Authors: Joanna Rees
Thea thanked her and opened the front door.
‘I would have thought you’d be living in Maddox Tower. I hear the penthouse apartments are the most exclusive in the city,’ Shelley said.
Meaning you have been keeping an eye on what’s going on in my life
, Thea thought, realizing that she really was going to have her work cut out to get Shelley to open up to her in
any way.
‘If I lived there too I don’t think I’d ever leave my desk at all,’ Thea said, leading her inside.
‘You’re not married then,’ Shelley said, stepping into the neat hallway and looking round. It was a statement, not a question.
‘No,’ Thea said.
Thea had bought this house last year and had used the very top New York design firm to refurbish it completely. She watched Shelley look around the gunmetal-grey and white-striped walls of the
hallway and at the swooping slate staircase.
‘Minimalist,’ Shelley said, but the way Thea heard it, it sounded like an insult, as if she were talking about Thea’s life.
Thea let it pass, hoping Shelley might feel more inclined to talk after letting off some steam and needing to keep her on-side. She led her towards the back of the property and into the brightly
lit kitchen, where she opened the huge steel fridge and took out one of the bottles of Sauvignon that she imported monthly from the Leveaux estate in South Africa.
She was glad that Sandy had gone home and they were alone, but even so, as Thea met Shelley’s cool glance, she felt her nerves rising – not because she was in any way intimidated by
Shelley, but because of what she was planning to discuss. She poured two glasses and handed one over.
‘To old acquaintances,’ Shelley said, raising her glass. Thea could feel the tension radiating from her.
Thea raised her glass, determined to stay in control, but she didn’t repeat Shelley’s toast. She thought back to those magical holidays in Italy and how close she’d felt to
Shelley and to all her family. How much she’d wanted her to be her surrogate mother. But, yes:
old acquaintances
– that was a fair description of what they were now.
‘You’ve done very well for yourself. And you have a beautiful home,’ Shelley said, following Thea through the far kitchen doorway and into the smart drawing room beyond.
Thea thought of Shelley’s old home, that cosy, chaotic kitchen and how much she had fallen in love with it the first time she’d gone there with Bridget. The memory seemed so homely
compared to Thea’s own immaculate living space, where even the magazines on the table had been placed just so. Her own picture was on the cover of last month’s
Time
magazine,
just visible beneath this month’s
Vogue
.
‘So . . . I guess you want to know about Bridget and Tom?’ Shelley traced her finger along the back of the candy-striped silk sofa.
‘No. Actually I don’t,’ Thea said. ‘I mean, I do hope they’re both very happy. And I’m sure they are?’
‘Yes.’
‘But please,’ Thea said, pointing to the sofa. ‘There’s something else entirely that I’ve brought you here to discuss.’
For the first time since they’d got here Shelley’s self-assurance seemed to waver. But she did what she was asked and sat down.
‘So what do you think of the wine?’ Thea asked.
Shelley looked confused, but she took a sip. ‘Very nice,’ she said.
‘I import it from an estate in South Africa,’ Thea said. ‘There’s a famous stud-farm there too.’ She locked her eyes on Shelley. ‘It’s where Johnny
Faraday works.’
Something in Shelley’s face altered. She looked away.
‘So imagine my shock when I went to visit and Johnny told me about my mother’s baby. Or how I felt when I realized that the scene you wrote in your book,
Sons and Daughters
,
was true.’
Shelley pressed her lips together, then she closed her eyes. She slowly put her wine down on the glass-topped table in front of her. Thea held onto the edge of the high white marble mantel above
the fireplace.
‘But what I don’t understand,’ Thea went on, ‘is, after my mother died, how could you have known that I had a sister and not have told me? When you knew how lonely I was.
When you knew how much I missed Mom.’
She was trying to keep the anger from her voice, but her words had become sharp with it all the same.
Deceit.
This woman – this woman she’d thought of as a friend, whose son
she might even, under different circumstances, have married – had kept the truth from her over something as important as this.
‘It wasn’t my place,’ Shelley said quietly. ‘It happened years ago, and I kept my promise to your mother to keep it a secret—’
‘But you were there when she had my sister?’
Sister.
