Chapter Twenty-Four
Leaving my parents' room to change into something more comfortable, I left their door open. I tied my hair back into a bun as I thought about calling my brother. Instead, I decided I'd just keep anything he might want in the garage and he could look through it next time he was back in England. We'd already sorted through Mum's office before the funeral to find the insurance policies and documents needed to inform everyone of their deaths, but neither of us had been ready to go through their personal belongings back then. I still wasn't sure I was ready.
Armed with a roll of bin bags, I wandered back into their room. Most of their belongings could go to the charity shop. Everything else would probably end up in the garage. I started with the chest of drawers as I thought their clothes would be the easiest things to deal with. Faced with the neatly folded garments inside, I was wrong as the faint smell of my mum's perfume still clung to them. A smell that invoked memories of hugs and laughter. Each item I placed in the bag made my eyes sting a little more, and it was so much harder than I'd thought it would be, even after all the time that had passed. Each piece of clothing was like saying goodbye over and over.
When I'd filled two bags, I took a deep breath and turned slowly in a circle. I still had the wardrobe, bedside tables, and my mum's dresser to go. Dresser first. Her good jewellery I put to one side to add to my own later. The other pieces that I didn't want I put aside to see if Jean might want them. A pile of photos from when my brother and I were kids stopped me short. We were playing on the beach. We'd gone to…Wales I think. Mum stood between us; Leo and I knelt proudly before the sand castles we had each built.
Tears pricked behind my eyes as memories of that day hit me. Getting ice cream cones on the beach and dripping them down ourselves. Strolling home sharing a bag of chips. God, I missed them both so much. Missed being able to pop 'round and see my brother.
For the hundredth time, I wondered if we would be better off selling the house so I could start somewhere new. It hadn't made sense to carry on paying rent on my flat in Manchester when my parents' house sat empty and mortgage-free. But I hoped that one day the memories within these walls would make me smile rather than bring me grief and remind me of my loss.
I put the photos with the pile of jewellery and carried on. It felt wrong to be going through their things, but I couldn't leave the room as a shrine to them forever. I needed closure of some sort. My biological father wasn't alive, and my mum couldn't explain why she'd kept the truth from me. It was time to try and put it all in the past because I couldn't change anything that happened. I needed to start living my life again.
I pulled out a black notebook from the drawer and flicked through the pages. Skim reading a page before I flipped it shut when I realised it was my mum's diary. Reading that would be wrong. Putting it to one side, I twisted around on the stool surveying the disarray the room was in. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind to do this. But then when would I ever be?
Turning to close the drawer my hand froze in mid-air when I saw a letter stuck up, half slipped down the back to the drawer underneath. Carefully I tugged it out.
The handwriting was unfamiliar, but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the blue airmail sticker and postage stamp that did on the slightly age-yellowed envelope. A sand coloured building with a green doorway. But it was the word in red writing down the side that I couldn't tear my focus from.
One single word.
Malta.
I dropped the envelope as though it was a hot baking tray scalding my fingers. It could be from anybody, I told myself. But there was only one person I knew who lived in Malta. It had to be from him. Victor. My biological dad.
Tracing a finger across my mum's name, the lines of the address, the letter felt like my own personal Pandora's box. If I read it? Well, I couldn't unread it. Yet knowing it was there…how could I not read it?
It might be about me. It might not. It could be Victor writing to say he wanted nothing to do with me. Holding the envelope in both hands, I stared at it as I debated what I should do. Whatever was inside was quite thick. Too thick for a simple rejection letter? I flipped it over and the flap of the envelope was tucked inside. All I'd have to do was slip the flap out and read it.
Instead, I dropped the envelope back on the dressing table and paced over to the window. I knew I'd end up reading it. I just wasn't prepared for what it might reveal. But it couldn't be worse than the scenarios I was making up in my head though, surely? Was anything ever as bad as you built it up to be in your head?
