My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. by Annette Sills (epub e reader .TXT) 📗

hand on his and stopped him unbuttoning my shirt. “Sorry, I can’t,” I’d said, getting up. “I love my husband too much.” Then I left when I very much wanted to stay.

Joe wiped his cheek with the back of his hand then he moved around the room, picking up some of my dirty clothes from the floor.

“My contract in Madrid’s finished,” he said, throwing them into the laundry basket. “I’m staying on in Tom O’Brien’s spare room until I can move into the flat in Salford. If it’s OK with you I’d like to come round now and again and see how you’re doing.”

“Whatever.”

I sank deeper into the refuge of my pillows. Rain started to patter on the windows. All my fight was gone and I hadn’t the energy to say no. The darkness was rolling over me again like a fog, weighing me down and sapping me of everything, even my anger towards Joe. I closed my eyes. I was so very very tired.

Chapter 30

The fog of my depression eventually began to lift. I distinctly remember the moment it first happened. It was a bright October afternoon down in The Meadows.

Shortly after Joe’s visit I took sick leave from work and went to my GP. She put me on a waiting list for CBT counselling and prescribed me anti-depressants. I was hesitant to take them at first, a little afraid of the side effects. But I was lucky. I had the odd headache, a bit of diarrhoea but none of the self-harming thoughts or other terrible things I’d read about.

Joe came by most days. He shopped, paid the bills and helped around the house. We didn’t talk much, communicating only about functional stuff and circling around each other as though separated by glass. But I appreciated a human presence. It cut through the loneliness of the long tortuous days.

I was on my medicinal daily walk in the Meadows and sitting on a bench on the curve of a path opposite a stream. Mild sunshine sprinkled the woods and dotted the carpet of ivy at my feet. I was listening to Snow Patrol on my headphones when a middle-aged couple in pastel-coloured waterproofs appeared round the bend of the path. They were guiding a blonde girl of about three who was wearing a Peppa Pig raincoat. I guessed they were young grandparents from the adoring way they looked at the child, as if every step she took and observation she made was pure genius. A young runner in yellow Lycra suddenly appeared round the corner with a dog and as she flew past them, the ruby Cavalier barked and jumped up at the child. She screamed and hid behind her grandfather’s sturdy legs. The dog’s owner stopped and apologised. I watched as the three adults tried to coax the girl to stroke the dog who had been put on a lead. The girl wasn’t having any of it, continuing to peer at the dog curiously as the adults chatted. Then without warning she stepped out from behind her grandfather’s legs and stroked the dog’s carmine coat. Delighted with herself, she did it again. Then she ran on the spot and clapped her hands, giddy with excitement. Her face was bursting with pride and joy as all the adults applauded. It made me smile, I mean really smile, for the first time in months and I felt something shift inside me.

When they’d gone I looked around the wood at the rich greens, honey-yellows and copper-reds of autumn. I was starting to focus and see colour again. It was like I’d been wearing the wrong pair of glasses without realising and then I’d put on my old ones again. Snow Patrol sang “You Could Be Happy” on my iPod and I walked home with a slight spring in my step.

Later that evening I rang Mary. She’d recently been promoted at work and was now my new line manager. I was delighted. When I invited her out to dinner the following evening to celebrate, she accepted immediately.

She’d been round the previous week and I’d told her everything over tea and cake and tears in my kitchen. She listened without judgement when I raged about Joe and Karen. She resisted the urge to give me advice and waved a dismissive hand in the air when I brought up the topic of work.

“I’m your new boss,” she said, delving into a slice of the delicious homemade Victoria sponge she’d brought round. “Do as you’re told and stay at home until you’re well enough to come back.”

When I told her about the search for my brother and the Mother and Baby Home scandals, I was surprised to learn she’d actually read quite a bit about the topic. She said she’d heard rumours about the illegal adoptions in the homes in Ireland years ago.

I was nervous about going out in public to a restaurant. I’d ventured out only once in the evening since I’d started feeling unwell. I took off to the cinema in town one evening but had another panic attack on the tram and had to come home. That was before the pills, though. They were helping a lot with my confidence. I was now able to go out to the local shops and to The Meadows for my walk which I could never have done before. But to be on the safe side I arranged to meet Mary at a restaurant on Beech Road in Chorlton only few hundred yards from home.

A onetime police station, the Lead Station had bare brick walls and wine bottles stacked high on shelves. There was a cosmopolitan menu and an outside eating space in an enclosed yard decorated with fairy lights and plants. It probably hadn’t been used at all during the recent damp months. Apart from a couple of families with children and a young couple who looked like they might be on a date, the place was very quiet. On the way