Chapter Forty
Iris was relieved when Catriona drove into Rowan Bay and pulled up outside the boathouse the next day.
‘Thanks, dear.’ She reached across to give her friend a kiss on the cheek as she unclicked her seat belt.
She blew a kiss to Jeannie who sat in the back.
‘See you soon, Jeannie. At least the sun is shining here.’
‘I know. It’s nice to see blue skies again after the dismal weather in the east. I think we’ve been a bit unlucky.’
‘Not to worry. It was still nice to get away and it always makes you appreciate where we live all the more when it’s like this. Let me just grab my bag from the boot.’
Catriona smiled. ‘Of course. See you soon, Iris.’
Iris let herself into the boathouse and paused in the hallway, feeling the comfort of home surround her.
She exhaled loudly. Keeping a bright smile on in front of her friends had been exhausting and she was glad to be back.
‘Hello,’ she called. There was no answer.
Flora must be out. Iris slipped off her anorak and left it on the peg.
Then she took her bag upstairs and walked straight over to the wardrobe and took out the tin she had hidden away.
This time she opened it, scattered the contents out on her bed and started to look at everything properly. She had put this off for long enough.
There was a small envelope that was blank, with no address or name on its front.
She hesitated for a moment before reaching to pick it up and turned it over to check nothing was written on the back.
Holding it in her hands, she examined every crease on the fragile paper that was yellowed by time.
She looked away for a moment, across to the window, reminding herself that she didn’t have to do this.
That she didn’t have to revisit the past. Especially after so much time.
She could go back downstairs and get on with things in the way she had done since her mother died.
She traced her hand across the quilt that covered her bed; a tapestry of memories of her life, pieced together from scraps she and Frank had brought back from their travels and other precious mementoes.
There was that scarf from the market they visited in Marrakesh; the souvenir handkerchiefs from one of their many trips to Italy along with nostalgic pieces like the scrap of her granny’s tartan and a tea-towel with a picture of Big Ben that Flora had brought back from a childhood trip to London.
It was a very odd and random combination of memories but somehow it worked and she had lovingly stitched the patches together.
Now, as she traced her finger over it, feeling the soft bumps in the worn fabric, she knew she didn’t have to do this again.
She could put the tin away for another day or just leave things as they were.
Iris sighed, knowing that if she didn’t go back in time then the not knowing would eat away at her.
These past few days had been bad enough, especially when it was a memory that had been buried and settled in the past.
She gulped and then turned over the envelope, slipping her finger into the flap to open it.
Iris’s heart began to thud in her chest as she gingerly looked inside.
She shook her head and took a breath then gently pulled out the strip of brittle paper with a name scrawled on it.
Baby Girl — McDonald, 1943. It was attached to a thin, cloth band that had frayed.
Iris wasn’t sure just what she was looking at.
Then she realised it was a hospital tag and she gasped.
Her mother had been telling the truth. She had told Iris about the other baby the night she died.
Her chest tightened as she held the little label in her palm, thinking about the tiny wrist or ankle it once held all those years ago.
She looked at the date again. 1943. Seven years before she was born.
She shook her head in sorrow. Somehow, she had managed to bury the memory deep in the past, convinced it was all forgotten especially as it had died with her mother.
But now, for whatever reason, it had resurfaced which surely had to mean something?
She had lost so much time over the years as the grief and disbelief of loss had threatened to overwhelm her.
First, with the loss of her mother and then Frank.
But now, here it was again pulling her back to face the truth that she had never managed to deal with before.
Her dear mother had carried the secret for decades.
The secret that Iris had an older sister.
An older sister who had been given up for adoption seven years before Iris was born.
The baby was born after her fiancé, Matthew, was killed in the war.
Which explained why her mother was often distracted and had a faraway look in her eyes.
She was left broken-hearted by the loss of her fiancé and then having to give up their baby.
Iris hadn’t been able to fathom it when her mother had told her that she had a sister.
Even in the years that had followed she hadn’t felt compelled to try and find her or look inside the tin.
Somehow it felt easier to leave the past as it was.
But now, thanks to Flora finding the box in the study, something in her heart told her she needed to try and find her sister.
Surely that had been a sign. Although she couldn’t help wondering if she had left it too late.