Shelley seemed to recoil from the word. She seemed to deflate right there in front of Thea. Then, slowly, she started to talk.
Her shoulders sagged further and further as she unburdened herself of her past. She described how the schoolfriend she’d most idolized, Alyssa McAdams, had come to her and begged her for
help.
She’d been eight months pregnant – a fact Shelley had been astonished to discover as Lis had gone to huge lengths to conceal her condition.
She could have got rid of the baby before, she had known. But Lis had put it off and off until it had been too late. She’d been terrified that her parents would throw her out if they found
out. She knew that they believed that having a child outside wedlock was a sin and a social disgrace. She’d been terrified too of what they might do to Johnny.
Shelley had comforted her friend. And then she’d got practical. Shelley’s father, a doctor, had been running a local country medical practice at the time, so she’d told Alyssa
that perhaps the best thing to do would be to go and talk to them, now that she was almost due, and ask them if she could have the baby at their house. Her father would know what to do. He’d
either be able to talk to Alyssa’s parents himself or arrange an adoption.
Alyssa had agreed and they’d left boarding school one afternoon and caught the train together to Shelley’s parents. Their hope had been that Shelley’s father would then call
the school, making up an excuse for their sudden absence. But by the time the taxi had got them to Shelley’s house, Alyssa had already gone into labour. Worse, Shelley’s parents –
Shelley had totally,
stupidly
, she now said, forgotten – had gone away on holiday.
So together Shelley and Lis had battled through the whole terrifying ordeal of childbirth alone.
The baby and Alyssa had slept for ages afterwards, but then when Lis had woken up, she’d lain in bed and stared in silence at the bedroom wall, leaving Shelley to cope with the infant and
feed her with powdered milk.
But the next day – the day Shelley’s parents were coming home – Alyssa was up at dawn, her bags packed. She still wouldn’t look at the baby. She’d said she
couldn’t help it, that keeping it would only make everything even worse. She’d told Shelley to lie to her parents and tell them that the baby had been left anonymously here at their
home.
‘She was such a sweet little thing,’ Shelley said. ‘When my parents came back that evening, they were horrified that a baby had been left on the doorstep. I lied to explain the
fact I was there, by saying that Alyssa and I had run away from school because we’d been worried about our exams, but Alyssa had gone back now. And that much was true. She’d gone back
and got on with her life. I’d find that out later. She’d shut it all out, as if it had never happened, as if that baby had never really been hers at all.’
‘I got sent back to school while my mother looked after the baby. My father trawled the countryside looking for the baby’s mother. A week later a lady from the adoption agency came
round. She took the baby away.’
The baby
, Thea thought.
My half-sister. Taken away.
Those few words seemed so big to Thea. So solid. Such a huge wrong, which she knew instinctively that she must right.
‘After she went to America, your mother wrote to me. Only twice,’ Shelley said. ‘She’d got engaged to Griffin Maddox. Her family were over the moon about the match, but
Lis had regrets.’
‘She must have missed England. And Johnny.’
Shelley nodded. ‘Yes.’ She looked uncertain. ‘But what had happened between her and Johnny – everything that had happened with the baby – it finished whatever
chance she and Johnny had ever had.’ Shelley smiled tentatively. ‘And she did love your father, Thea. You need to know that. He came into her life at the right time. Together they moved
on.’
But how far?
Thea wondered, thinking of Johnny, always there, always near. Had her mother ever really truly belonged to her father at all?
‘Did my father know?’
‘When she had you, the doctors would have known that she’d had a baby previously. She might have told him she’d had a baby. But I doubt she’d ever have told him the
father’s name. Griffin Maddox –
your
father – I can’t imagine a man like him would ever have let Johnny be near her, if he’d known that.’ Shelley sighed.
‘And that’s it. That’s all there is. You know it all now.’
‘Did she ever mention the baby – my half-sister – to you?’
‘No. She cut me out of her life after that.’
There was a small silence. Shelley took a sip of wine and sighed. Then she looked at her watch. Thea sensed that she wanted to leave now that she’d unburdened herself.
She stood up.
‘I want to find her,’ Thea said.
Shelley looked up at her, surprised.
‘Don’t you want to know what happened to her? To the baby?’ Thea asked.