Worst-case scenario? My biological dad didn't want me. What was I losing out on? I'd never known him. Would never know him. But I couldn't lose something I'd never had. Yeah, it might hurt, but I could live with that because I'd had Vinnie.
Wandering back over to the desk, I stared at the envelope one last time. Sat back down on the stool and picked it up. Slipped the flap out and pulled out several pieces of folded paper from inside. I opened them out flat on the top of the dresser and started to read the neat handwriting. Read it with disbelief.
Halfway through the letter, I looked up to stare blankly at the wall in front of me. It was all a mix-up? The person who had written the letter joked about remembering the mix-up at the hospital with the names of the fathers on the birth certificate. How she couldn't believe her daughter—also called Kimberly—was turning twenty-one. How long ago was this letter sent? And I wasn't seeing the funny side of it. They had found the incorrect birth certificate and had wanted to contact my mum again to catch up with her. Somehow the hospital had switched the father's names for me and this other Kimberly? I didn't understand, so I carried on reading the rest of the letter hoping it would shed some light on the situation.
As I did, guilt and shame washed over me for ever doubting my mum. And my dad. My real dad—Vinnie. Victor wasn't my biological dad. He was the father of the other Kimberly the letter mentioned.
But I was mortified at the thought that I could have turned up on this man's doorstep unannounced, proclaiming to be his daughter. The birth certificate I had found in my mum's office with Victor Hardacre's name on it—that had spurred me to go to Malta in the first place—had the wrong father's name on it.
There had to be another birth certificate for me somewhere—the correct one stating that Vinnie was indeed my biological dad. I dropped the letter. If my real birth certificate was here, where was it? Not in mum's office. It had to be in here. With my brother's probably.
I yanked open the rest of the drawers in the dresser, but they were filled with underwear. My gaze landed on the bedside table. It felt like an invasion of my mum's privacy going through it, but I had to find it. Hold the truth in my hands.
Dropping to my knees beside the bed, I pulled open the drawer. Inside I removed a small suede photo album off the top of the items cluttering the drawer. A scrapbook that when I flicked through it saw it contained memories of our family over the years but not what I was looking for. I dug around to the bottom of the drawer. Ticket stubs to shows and places we'd visited. Everything except what I was looking for.
I rolled over until my arse hit the carpet and pulled my knees up to my chest. Where else would she keep it? The wardrobe doors were still open and there was a pile of shoe boxes in the bottom of it. I crawled my way over to it. Pulled the lid off the top one then threw the box to the floor when there was only a pair of shoes inside. Moved on to the next box, and then the next. I was beginning to think I was wasting my time, or you know, going crazy.
I ripped the lid off another one with relief as I looked inside. Okay, I wasn't crazy because it was filled with papers. Tipped the contents out onto the carpet and spread them out but not finding what I was after. I picked up a brown A4 sized envelope and tipped the contents out of it. My mum and dad's marriage certificate. My brother's birth certificate. And then finally…my birth certificate. Father—Vinnie Hardwick.
Leaning against the wardrobe, I stared at those two words for a long time. Memories of my dad flitting through my mind. Him teaching me to ride my first bike. Cuddling me the first time I fell off it, then encouraging me to get back on. The look on his face when my first boyfriend showed up at the house. That one made me smile as I remembered Dad taking him off to one side to “have a word.”
Why had I believed so easily that Vinnie might not have been my dad? I thought of all the things I'd done since finding that incorrect birth certificate. Why hadn't I checked before flying halfway across Europe? Why had it never crossed my mind that it could be wrong and Vinnie's name should have been on it all along?
I didn't know the answers to those questions. But as I sat on the floor surrounded by papers and shoes, something a lot like acceptance rolled through me.
Vinnie was my real dad.
A warmth spread across my chest at that thought. My mum had never lied to me, never kept the truth from me.
I was Vinnie's daughter and he had loved me. And I'd been lucky enough to be loved unconditionally by both my parents for twenty-six years. They might not be here now, but nobody could take that from me.