A Mother’s Secret

So, my darling, it looks like you’re about to learn the truth at last. Your father has died, and Connie, your stepmother, has decided it is time you learned the truth. She’s right; it has been over fifty years, after all. She’s been a good mother to you, Connie has, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it should have been me. She’s been a good wife to your father too, better than I was.

So now you take the papers proffered. You look at that first piece of paper, such an innocent looking piece of paper, and you read the words on it that will send you on a journey to find the truth. You pause as you look at it, as you take in what it means. It’s my death certificate, and on there is the cause of my death – an overdose. You realise for the first time that I did not die because I was sick, which is what you’ve always been given to understand. I died because I took my own life, I committed suicide. I decided that I could no longer live with the shame. I chose death rather than that, even if it meant leaving you, my love. That is why I’m here now. I cannot move on as others would because that shame has followed me here, and so I must come to terms with that, come to terms with everything that I did before I am allowed closure.

Don’t get angry with Connie darling. She knows very little. Your father didn’t want the truth known, so although she knew as much as this piece of paper shows, although she knew about the suicide, she knows no more than that. She tried at times to get your father to tell you, but he refused because he knew that doing so would only result in more questions. Can you remember the time when you were a teenager? When you were studying genetics, and you asked your father what I had died from because some illnesses were passed on?  You had a right to know, you said. And your dad looked at you in your too short skirt, your too much makeup, and said he doubted you had my illness. He doubted it very much. 

Of course, if you realised the circumstances of my death you’d want to know why. And it’s the reason why that your father wants forgotten. Over my dead body, he used to say. Well, now his body is dead, so Connie thinks it’s time you should know, otherwise it will remain hidden for all time.

She’s directing you to Aunt Annie, your father’s sister. She doesn’t know much more, but there may be something she does know that Connie doesn’t. She did know me after all. Maybe she will put you on the right path. 

She knows that your dad and I didn’t live round here. We lived up north near my parents. We came here when I did what I did so that she could help care for you. You were only four after all. Such a sweet child, and so confused wondering where mummy had gone. Annie helped raise you until Connie came along when she was happy to hand you back. Not that she didn’t love you, but she had a job on with the arrival of the twins.

You question Annie too, wanting to know why you haven’t been told. Annie knows nothing other than it happened. There was only your father knew the reason, and he would never say. But Annie tells you what she can. She tells you that I had a sister, that I have a sister who’s still alive. Not that Annie knows that; there’s been no contact with that family for years. But she knows about Grace.

She also told you, that Grace married a man with a strange name. But she couldn’t remember what it was, only that it was what she called a la-de-dah name. But she’s got no more than that. 

You sit at home and you begin to wonder where to go from there. There’s an old address book, but there are no forenames, only surnames and initials. There’s quite a few that begin with G, so where to start? 

Danny can see you struggling to make sense, so he decides to help. He’s a good man, Danny. I wish I could have met him, the father of my grandchildren. Danny sees that on your birth certificate there’s your mother’s maiden name as Shepherd, my maiden name. This would be Grace’s maiden name too. Danny disappears for the evening, leaving you to think he’s ignoring you, fed up with your sullen mood. But he’s not.

Danny has been looking into his own family history, so he’s practiced at searching the records. He searches through births, marriages and electoral registers. He finds that Grace married St John Holbrook. St John, a proper la-de-dah name if ever I saw one. Singe we used to call him. Nice man. He also finds that they probably had three children, Robert, Patrick and Jacob. And he’s found from electoral records possible addresses for Grace and these boys, now men. They may be a few years out of date, but at least it’s not fifty years. Clever Danny.

You look in the address book There is a G Holbrook so on the off chance, you call the number. But the number no longer exists.

You check on social media, online phone books to see if you can get any response from Robert, Patrick or Jacob. Finally, you settle down to write letters to the people at the addresses, explaining who you are, asking after Grace, pleading for information. Then you wait. And hope.

It’s three weeks and one Sunday morning, you get a phone call. Robert, for that’s who it is, is on the other end, though he sounds cagey. Who can blame him? Someone he didn’t know existed now claims to be his cousin. But he’s spoken with his mum, Grace, and discovered that you might be for real. He asks what you want. The truth, you say, just the truth. He reluctantly invites you over; but he wants proof you are who you say you are.

You go at the agreed date, time, place. All three brothers are there, protective of their mother who’s a widow now. No, I’m afraid you’ll never get to meet the one with the la-de-dah name, but you see a photo, and you can see the sons take after their father. You show your birth certificate, marriage certificate, passport, address book with Grace’s name in it. No need, says Grace. She can see our mother in you.

She takes your hand, asks why you’ve only come now. You explain about your father, you explain about Connie, how she was the one who eventually started you on this journey. She sighs, and asks Robert to pass her a folder. She extracts a letter from within the folder, the letter I wrote to her explaining why I was doing what I was doing. You read this, see that I was in love with someone else. A secret love, a forbidden love, a love so strong it hurt. But I was already married to your father, I already had you. You look confused, still not understanding. It explains that your father had found out, had threatened to throw me out, take you and leave me to my disgrace. But surely, you think, even though divorce was not as common, as easy as it is now, that could have been a solution. Or was the man married? Was that it, you ask? Was I pregnant again and would I have been abandoned by both of them? Grace shakes her head, then takes out an envelope containing some letter, the letters. The letters from my love in those months of our passion, before we were found out. 

It still hurts to see these letters as you read them, as you work out the nature of my passion. The first ones you read are signed with a bold V. Victor you ask yourself? Or Vince? And then you read one with a full name at the bottom, and you understand. And that name is Verity. 

Did I love your father? Perhaps. I was extremely fond of him, and if it had not been for Verity I might have been content, for I had not considered that side of myself. But at that time, the love I felt for Verity was not a love that could have been acknowledged. In that time, it was a love that meant one thing, shame. In these enlightened times, we could be what we are, but not back then.

So now my darling I will leave you to get to know your new cousins. You know my story now, you know it all. And I feel I can leave you at last.