Chapter 36
36
‘I don’t understand,’ Adeline said. ‘How can you know?’
Monique smiled kindly. ‘I know you are afraid of intuition, perhaps of magic. But you looked into my eyes and felt it too. You cannot deny it.’
Adeline opened her mouth to say something about wishful thinking, or imagining or dreaming, but closed it again. ‘But a feeling. It isn’t…’ She wasn’t sure how she felt about Monique’s revelation. Surely it couldn’t be true.
‘Ah, you are worried because it is not science,’ Monique said. She smiled fondly, as if Adeline were a child.
Adeline felt herself stiffen. ‘Well, yes. I mean, science is the only way of really knowing, isn’t it?’ She was trying to keep her voice level. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s true.’
‘Perhaps to some people,’ Monique said, somewhat dismissively.
‘And also, if you do really believe this, why didn’t you come and meet her earlier? Surely you must have been curious?’
Monique’s shoulders slumped. ‘I tried to come, but I could not make myself. I couldn’t say everything I needed to in that moment. And it seemed dishonest to just come to see her as a friend of yours when the truth is a little more complex.’
‘Possibly.’ Adeline said carefully. Not wanting to get Monique’s hopes up, but not wanting to break her either. Hope was a fragile thing, a rare thing. ‘But Monique,’ she persisted, ‘you realise what you’re saying is… quite far-fetched. It would make me your granddaughter, Lili your great-granddaughter. Isn’t it a bit…’ she trailed off.
‘A bit what?’ Monique said, tilting her chin slightly. ‘A bit wonderful?’
Adeline couldn’t help but smile. ‘True,’ she said. ‘It would be wonderful. I mean, really, really wonderful. But it’s so unlikely, Monique. The kind of thing that happens in dreams, perhaps. In books, even. But not in real life. It’s too neat. Too unlikely.’
‘ Mais non !’ Monique said. ‘Things like this happen all the time. But people are afraid. They say there is coincidence, or try to find an explanation that they can cope with. But it doesn’t make them any less real. It is not impossible for Sophia to be my daughter.’
Then Adeline reached out a hand, covered Monique’s. ‘You’re right. It’s not impossible. It’s a wonderful thought. And the dates seem to add up. But we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. We mustn’t assume. I mean, the coincidence of my finding your advert alone is just…’ She blew out a puff of incredulous air.
Monique smiled. ‘Perhaps it was not such a coincidence.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because Adeline, I made it happen. With a charm. I cast a spell for family, an end to loneliness. And then suddenly the phone rings and it is you.’
‘Oh.’
It seemed cruel to unleash any scepticism on Monique right now. Cruel to point out the flaws in her logic. Cruel to suggest a DNA test. Instead, Adeline tried to smile.
Monique nodded, her eyes on Adeline’s face. And Adeline could feel that she wanted her to join her in her thinking, to share this sweet but ultimately flawed delusion.
‘I should have taken the chance to see her,’ she said sadly. ‘I think if we could meet, we would both know.’
Adeline couldn’t say it, but she was relieved Monique hadn’t had that chance. Surely it could break the fragile link she’d made with Sophia – scare her off entirely? Surely, too, it could be upsetting for Monique.
‘Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be this time,’ she said softly.
‘Maybe it will still happen. If we wish for it. Sophia will come into my life if it is meant to be.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And I wish it,’ she said.
Almost instantly, Adeline’s phone began to ring.
Sophia. She snatched the phone up, but not before Monique had seen the name flash up on her screen.
‘Hello?’ she said, lifting the device to her ear.
‘Adeline,’ Sophia said. ‘I forgot to give you something. I am turning back – is it OK if we meet quickly?’
‘Yes, of course.’
When she ended the call, Adeline saw Monique looking at her expectantly and felt her heart sink.
‘It was Sophia?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it is a sign!’
Adeline gave a weak smile. ‘She’s just popping back to give me something. Could you mind Lili while I…’ She gestured to the door .
Monique shook her head. ‘No, I must come too. You were right. I was afraid before, but I should be brave, just as you are.’
