for one another no matter what, and then I was going to tellyou, introduce Carrie, if that was what you all wanted.’
Fern looked at Daisy, her brow creased in confusion. ‘How did you know about the baby?’
Loretta tried not to read too much into the way Fern referred to Carrie as the baby, when now she had a name, an identity. All of this was going to take some getting used to.
‘I found a photograph of a baby tucked inside a book in Dad’s study. It hada date on the back, the name Caroline, I knew that the date was around nine months from when I saw him with that woman.’
‘So Caroline is Carrie?’ Ginny asked Loretta.
Loretta nodded. ‘She’s been Carrie ever since she started school.’
‘There was a note with the photograph,’ said Daisy, ‘it said they were both doing well and she didn’t want anything from him, she would stay away for the sakeof our family.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I hated her. I hated him, for what he’d done. But I loved him too.’
‘Oh, Daisy.’ This time it was Fern going round to her sister, holding her tight, rocking her back and forth. ‘You never said anything to anyone. I wish you’d said something to me, or to Ginny.’
‘I couldn’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I loved Dad, I loved you all, I didn’t want our family to break apart.’
Ginny’s eyes widened as she pieced it all together for the first time. ‘This is why you went so crazy. This is why you went out and got drunk all the time, this was why you went through a phase of being rude to Dad where he couldn’t do anything right. And this is why you stayed at the shop with Mum, to look after her and make her happy, instead of going to university?’
‘Daisy?’ Loretta hardlyknew what was true anymore. ‘Is that why you stayed with me?’
‘I didn’t want anything to hurt you again, Mum.’ Her voice shook. ‘I’d played my part in that by never telling you what I saw, Dad had been the one to cheat, and then when Fern and Ginny looked at me like I was the mess that I was, I needed to prove to myself that it was me who could hold us together, me who could protect our familyand you from hurt. You fell apart when Dad died and I couldn’t bear to think what it would do to you if you found out about the affair and about the baby.’
‘Oh, Daisy, that wasn’t for you to carry on your own.’ It almost broke Loretta that her daughter had carried this for so long.
‘It must’ve been a shock to have Carrie turn up, Mum,’ said Ginny.
‘I took a while to get used to the idea ofher, this person who might well come between me and you three, who might come between each of you. After the initial shock, however, I began to see things from her perspective. She told me she got curious about her father after her mum passed away and wanted to find out more. I think she feels confused and a bit alone in all of this and she’s still trying to make sense of everything.’
One ofthe strangest things had been picking up on the odd reminder that Carrie was Harry’s child. She had his kind eyes, the gentle way of tilting her head to listen. And slowly over time Loretta had begun to enjoy her company.
‘Carrie came to Butterbury to see for herself where Harry had once lived,’ Loretta explained. ‘But she hadn’t intended to share her identity with any of us, she didn’t wantto ruin anyone else’s life, she just wanted to find a way to connect with Harry and had no idea how to do it. She said she’d gone into the shop out of curiosity about us all and then when she saw me she said she felt overwhelmed, torn as to whether to tell me the truth. And then it all tumbled out.’ She looked at her daughters warily, unable to read their expressions or perhaps not wanting to. ‘Inall of this Carrie assures me that the last thing she ever wants to do is hurt any of us. She shared the truth with me and would’ve been happy to keep it between us if that was what I chose.’
‘But you didn’t,’ said Fern.
‘She’s our half-sister,’ Daisy muttered, not really to anybody. She wasn’t looking at Loretta either.
‘Nothing can change our history,’ Loretta assured them. ‘Harry was yourdad, and me and you three girls – that’s been our family, with all its imperfections.’
‘Imperfections?’ Ginny grinned. ‘We are perfect.’ At least she got a laugh.
‘The bad time me and your dad went through overshadowed everything back then, especially what was going on with you, Daisy.’ It was no use wishing Daisy had told them what she’d found out. They couldn’t change it now. ‘We were in survivalmode. And Ginny …’ She looked at her middle daughter. ‘I know you were lost along the way – not the eldest, not the youngest, and I feel I’ve failed you too.’
‘Oh, Mum, you haven’t failed any of us.’
She gulped. ‘I saw that pink sewing machine tonight, I think about you doing the quilting, and I know now that a part of you wanted a different future but somehow you never got to have it. I knowyou almost broke not being here to say goodbye to your dad too, but I was such a mess I couldn’t help you through that.’ She let Ginny squeeze her hand in reassurance but she felt she had to carry on, she had to let them know how sorry she was for every wrong decision she’d made, every time she hadn’t handled things the way she probably should have. ‘And, Fern, we’ve talked, and you know how sorryI am that I let you carry the burden, that it was you who had to look out for your sisters when I was a mess.’
‘Mum …’ Ginny interrupted, coming to her side. ‘You’re recounting every single thing you ever did wrong. What about everything you ever did right?’
Daisy nodded her reassurance along with Fern. ‘She’s right.’
‘We were safe, we were loved, we had security,’ said Ginny. ‘We have plentyof special memories and part of us not being close boils down to ourselves, we’re equally to blame for not trying harder. We’re grown women!’ Ginny was laughing now through a few tears. ‘Maybe we should’ve tried harder with one another rather than have our mother have to summon us home to sort us out. And that’s on us. You’ve carried the weight of secrets that I can’t even imagine having to keepand here you are again, trying to fix everything for everyone else.’
‘She always was good at fixing.’ Fern smiled.
‘I should’ve told you what I’d discovered,’ said Daisy. ‘Burying the secret for so long was probably the worst thing I could do.’
