Chapter 34 #2
If you’re reading this letter, it means that I have finally succumbed to my health battle.
I’m sorry for leaving you when we’d had so little time together, but I want you to know the happiness you’ve brought to my life in the months we did share.
To have a family member to love is something to be cherished, and I felt a kinship between us that was so utterly unexpected.
How fortunate was I that it wasn’t next year that you came looking for me, or the one after—I wouldn’t give up the time we spent together for anything, and I hate to think what might have happened if you hadn’t found me.
Or maybe it’s that I can’t bear to think of what my last year of life would have been like without you.
I bought these earrings to gift you on your birthday, but alas, if they’re in this box, it means I didn’t last long enough to give them to you.
I hope you like them. The key is hopefully self-explanatory by now, but if not, please know that it’s the original key to the front door that I received when I purchased the house.
My home is now your home, and this key symbolises my own independence and now, hopefully, yours.
I wish with all my heart that it’s somewhere you can create happy memories and perhaps sometimes think of me, and I sincerely wish that you will find your way back to painting or drawing again, for you have such talent.
It would be a waste not to see the walls covered in your vibrant art.
You deserve all the happiness in the world, Hope, and although I know happiness might feel like it’s a long way away, trust me that one day, it will be within reach.
If loving another feels impossible, then find something you love to do and throw yourself into it wholeheartedly.
Just because you’ve lost those you loved, doesn’t mean you have to be alone, or that you have to give up the life you deserve.
Surround yourself with people, somehow, and remember that we only have one life, so even when it hurts, we must force ourselves to live it.
With all my love,
Your uncle Charles
Hope sat there on the bed, the letter floating from her fingers to the carpet as she stared at it.
Her uncle had planned all of this. She remembered now how he’d gone to see his lawyer when she’d first arrived; the expression on his face when she’d first stood at his door and told him who she was.
The way he’d embraced her and treated her as if she was his own daughter instead of a niece he’d never met.
The way he’d smiled and told her there was nothing to worry about, that he just had some things to attend to with his lawyer when she’d asked him that day at breakfast.
She reached for the earrings again and carefully put them on, before standing to look at them in the mirror.
The light caught the diamonds, and they sparkled as she admired them, as she fought to find joy in that moment that someone had given her such a beautiful gift.
That a family member had loved her enough, without judgement, despite the way her life had turned out.
It was then that Hope started to walk. She walked down the hall and paused at each bedroom door, then down the stairs, her fingers trailing over the mahogany banister rail as she did so.
She looked into the sitting room and then found herself back in the kitchen, staring out at the garden, where flowers were beginning to bloom in time for spring.
The garden had been one of her favourite places when she’d first moved here, but she’d barely noticed it in the months since her daughter was taken from her.
She’d told Doris all those months ago at the convent that she wished there was somewhere women could go to have their babies, where they would be looked after and safe.
She’d wished for someone to care for her when she’d so desperately needed it, to show compassion to both her and her baby; wished that there had been anywhere else but there that she could have spent that time.
With people who cared not just about the infant, but about the mother, too, no matter what her story might be or how she came to be alone.
Could she open this home to women in need?
She turned and looked around, imagining what it would have felt like to give birth in a home like this instead of the cold, concrete-walled room she’d found herself in.
To have someone filled with kindness deliver her baby, and to let the mother hold her baby instead of having her ripped away, even if the intention was for the infant to be adopted.
Hope sat down at the table, her eyes clear for the first time in days. She’d cried enough tears these past months to last her a lifetime, but for the first time in longer than she could remember there was a glimmer inside of her.
Because for all she’d lost, her uncle had given her the gift of choice, and as heartbroken as she might be, that was not something she was going to take for granted.
Find something you love to do and throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. That’s what he’d said in his letter, and that was exactly what she was going to do. She wouldn’t stop searching for her baby and fighting for answers, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do good along the way for others, too.
I’m going to make you proud, Charles. Just you wait and see.