Page 102 of The Bookshop By the Loch

I bit into the shortbread and took a sip of my tea. “So how do you want to mention your health? Do you want to talk about that further into the letter?”

I thought Celeste was going to drop her cup and saucer. “There isn’t going to be any mention of me dropping dead soon.”

Maeve looked appalled. “Mum! Don’t talk like that!”

Celeste hoisted her defiant shoulders upwards. “It’s true. I don’t want Corinne feeling sorry for me. I want her to agree to see me for the right reasons and not the wrong ones.” She took a mouthful of her tea. “I want her to hear me out because she wants to, not out of pity.”

“But Mum…”

Celeste flapped her lime-green silk dress hem. “No, Maeve. My mind is made up. There shall be no mention of my declining health.”

She thrust her cup and saucer at her daughter. Maeve took it from her and placed it down on the table, shooting her mother disapproving looks which Celeste ignored. “Now, are we just going to sit here and gawp at one another?”

She clasped her fingers together in her lap, trying to disguise her nerves. “Maeve darling, could you fetch my Smythson writing paper and my pen from that desk drawer beside my bed please?”

Maeve did as she was asked. The three of us gazed down at the couple of blank sheets of expensive cream writing paper.

I tutted. “I should’ve brought my laptop, so we could’ve drafted the letter on that. I’ve left it at home.”

“That isn’t an issue,” insisted Celeste. “We can use the scrap paper there to pull together the draft and then transfer the final version onto my best stationery.”

Celeste, of course, took the lead, insisting on beginning to write the letter. Every so often, her bright, astute eyes would rest on Maeve and me, seeking feedback on what she was writing or just to consolidate it in her mind.

After a while, Maeve noticed her mother’s fingers starting to tremble with the exertion. “Here, Mum. Please give me the pen.”

Celeste reluctantly handed it to her daughter.

After an hour of more tweaking and polishing off the last of the shortbread, the completed letter sat in front of the three of us, composed of Maeve’s small, considered handwriting.

My eyes trailed over what we’d produced. The scrap paper still bore our random scribbles and scorings out, but the final version on the thick cream writing paper was honest and heartfelt, not seeking pity but explaining in a raw and emotional way, what Celeste had gone through.

It read:

Dear Corinne,

I knew that this letter to you would not be an easy one to write, but I underestimated how difficult it would actually be.

I am sorry.

I realise this must have come as a very big shock, but I hope in some way, it may be a welcome one.

My name is Celeste Finch and in 1961, I fell pregnant with you. It was one of the scariest and most challenging times of my life. I was a struggling seventeen-year-old singer, with the odd club and pub booking if I were lucky.

Your father was a charismatic, handsome musician a few years older than me.

Stupidly, I thought we could make a go of things together. But it was not meant to be, so I found myself facing the prospect of becoming a single mother.

Despite the problems I was faced with, I knew I wanted to keep the little life that was growing and kicking inside of me. I was determined to make our lives together work.

Unfortunately, my church-going parents had other ideas.

As soon as I told them I was expecting, they ordered me to surrender you for adoption.

I pleaded with them; begged them to understand but they insisted that the “most Christian thing to do” was to have you adopted by a family who could give you everything you needed. According to them, I could offer my baby nothing.

I will never forget the smell of disinfectant in the hospital wards and the starched, scratchy bedcovers.

The sister in charge of the ward – there were three other young girls just like me – would parade up and down in her rubber shoes, proclaiming that “God would forgive us, if we repented.”