The Day She Came Back(89)

‘How did you feel?’

‘How did I feel?’ There was the unmistakable sound of a sob under her breath. ‘Like I had died, or a part of me, at least. Like all the grief I had felt for Marcus came rushing to the top, but worse, deeper, harder to handle. Like the small window letting in light was barred shut and the future was just as dark and lonely as my present. But I had to tell myself that you were happy and that she had her reasons.’

‘But she didn’t give you a chance! She didn’t give us a chance!’ Victoria raised her voice.

‘Because she had already given me so many chances and this was no longer about me. It was about you, the little girl who she wanted to protect and who she loved.’

‘But . . .’ Victoria felt the slip of tears over her cheeks. ‘But why would she do that? Why would she do something so extreme? So irrevocable? Why would she do that?’

‘To keep you safe.’ Sarah’s tears now matched her own. ‘Because she didn’t trust me and she knew there was no way back from what she had said without causing you the maximum of confusion and pain. Something neither of us wanted.’

‘She took you away from me! And she kept me away from you!’ Victoria sobbed.

‘Yes, but she did what she thought she had to do to keep you safe . . . and when you are a mother, you’ll be surprised what you would do to keep your child out of harm’s way. You need to try and understand that!’

‘But she wasn’t my mother! You were!’ Victoria’s tears now clogged her nose and throat as her eyes streamed.

‘Only in name, Victoria, only in name . . .’

The two cried together until their tears began to ebb, and they breathed deeply as calm returned. ‘It’s not easy for either of us.’ Sarah spoke softly. ‘And all we can do is keep talking about it, keep working things through until we reach an understanding. But this weekend feels like we have made a start. And never forget that Prim and I loved you as much as we loved each other, and that is how you and I will get through this: with love.’

‘Yes, with love.’ Victoria could only echo the beautiful sentiment. She realised she was shivering. ‘I’m getting a bit chilly. I think the temperature’s dropped.’

‘It does that. Do you want to get back? I know Jens will have prepared waffles, plus we have a birthday cake to eat!’

‘Yes, we do.’ Victoria stood, and the two walked back towards the apartment, side by side.

‘I feel like we have taken a step on to that bridge, Victoria, do you?’

‘I do.’ She nodded, looking to the other side of the water, towards Ekebergparken. ‘I do.’





THIRTEEN

The rain fell as Victoria boarded the plane and that suited her just fine. The plane began to taxi along the runway and her thoughts turned now to home – she was excited to see Daksha. As she soared higher into the sky, she looked down from the incredible vantage point at the city of Oslo below and thought of lovely Vidar. He was right: you could only really appreciate something when you were looking back at it, the whole picture from above, and what she appreciated was that Sarah had spoken the truth, and now she had the full story, the answers she had been looking for. Opening her laptop, Victoria read the last two letters, hearing Sarah and Prim’s voices in her head as she did so, voices that were a little bit like her own.

October 2001

Rosebank

Epsom

Surrey

Sarah,

I have read your letter and I have cried an ocean.

It seems like you have given up, and that makes me feel very afraid because, if you are not fighting, then the fight is over, and the thought of losing you breaks my heart into pieces. You are my heart.

Please, please, I beg you, don’t give up!

I want to make you a promise that I will love Victory and care for her as I have you, with every fibre of my being. It has been a privilege to be your mum, and to take care of your little girl will be the same.

The sadness your addiction has brought us is more than I thought I would be able to bear. I cannot think that this little girl might suffer in the same way.

If you choose the drug, Sarah, if you want to end your life that way, as you seem so set on doing, then you cannot contact her. You cannot let her love you and get close to you, only to lose you. That would be too much, and trust me when I tell you the pain of being so helpless, unable to intervene, is more than any person, mother or daughter, should have to go through.

I am praying you choose to stay clean. I am praying you choose to come home with Victory and live a life! A wonderful life! But if you can’t do that – let your daughter have that wonderful life. A life not marred by drugs and the world that comes with that choice. A choice I will never fully understand.

I love you, Sarah, I will always love you, but I also love my granddaughter and I will fight to keep the world you seem insistent on inhabiting away from her door.

I will be there when you need me.

Keep me posted and know that my heart and spirit are broken, entirely broken. I don’t know how we have got to this.

I don’t and never will understand, but keeping Victory safe and secure means losing you, and that is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

I cannot think what I will tell her. I can’t think what I might say to explain how we have arrived at this desperate, desperate crossroads.