Читать книгу One Day In Summer - Shari Low - Страница 11

‘Hope, are you absolutely, positively, completely sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Maisie asked, eyes wide and pleading. ‘I mean, he could be a complete fraud after your money. Or a serial killer. Or one of those catfish guys.’

Hope stopped applying her mascara at the mirror on the kitchen wall and responded with pursed lips of cynicism that eventually broke into a smile.

‘First, I’m twenty-two, not twelve. That makes me a grown-up who is allowed out on her own. Secondly, he’s not a fraud because it was me who tracked him down, not the other way around. And even if he was, all he’d get from me is my shoe collection and a payment plan for my student loan. Same goes for the catfish stuff. And he may be a serial killer, but if that’s the case, it’s better that I know before I start shelling out for Christmas cards.’

Over at the white IKEA dining table, a shadow crossed Maisie’s face. ‘Fine. But if you don’t come back, I’ll hunt him down. And I want a call or a text every hour.’

‘Deal. I’ll also keep my phone on so you can track me. And if you get a text that says SOS, you can commando crawl in and get me out.’

Maisie nodded. ‘I’m on it.’

Hope went back to applying her make-up. Not that there was much of it. A coat of mascara, a bit of blusher so that she didn’t look like the walking dead, and a clear lip gloss to finish it off. Growing up with her mousy brown hair and pale skin, she’d always been beyond jealous of Maisie’s dark complexion and thick ebony hair. They’d got used to the raised eyebrows of surprise when they told people they were sisters. Mum and Dad had equipped them with all sorts of answers when they were younger, but they’d soon realised that it was far more effective to throw back a defiant stare and watch the curiosity turn to an embarrassed squirm.

They were sisters. Adopted a couple of years apart, but sisters in every sense of the word that mattered. The fact that they didn’t share the same DNA was irrelevant and always would be, regardless of what happened today.

Maisie reached over to the biscuit tin in the centre of the table and liberated a chocolate digestive, just as her mobile phone rang. ‘It’s Mum.’

Hope felt another explosion of butterflies in her stomach. Her mum had been supportive from the start of this journey, but that didn’t mean that it had been easy to navigate the emotions of such a difficult and complicated situation.

‘Hey, Mamma,’ Maisie said, with a sigh, unable to mask her mood as always. ‘Yep, she’s just getting ready to leave.’

Hope chimed in from the other side of the room. ‘Tell Mum I’ll buzz her on the way there.’

‘Did you get that, Mum? Hope will call you on the way. She won’t let me go with her. I mean, what if she gets kidnapped?’

Hope could only hear one side of the conversation, but she could guess what her mum was saying. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’ll be fine. She needs to do this.’

Always the voice of reason. Their dad had been the same. Both teachers, her mum, Dora, in English and dad, Tim, in Chemistry, neither of them were prone to drama or over-anxiety. That was Maisie’s role in the family. Handy, given that she’d been a jobbing actress since she came back to Scotland after studying at RADA for four years. It had made perfect sense for her to move into the spare room in Hope’s flat. She contributed to the rent when she was working, and when she wasn’t, Hope’s wages from her job at the hospital and her student loan made up the slack until Maisie paid her back when she landed another job. Hope didn’t mind. Studying at university for the fourth year of her medical degree while moonlighting as a part-time care assistant on a paediatric ward at Glasgow Central didn’t leave her enough time to spend her money on a social life any way.

Mum had offered to come with her today too, but Hope had declined. This was something she had to do on her own. There was no plan. No script. She wasn’t even sure how much she’d tell him or whether this was going to be a twenty-minute meeting with a full stop and no further contact at the end. All she knew was that she had to try.

‘Mum, I have to go,’ Maisie said into the handset. ‘Stay near a phone in case we need you to identify her body.’

That actually made Hope giggle. ‘You are shameless, do you know that?’

Maisie disconnected the call and tossed her phone on the table. ‘I do.’

‘Fine. I see you trying to get Mum onside and I raise you this.’ Hope opened the kitchen drawer, the one below the cutlery that was full of miscellaneous stuff like batteries, bulbs, Sellotape and pens, and pulled out a small white box. Crossing the room, she placed it in front of Maisie. ‘Here’s the perfect thing to distract you while I’m gone. Get this done.’

Her sister stared at the box. ‘Man, you fight dirty.’

Hope shrugged then snaked her arms around Maisie’s neck and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Yup. Only because I know you want to, but it’s only fear that’s holding you back.’

They both stared at the box for a few seconds. The logo on the front said ‘Ancestry’.

They’d both received them on their twenty-first birthdays from Mum – her way of telling them that if they ever wanted to track down their biological families, she supported their decision. They both knew Dad would have too. His passing the year before had devastated them all.

Neither of them had done the test immediately. They’d lain in the drawer until the day, a couple of months ago, when Hope learned just how important it was that she find someone with a genetic link.

Doing the test was easy – just a case of spitting into a tube, then sending it off for analysis. Getting Maisie to do the test proved more difficult. Hope tried to persuade her to do it at the same time, but her sister resolutely refused, claiming that she had no desire to know more about her heritage. Realising she was fighting a losing battle, Hope went ahead and did it by herself. Last weekend that decision paid off.