‘Of course I do. But, Thea, it was a long time ago. She’s probably living an ordinary life somewhere.’
‘But what if she’s not? What if she needs help?’
Shelley exhaled, clearly torn.
‘Will you help me? The adoption agency in England. They must have records. Your mother must have known where the baby went.’
Shelley looked uncomfortable. ‘I can try,’ she said, unconvincingly.
‘Would you?’ Thea asked, her eyes searching out Shelley’s. ‘Please?’
Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly emotional. It had been so long since she’d asked anyone for anything. She swallowed back tears. ‘It’s just that finding her . . . my sister . .
. would mean a great deal to me. A great deal.’
She saw Shelley soften. ‘OK, I’ll try and do what I can. But I want to know something too, since we seem to be getting everything off our chests.’
‘What?’
She paused for a moment, then obviously decided to come right out with it. ‘Thea, why did you break Tom’s heart? Why did you just end it like you did? He suffered.’
Tom.
Thea felt goosebumps rush up her spine, remembering how much she’d loved him.
He suffered
.
Thea imagined Tom sitting at that long kitchen table being comforted by his parents, and the pain felt as raw as it had done when she was twenty-one.
But she’d never tell Shelley Lawson the truth. Never tell anyone about what Brett had done. Or the baby she’d aborted afterwards. Thea cleared her throat and stared down at her
hands.
‘I had a change of heart,’ she said instead. ‘And I know, I dealt with it badly. But I decided I had to move on.’
‘Move on?’ Shelley looked aghast, clearly shocked by the casualness of the phrase and its dishonesty. ‘He really loved you.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry I hurt him, Shelley,’ Thea said, forcing herself to keep her voice level, ‘but that’s just the way that it was.’ Thea wanted this
interrogation over with. Tom – what a mess, what a terrible bloody mess, she’d made of it all. ‘I’m sorry, but it was never meant to be.’
Shelley slowly shook her head. ‘I remember you two together, right from the start. I remember the look in your eyes whenever you saw him. And you’re telling me you never really
cared?’
‘It’s the truth,’ Thea said, starting to lose her cool now, feeling sweat break out across her brow. ‘And anyway,’ she said, defensively, ‘Bridget
wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. It was probably best it ended.’
Shelley sighed heavily. ‘Bridget was jealous because she loved you too.’
Bridget’s behaviour had been so hurtful at the time that Thea couldn’t help pulling a face, but Shelley’s gaze was earnest and honest.
‘She’s come out, you know. She’s living with her partner in London.’
Thea felt her cheeks reddening. She had never guessed Bridget had felt
that
way about her, but now it all started to make sense . . .
But she had no time to ponder on the magnitude of her own insensitivity, for Shelley was still talking.
‘Obviously Duke and I are happy that she’s happy, but I feel sad that grandchildren are not on the agenda.’
‘You mean Tom . . . ’ Thea blurted, before she could help herself. Then she stopped. It was none of her business.
‘No,’ Shelley said resolutely. ‘Tom is still single. He’s here in Manhattan. A partner in his law firm already. He’s very focused. Driven.’ She reached into
her handbag and pulled out a business card, then handed it to Thea. ‘You should look him up,’ she said. ‘Tell him what you told me . . . if you really mean it. I don’t know
about you, but I think some closure would be very good for Tom. Young people like you two deserve to move on and to love again.’ Shelley stared deep into Thea’s eyes. ‘Secrets are
never the answer, you know. Your mother taught me that.’
Thea couldn’t meet her eye as they walked together to her front door. She kissed Shelley on the cheek.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Thea said, reminding Shelley of her promise to help find her lost sister.
Shelley nodded, then looked pointedly at the card in Thea’s hand. And Thea realized then that, without saying it, Shelley had made it clear that contacting Tom was a condition of her
offer.
After an awkward goodbye Thea stood with her back to the closed front door and stared at the business card, thinking of everything Shelley had told her. About Bridget and Tom.
Tom. Wonderful, kind, gorgeous Tom.
So he’d qualified as a lawyer on her advice, she thought, memories of those blissful days in Oxford washing over her, when they’d both been so young and full of ambition.