Adeline felt herself stiffen. ‘Monique, I’m not sure that it’s…’
‘You think that she won’t want to see me?’
‘Monique,’ Adeline reached out a hand to her friend. ‘I just think she might not be able to understand exactly why you think… what you think. It might be better to prepare her. Or even do the test! We know she’s on the DNA site. It’d be better to have it confirmed, surely?’ And I don’t want you to drive my mother away.
‘Pah! DNA!’ Monique scoffed.
‘Monique. It’s pretty conclusive.’
‘Yes. I understand. But not everyone needs this kind of proof.’
‘But it might make it easier.’
‘ Non . She will know. If she is mine. She will know.’
Adeline’s phone flashed with a message. Sophia was already in the hotel foyer. ‘Perhaps let me go down at first, at least,’ she said. ‘She might want to talk to me privately.’
Monique nodded. ‘OK. But then I will come. I will wake Lili and we can come together. The whole family, non ?’
Adeline smiled weakly. ‘Well, I’ll call you when we’re done.’
As the lift descended, she saw her expression in the glass. Not the nervousness from earlier, or the elation she’d seen in her expression when she’d travelled up to the room again. But a fear. A guilt. She wasn’t sure what Sophia would make of Monique. Wasn’t sure whether there might be something plausible in what Monique was claiming. But she felt strongly that she oughtn’t to let Monique see Sophia. Not today, this first time. Not yet.
She exited into the bustling foyer, her shoes sinking slightly into the soft pile of the carpet, and there was Sophia, standing just inside the door, looking at her watch. Adeline raised a hand and Sophia glanced up and raised hers in return.
Hopefully they could make this quick.
‘Sophia,’ she said, smiling.
‘Adeline. I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s just that I meant to give you this, and with all the excitement, I forgot.’ Sophia said. She drew a small square item from her handbag and handed it to Adeline. It was a small double frame, with two photos displayed side by side – one black and white, the other a colour, slightly faded with age. Two pictures of young mothers, each holding a baby.
‘Oh,’ Adeline said. ‘Is that us?’ She pointed to the picture on the right where a younger, dazzlingly beautiful Sophia was holding a white-blanketed bundle, her slight smile doing little to hide the grief written on her face. ‘And this?’ she asked, pointing to the other.
‘It is my photo. It is me with my mother. My natural mother,’ said Sophia. ‘See how the photos look alike.’
‘Yes,’ Adeline agreed. ‘They really do.’ She felt the buzz of her phone in her pocket and felt again a pang of guilt and fear about what Monique wanted to do and what she herself hoped to prevent. She looked at the woman in the second photo, her face slightly turned for the camera. Was she Monique? She had the look of her, but it was hard to say. The photo was old, its resolution limited, and it had been taken so long ago.
Sophia smiled. ‘I have my own copy, so this one is yours.’
‘And your mother?’ Adeline asked, unable to stop herself. ‘Do you think you might find her one day?’
‘Yes. Yes, I hope so,’ Sophia said.
‘Me too.’
They smiled at each other. There was a pause in which Sophia looked as if she were wrestling with something .
‘In fact, I know I will,’ Sophia added.
‘You’ve found her?’
‘Not yet. But I know I will because I feel it. I feel it in here,’ she said tapping her chest emphatically so that the crystal on her necklace wobbled. ‘Do you believe in this? This… intuition.’
‘I—’ Adeline began.
Then two things happened almost simultaneously.
A small, whirlwind of energy and animation slammed into Sophia’s legs with a ‘Granny!’ of delight. And behind Adeline, someone gasped loudly.
‘Come here, Lili,’ Adeline said. ‘You’ll knock her over! Are you all right, Sophia?’
But Sophia didn’t react. Her features were fixed as she looked over Adeline’s shoulder. Adeline followed her gaze and saw Monique standing, frozen in just the same way.
‘ Mon dieu ,’ said Sophia. ‘My God.’ As both women raised a hand to their chests, both touched the crystal at their neck.
Adeline looked from one to the other. And she could feel it; an energy. The sense that something momentous was happening.
And she felt suddenly that everything was going to be all right. That everything was going just as it was meant to.