Chapter 48
To see her matches, her account had to be public, which was why Meg could see the result too. By now Issy had taken a screen shot and changed her settings to make the account private, but it was too late. Meg had seen the results. The damage was done.
Was it true, what Meg said? Had her father slept with the baby nurse hired to look after her?
She knew Heather had struggled when she was a baby.
She’d suffered so terribly from hyperemesis gravidarum while pregnant with Felix that she’d decided against having any more children.
Heather had told her once that she was filled with dread when she’d discovered she was pregnant with Issy, which was a very confronting thing to hear your mother say.
‘You take things so personally, Isobel,’ Heather had said, when Issy was offended.
When the difficult pregnancy ended, post-partum depression had begun, although her mother never called it that.
It was ‘a bout of the baby blues’, which made it sound more like a bad mood than a mental illness.
If Issy was honest, she could believe that her father slept with the nurse.
It was repugnant behaviour, with a sick wife and a tiny baby in the next room, but it was certainly possible.
The thing she couldn’t work out, though, was why Meg was here, in Hartwell.
It all felt like a very unlikely coincidence and she couldn’t shake the feeling that Meg had somehow set her up.
Eventually she’d gone to bed, hoping it would all be less confusing in the morning.
It wasn’t. In fact, she only had more questions. She needed someone to help her make sense of it all. Not Heather, obviously. Or Malcolm. Who else might know what happened thirty years ago?
Rosa lived in a tiny stone cottage with a red tin roof and a pink magnolia in the front garden.
When Issy arrived, she was sitting in a wicker chair on the front porch, sipping a cool drink.
Issy watched her for a moment from the gate, second-guessing herself.
Was she really doing this? Her questions would put Rosa in a terrible position—she knew that—but she was out of options. She pushed open the iron gate.
Rosa looked up. Seeing Issy, her face broke out into a warm smile. ‘Issy, my bébé.’
Issy felt a warm glow inside. She loved it when Rosa called her that. It was like a little secret between them. She never said it in Heather’s presence.
‘Happy New Year, darling.’
‘Happy New Year, Rowie,’ Issy said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me stopping by.’
‘Of course, of course. Have a sit with me.’ She gestured to a spare chair. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’
‘No, it’s okay.’
‘Darling, it’s such a hot day. Let me get you a drink.’
‘Okay.’ Issy smiled. It was a joy to be cared for by Rosa. There was such confidence in the way she nurtured, every act infused with love. Issy breathed in the warm, sweet air.
Rosa returned, ice cubes clinking gently as she passed Issy a glass. Issy took a long drink, trying to decide where to start.
‘I know about Anna,’ she said, eventually.
‘What do you know about Anna?’ Rosa asked, quietly.
‘She was my night nurse.’
Rosa nodded.
‘She had a daughter,’ Issy went on, ‘after she left our home.’
‘She did?’ Rosa seemed genuinely surprised. Maybe she knew less than Issy thought.
‘Her daughter is my half-sister.’
Rosa looked away, frowning, eyes distant. ‘How do you know this?’
‘She’s here in Hartwell. We did DNA testing. We share twenty-three per cent of our DNA, which puts it in the range of a half-sibling.’
Rosa held her gaze, biting her lip, then she looked away, still frowning.
‘What happened, Rowie?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Because you won’t? Or because you don’t know?’
Rosa closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. ‘All I will say is this.’ She stared out at the street beyond the fence as she spoke. ‘There was … an incident, which happened while Anna was living with the family.’
‘An incident?’ What did she mean by that? An incident? An incident which left a young woman pregnant? Issy swallowed, feeling suddenly off kilter. Did her father …? My God.
‘Rosa?’
‘I’m sorry, darling.’ Rosa looked at her now, something vast and sorrowful in her dark eyes. She put a warm hand on Issy’s bare arm. ‘I can’t talk about it. I’ve already said more than I should.’
‘Why? Why can’t you talk about it? I don’t understand.’
‘I can’t talk about it anymore or my boy won’t be able to stay in his school.’
‘Your boy?’ Rosa’s boys weren’t born then. How on earth could this impact them? What did it have to do with their schooling? ‘Rosa, what does this have to do with your boys?’
Then it fell into place.
‘Oh my God,’ Issy said. Rosa’s boys went to Dalton, the same prestigious private school Issy’s father and brothers had attended.
Heather had got them in, even though they weren’t waitlisted as babies like all the sons of old boys whose enrolment was a birthright.
Once Rosa’s sons were accepted, Heather had paid the fees.
The older two were at university now, but her youngest was still at school.
Thirty thousand dollars a year, times three boys, times six years.
Issy did a rough calculation. It was over half a million dollars.
‘They did a deal with you, didn’t they?’ Issy met Rosa’s eyes. ‘They bought your silence.’