On Sunday, she’d just got home after a twelve hour shift at the hospital and all she needed was her bed and to sleep. Trying to combine studies with work was exhausting, but she was determined not to live off her mum, especially now that her dad was gone. She was so tired, she was tempted to ignore the ping of an email dropping into the inbox on her phone. A quick glance had changed everything. The headline read:

Your Ancestry results are in!’

Suddenly awake, she’d grabbed her laptop and opened it on the kitchen table, fingers trembling as she logged on.

The first result she clicked on was her ‘Ethnicity Estimate’ and her eyebrows had immediately knitted together in confusion. She’d expected to see the Scottish heritage. It was where she’d been born and raised. But the shock? 44 per cent North American.

What?

She was almost half American?

As far as she knew, her only connection with the USA was a couple of trips to Disney World when she was a kid. The revelation took her breath away for a moment, as her chest had tightened with anxiety, while her brain had refused to send her hand the signal to click on the next category: DNA Matches. This was it. The people on the database with whom she shared a genetic link.

Breathe. Breathe. Click.

She’d read that it wasn’t uncommon to have up to half a million fifth to eighth cousins, so she was hoping for something a bit closer than that. A starting point. Maybe an aunt. Or a great-grandparent. Just some place to begin the search. She hadn’t dared to hope that there would be anything closer in there. After all, her adoption had been a closed one and there were no clues to go on, no background information, only the emphatic stipulation on her adoption file that the mother wished for no contact at any time in the future and requested that no information ever be released to Hope or her new family.

She’d grown up thinking she’d never have answers, had come to terms with that, but the advent of easily available DNA testing had changed everything.

Now it was a possibility. A chance.

Click.

One close match.

Her yelp had roused a sleeping Maisie from the couch in the lounge and she had charged through, hair wild, eyes blazing, ready to attack. ‘What? What is it?’

‘My DNA results,’ Hope had whispered.

Maisie had immediately sagged, adrenalin dissipating. ‘Holy shit, I thought you were getting mutilated in the kitchen by a masked intruder.’

‘Did you fall asleep watching Criminal Minds again?’

‘Yep.’

Just as the ridiculousness of the situation helped Hope’s heartbeat come down from the beat of a speeding train, Maisie had switched on to the gravity of the situation.

‘Oh my God, your results. What do they say?’

Hope had turned the laptop towards Maisie as she crossed the room. ‘Meet my biological link.’

‘Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.’ Every word was punctuated by a step towards the screen.

Hope’s hands were over her mouth as she’d watched Maisie read. There was just a name. Then the word FATHER.

‘Click on his profile!’ Maisie had gasped.

‘Argh, I didn’t even notice that bit. My brain shut down right about the same time as I screamed.’

With a shaky hand, Hope had clicked on the blank circle next to his name and was taken to another page, but there were no further details on there. No family tree. No other matches. Nothing. Except…

‘There’s a message button.’ Hope was staring at it as if it had the potential to self-detonate.

Maisie had slid onto the bench at the other side of the table. ‘How are you feeling?’

Hope had slowly shaken her head. ‘I’ve no idea. Gobsmacked. Happy. Excited. Fricking terrified. Anxious. Did I say gobsmacked?’

Maisie had nodded. ‘You did. Bugger, why did I have to give up smoking? I could so do with a cig right now. Sod it, Prosecco will have to do.’ In the few minutes it took for Maisie to retrieve a bottle of wine from the fridge, uncork it, pour generous measures into two glasses, and return to the table, Hope had simply stared at the screen in silence.

Maisie had grimaced a little as the large gulp of wine went down. ‘Right then, what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, I know I need to send him a message, but I just don’t know if I’m ready.’

‘You are!’

Hope had rolled her eyes, then settled into a rueful glare. ‘This comes from the woman who won’t even do the test.’

‘But I’m a born coward,’ Maisie had conceded. ‘You’re much, much braver than me. That’s why we send you in to get the spiders out of the bath. And, you know, to do medical stuff, like cut people up and fix broken folk. I’m here for entertainment and cocktails – nothing that requires balls of steel.’

‘Well, my balls of steel are having a think about this before doing anything rash,’ Hope had admitted, her voice uncertain.

‘Nope, do it now. If you put it off, you’ll psyche yourself out. And besides… not to pee on your parade, but you don’t really have a choice, do you?’

That had focused Hope’s mind. Nope. There was too much riding on this to let it go now. She had to see it through, had to try.

That’s what she was telling herself now, two weeks later, when she was getting ready to leave for Glasgow Airport, to meet the man whose name was on that DNA match.

Her fingers shook a little as she tied the laces on her white Samba trainers, then slung a denim jacket over her pale blue sundress. Layers helped add a bit of a shape to her frame.

Her stomach was rumbling, but she’d been too nervous to eat. His flight was due in just after 10 a.m., and it would take her around twenty minutes to drive to the airport from their Shawlands flat, on the south side of Glasgow, so she’d be there in plenty of time to pop into the Starbucks at the arrivals area for a coffee and something to eat, if she thought she could get anything past the huge lump in her throat.

She kissed Maisie, hugged her tight. ‘I love you, sis.’

‘I love you too. And I’ll be ready to rescue you.’

The front door clicked as Hope closed it behind her. She stopped, took a breath of warm summer air, let the sun soothe the frown lines between her eyebrows, then she started walking towards her Mini. She had so many questions, so many blanks to fill. And now she was closer than she’d ever been.

Today was the day Hope McTeer was going to meet her biological father for the first time. And she was praying that he’d be able, and willing, to save her life.