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Mum is silent for a few moments, while I simply lie there. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told you,’ she finally says, ‘how difficult it was, when we first brought you home.’ I move my head a bit to look at her; her lips are pursed, her gaze distant. ‘You cried non-stop for days. You’d been with a very kind foster mother for the last two months, and I think you missed her.’
‘I never knew that.’ The details of my adoption were simply relegated to before and after. Sad and then happy.
‘Yes, well.’ My mum tries to smile. ‘I think I wanted to put a positive spin on everything, because I didn’t regret it for a second. You were so wanted, Milly, just as Alice is wanted. But it was hard for a while. It was bloody hard.’
I appreciate my mum’s empathy, but this isn’t bloody hard. It’s impossible. I can’t explain to her how powerless I feel, as if I’m sinking into quicksand and no one even notices. They just want me to put my chin up and soldier on, and I can’t. I can’t.
‘Depression is quite normal at a time like this,’ my mother continues. ‘And these days there’s no shame in it.’
‘It’s not just that I’m depressed,’ I say quietly, although I’m not sure what it is. Maybe antidepressants would be the magic fix I need, who knows? I’m still afraid to take that risk.
‘What is it then, Milly?’ Mum sounds so loving, so concerned. She wants to know.
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s me, Mum, and Alice. She’s… she’s not mine.’ Saying it feels terrible but also freeing. She’s not mine.
‘Milly, I know it feels strange right now—’
‘No, I mean it. She’s not my biological child. I was diagnosed with premature menopause almost a year ago, and was told I would never be able to have my own baby. Alice came from donated egg and sperm – Anna’s and Matt’s brother, Jack’s.’ This is another relief, to admit the truth. To lay down the burden I’ve been carrying for so long, without realising that’s what it was.
Mum looks stunned, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide. ‘Anna?’ she finally says faintly.
‘Yes. Anna.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’
I sigh heavily. ‘Because I didn’t want you knowing. I didn’t want it to become this thing.’
‘A thing?’ Mum still looks dazed as she shakes her head slowly, not understanding.
And so I say it. I say what I’ve never let myself say before. ‘Yes, a thing. A thing you always have to mention, always have to make as the addendum to your story. Like my adoption.’
My mum doesn’t move, but it feels as if she’s staggered. Slowly, she presses one hand to her cheek. ‘Is that how you’ve felt about being adopted?’
‘Yes.’ I hate hurting her, but I know this needs to be said. ‘I don’t mean it as a criticism or insult, honestly I don’t, but it was always mentioned. Always trotted out. “This is our daughter, Milly. She’s adopted.” Why couldn’t I just be your daughter
, full stop?’ As I say the words my voice breaks and the tears come. They slip down my cheeks silently as my mother stares at me in horror.
‘Oh, Milly. Milly.’ She is crying too, the tears falling freely. ‘I never knew you felt this way. I never thought for a moment…’ She dashes the tears from her cheeks. ‘As a parent, you try so hard to do right by your child, no matter what it takes, but sometimes it feels impossible to know what the right thing is.’ She draws a ragged breath. ‘If we mentioned your adoption so much, it was because we thought it would help you remember how precious you were to us. How loved. We never meant it to accomplish the opposite.’
‘I know,’ I say, but I wonder if I did, really. Is this the root of my insecurity both then and now? Because I wasn’t related by blood, I felt somehow less – first as a child and now as a mother.
‘We’d read stories,’ Mum continues, ‘about children who found out they were adopted when they were older, and how it sent them off the rails. We didn’t want that for you. We wanted to be open, but perhaps, in our fear, we were too open.’ She leans forward to clasp my hands. ‘Darling, darling Milly, you have always felt like you were mine. I’m so, so sorry if you felt that you weren’t, even for a second. So very sorry.’ Tears leak out of my eyes and I find I can’t speak. ‘And Alice is yours, as well,’ she continues, squeezing my hands. ‘Even if you doubt it. Even if right now you feel like the worst, most incompetent mother in the world.’ She tries to smile through her tears. ‘That’s how I felt, at first. But you’re not, Milly. You’re Alice’s mummy, and she needs you. She needs you to get better, whatever it takes. She needs you with her, loving her.’
With my hands held tightly by my mother’s, I nod slowly. I start to accept, just barely, that maybe what she says is true.
The next day I make an appointment with my GP, and after describing my symptoms in all their honest, awful detail, I am both offered counselling and prescribed antidepressants. I am warned that it can be several weeks before they have any effect, and that feels endless.
But amazingly, just a few days later, I feel that towering black cloud start to lift, just a little. Perhaps it’s the placebo effect, or perhaps I’m just lucky. But for the first time in a month, I feel as if I can glimpse the horizon.
When Matt visits, I tell him my progress and see the hope light his eyes. ‘Milly, that’s fantastic news. I’m so glad.’ He squeezes my hand. ‘Do you… do you think you’ll be able to come home soon?’
It’s been almost two weeks, far too long already to have been away from my child. The guilt is still there, that I’ve left her so long. Perhaps it always will be. ‘I’m going to try,’ I tell him, and three days later, I do.
Matt takes the day off work to pick me up and drive me back home, to Alice. I am nearly shaking with both terror and longing at seeing her again. What if I can’t do it? What if I really am a failure, the truth that no magic pill can hide? What if she loves Anna more than me?
I don’t share those fears with anyone; I try to keep them from myself. I remind myself that Alice is my daughter, that I carried her in my body, that she will know me as her mother. But I am so afraid she won’t.
I am tensed and ready to see her, but when we go inside the house, it feels empty. It also smells strange – Anna must use a different cleaning spray or laundry detergent or something. It looks different, as well, and I notice a dozen little things that have changed, each one a pinprick to my soul.
