The Day She Came Back(31)

I am still replaying every word you said to me and each moment I got to see your face. This is tough for you, tough for us, but I hope these give you at least some of the answers you are looking for.

I am sending you a copy of my most precious photograph, taken when you were born. In fact, the only one I have of us together. And also letters sent between Mum and me when I was at Henbury House, the rehabilitation centre where I was staying when I was pregnant and when I lost Marcus. They are uncensored and quite raw, but I think it’s best I don’t censor them – they are honest and I think the proof you are looking for. And I understand that need to see evidence, I do.

Contact me any time, day or night, if you want to talk about anything, anything at all! Any time.

I shall wait for that contact.

I wish I knew how to sign off, so for now I will just end with –

Sarah X

With her thoughts and heart racing, Victoria felt the need for privacy. Creeping from the bed with her laptop under her arm, she quietly closed the bedroom door behind her and made her way to the drawing room, where she sank down on to the sofa. The morning light filtered in through the side window and lit everything it touched; she saw dust particles floating in its rays and thought for the first time about housekeeping, knowing she wanted to keep the place as nice as Prim had, but that could wait for now.

Is this it, Prim? Is this the moment I find out why you lied to me? I am scared, so scared . . .

Victoria opened the second email and there it was: a photograph, which filled the screen.

‘Oh my God!’ she cried, lifting the screen until it was close to her face, enabling her to better study the detail. She stared at the young, thin Sarah – painfully thin, in fact, with long, lank hair hanging over her sallow cheeks, pale lips and huge, haunted eyes, holding a tiny baby swaddled in a pale lemon blanket – but that wasn’t what drew her attention. She stared at the side of the image and the arm of a woman standing behind Sarah. A woman who had almost been cropped from the picture, save her hand, supporting the child’s head and the light almost glinting from the unmistakable large baguette-cut emerald that graced her finger.

With a shaky touch, she opened the second email and devoured it, word for word:

February 2001

Rosebank

Epsom

Surrey

Dear Sarah,

How are you feeling? Is there anything you need? Daddy and I think about you each and every day. I hope Henbury House is everything we hoped it would be. It sounded like the perfect place and they promised results, which is all that matters, so I would say no matter what, stick with it! This is a bump in the road, but doesn’t have to be your path.

I say that with a heavy heart because I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that this might be our last chance. I feel like we are running out of options and, though it is hard to say, running out of energy too.

I have to believe that in the controlled environment with counsellors and good doctors on hand, you stand your best chance of coming off that terrible drug. A drug I hate with as much passion as I have ever loved anything, and you know how fiercely I love!

Nothing else has worked, has it? Empty promises and half-hearted efforts will always come to nothing if you are within sight and sound of a temptation that is stronger than your resolve. And to see you looking so . . . hollow, so broken, is almost more than any mother can stand . . .

Victoria paused in her reading – it was odd to see her gran’s handwriting on the screen, and jarring to know that Sarah was in possession of these letters – sent to her as proof. Oh my God, Prim . . . you might have written these words on this very sofa . . . She ran her hand over the seat cushion, swallowing the bitter tang of betrayal, before she carried on reading.

Daddy read a book about an approach where it suggests you almost have to abandon your loved one, change the locks, unplug the phone and look the other way in a bid to make them understand that this is the absolute last time, rock bottom. I cannot conceive of doing that. Cannot conceive of not being your safety net. Not ever. That’s the deal: to always catch you if you fall.

And I know that even mentioning his name in a negative way will cause your anger to flare because you are so very blinkered, but can you imagine what it has been like for us? We are the people who have loved you your whole life long, have steered you through school, held your hand when you cried and have done our very best to give you the skills with which to navigate the choppy waters of life. For what? This? And I know you think you are grown up, and indeed you are in law, but you are twenty-one, a mere chick, really, and our little chick at that.

When you won your place at Durham! Oh my! I couldn’t sleep! I was so full of excitement for all the wonderful things that lay ahead for you. I pictured your marvellous, marvellous life – our little girl, a lawyer – I thought you had it made. I thought you would live the life I always dreamed for you. Because I love you and, to me, you only deserve the very best life. You say this man loves you – but I am unable to imagine a kind of love where you give the person you love a drug so foul it robs them of everything that made them wonderful . . . how is that love, Sarah, how?

Think about it!

Think about everything.

Keep working hard and know that we love you. We might not like your choices, we might not understand, but we always, always love you.

Mum X

Victoria paused again to wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her pyjama top and to catch her breath. Proof . . . this is my proof . . . but how . . . how is this even possible? I feel sick, so sick.