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If you are reading this letter, then I know you have carried out my wishes and you are in Penworth Bay...
I don’t know much about your mum’s birth parents, your birth grandparents. We weren’t told much, but I do know your mum’s birth mother lived in Penworth Bay and her name was Nancy. I don’t know her surname. I know she wasn’t married. The adoption officer told us your mum’s birth father wasn’t aware of the pregnancy (it hasn’t escaped me how similar your own story is to your mum’s)...
The lady in the adoption office was very chatty, and she’d apparently had a long conversation with your mum’s birth mother and she relayed what she had been told freely to us. We learned that your mum’s birth father, your birth grandfather, was called Ian and he worked as a lighthouse keeper.
Ian? Elsie’s Ian was the lighthouse keeper. He lived in the lighthouse.
My final wish for you is to seek out your birth family, to be accepted into their lives and for you to be cared for and loved...
Your granddad and I loved you with our entire beings, with every breath in our bodies and every ounce of our spirits, our souls. We could not have loved you more if we had shared the same blood...
My darling granddaughter, I will always love you,
Gran
xxx
She picked up the envelope and read her name. It was addressed to her. It was her gran’s handwriting. But what was inside couldn’t be about her, about her mum. Things like this happened to other people. Not to her. Family secrets belonged on the TV written in soaps or being revealed on chat shows, not in real life. Not to normal people.
Reaching for the letter again, she read it through, whispering the words as she did so. She folded it and slipped it back in the envelope before pulling it out again, smoothing the paper out and reading it again. It was the same. The same information. The same words.
Ian? No, it couldn’t be Ian. Ian couldn’t be her birth grandfather. He was Connor’s uncle. What would that make Connor to her, her uncle? No, she couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t work it out. It didn’t even matter what Connor would be to her, because Ian wasn’t her birth grandfather.
Her birth grandfather? She only had one grandfather and that was her granddad, the man who had stepped up and raised her. The man who had taught her to climb trees, who had made her go-kart for her ninth birthday. There wasn’t anyone else.
But what if it was true?
Pushing the heels of her hands against her eyes, she shook her head. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Her gran must have been mistaken. It had probably been the medication she’d been on, playing with her memories.
There was only one thing for it. She needed to find Ian and ask him if he knew anyone called Nancy. When he said no, she’d know that what her gran had written was fiction. That it wasn’t real. It was just some crazy coincidence that there was an Ian here and that he was the lighthouse keeper. There must be loads of Ian’s working as lighthouse keepers. It was just a lucky guess.
Folding the letter, she stood up and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. Grabbing her mobile, she ran from the room, down the stairs and through the empty bakery. The sooner she could get to the lighthouse and clear this up, the better.
The wind was strong again, but she didn’t have time to tie up her hair, not this evening. She had something to do. She had a question to ask. Pulling the door closed, she listened to the click as the lock slotted into place, turned, and began running across the cobbles.
As soon as her sandals hit the sand, she paused and looked up at the lighthouse. The red and white striped building towered at the end of a rocky outcrop towards the far end of the beach. Elsie and Ian’s film would have finished by now and they hadn’t gone back to the bakery, so chances are that’s where they were, at the lighthouse.
Was she related to him? Was he really her mum’s birth father? She shook her head. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t think about any of it. She just needed to ask him. She began walking across the sand, avoiding the brave few who were still walking or playing on the beach. The wind was fiercer down here. She could feel the sand whipping across her feet.
‘Brooke, love.’
Coming to a stop, she pushed her hair from her eyes and looked up towards the promenade. It was Elsie... and Ian. Ian. Was she ready to ask him? Was she ready for an answer she didn’t want to hear?
‘It’s a bit wild to be out here at the moment. Why don’t you join us for a drink? We’re meeting Daisy and Ollie at the pub.’ Ian called down.
Glancing from him to Elsie and back again, she nodded. She had to know. Making her way to the concrete stairs leading from the beach to the promenade, she slowly climbed them.
‘Do you want my jacket?’ Ian shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around Brooke’s shoulders.
‘Are you all right, love? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
She could feel Elsie’s hand on her arm. She could feel her concern, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Ian. It was his eyes. They reminded her of someone. They reminded her of her mum’s eyes. They were the same colour. Had her gran been telling the truth?
‘Brooke, love, what’s happened?’
‘You do look rather peaky.’ Ian frowned.
Without taking her eyes from his, Brooke pulled out the letter from her pocket and passed it to him.
