Secrets in Pelican Crossing (Pelican Crossing #2)

Twenty

When Liz awoke on Good Friday, she wondered for a few moments why there was this empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Then she remembered, and her heart began to race. This was the day she was going to meet her daughter, meet the adult version of the tiny baby she’d held for such a short time.

She slipped out of bed and headed for the ensuite, hoping a hot shower would still the butterflies in her stomach. But it didn’t. She was still trembling with excitement when she pulled one outfit after another out of the wardrobe before deciding on a pair of white pants and a pink V-neck top, turning this way and that in front of the mirror wondering what Julie would think of her.

The sun was shining through the kitchen window. It was going to be a lovely day. The noisy myna which visited every morning was sitting on the deck railing hoping to be fed. A car started up and drove off, its tyres squealing as it turned the corner. Liz could hear the children in the yard outside yelling as they searched for Easter eggs. And she was a bundle of nerves.

Liz made herself coffee and toast, but the toast stuck in her throat. She had no appetite. In one part of her mind – the part that wasn’t worrying about meeting Julie – Liz wondered what Finn was doing today. It had been a sudden impulse to share the information about Julie with him, and his reaction had been all that she could have hoped for. Liz could almost see him wondering what he’d have done if she had been his daughter, if it had been his daughter who’d become pregnant at fifteen. He had shared her pain, her fear about meeting the daughter she’d given up for adoption, the daughter who’d be here in – Liz checked the time – less than an hour.

She swallowed. They’d arranged for Julie to come to the apartment. Liz couldn’t face the idea of the meeting taking place in public, and anyway, most of Pelican Crossing would be closed on Good Friday. At least in the apartment there would be no one to see her tears or to hear if they argued. She had no idea what might happen.

The knock at the door came before Liz was ready. With one last glance in the hall mirror, she smoothed down her unruly hair and opened the door to see…

‘H… hello,’ stuttered a woman who looked so like a younger version of her that Liz did a double take. The woman stared too, clearly equally shocked.

‘Julie.’ It couldn’t be anyone else. Neither Tara nor Mandy shared the same features as their mother; they were a mixture of her and Tommy. The woman at the door resembled her exactly. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing herself as she’d been sixteen years ago, before the grey hair and wrinkles, before age took its toll.

Liz’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

Liz led Julie into the apartment. She wanted to throw her arms around her daughter and hug her and hug her, but she sensed from the younger woman’s tense figure and strained expression, that such an overt show of affection might not be welcome. ‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘I never thought…’

Julie sat down, knees together, ankles crossed, hands clasped on her lap, eyes downcast.

‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Coffee would be good, thanks.’

Relieved to have something to do, Liz went to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. She held on to the edge of the sink and stared unseeing out the window. What if she was a disappointment to Julie? What if…? Hell, this was more awkward than meeting any of the weirdos from the online dating app. This was her daughter, her own flesh and blood, the baby that had grown inside her for nine months. The baby she’d given away, she reminded herself. It was no wonder if Julie didn’t immediately connect with her .

‘Here we are,’ Liz said, carrying in a tray with the two cups of coffee and a plate of Tim Tams. She didn’t normally buy chocolate biscuits, but this was a special occasion, and it was Easter. She handed one cup to Julie.

‘Thanks.’ Julie shook her head at the biscuits.

There was an awkward silence, then Liz decided to break the ice. ‘Why now?’ she asked. It had been thirty-four years. Julie could have contacted her at any time in the past sixteen, ever since she turned eighteen.

‘It’s complicated.’

Liz waited.

‘I’ve always known I was adopted, and when I was about twelve, I started to hate the woman who’d given birth to me. My adoptive parents were good to me, I loved them, and they loved me. But I hated the person who had given me away as if I was a bag of old clothes.’

Liz’s breath caught, her eyes wet with tears.

‘They told me you were too young to take care of me, that it was for my sake, but I didn’t care. I wanted nothing to do with you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When I turned eighteen, Mum encouraged me to contact you. She and Dad were getting older. Their health wasn’t good. Mum thought it would help me to get in touch with you. But I knew better. I met Billy, got pregnant, married. It didn’t last. Mum and Dad died, but I still resented having been given away. Nothing would have made me give Tilly away.’

Liz’s eyes grew wider. She began to tremble. Julie’s daughter, her granddaughter. ‘But why now?’ she repeated.

‘It’s Tilly.’ Julie took a gulp of tea. ‘She’s fourteen, going on twenty-five. I was doing all right as a single mother until she hit high school. She got in with a bad crowd…’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Isn’t that what all parents say when their kids get into trouble? Anyway, she and her friends were caught with a group of boys behind the bike shed at school. Then I found her sending photos of herself to a boy – not the sort of photo you’d want your daughter to take, never mind send to anyone. She finally confessed and told me he’d threatened to put it on social media if she didn’t…’ She broke down in tears. ‘I was at my wits’ end, then I remembered you’d had me when you weren’t much older than Tilly is now. It made me think, made me wonder if I’d been to o harsh on you, made me want to meet you. So, here I am. I can understand if you don’t want anything to do with us.’

‘Oh, my dear! You had no one else to turn to?’

Julie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry it’s taken this happening for me to reach out.’

‘It doesn’t matter, but I’m so sorry for Tilly, for you.’

‘I don’t know what to call you.’

‘Liz is fine. Can I give you a hug?’

Julie moved forward into Liz’s arms.

It was as if all Liz’s Christmases had come at once. The baby she’d only held for an instant before she was taken away was in her arms again. She was a grown woman now, but the love Liz felt was the same.

‘Where is she now – Tilly?’

‘In the motel. I didn’t know…’

‘Can I meet her? Does she know about me?’

‘I told her what I knew. She’s… curious. I’m not sure how she’ll react to meeting you. She can be unpredictable.’

‘She’s a teenager. I remember what Tara and Mandy were like at that age.’

‘Of course. Your other daughters.’ Julie looked down. ‘Do they know about me?’

‘No, I wanted to wait… till we’d met.’

‘Till you decided if I was acceptable enough to be part of your family?’ Julie said bitterly.

‘No, not at all. You might have decided you didn’t want to see me again, still might.’ Liz’s heart plummeted at the possibility this might be their only meeting.

Julie gave a slight smile. ‘You don’t seem too bad.’

Liz relaxed. ‘More coffee?’ she asked, seeing Julie’s cup was almost empty. Her own was still full… and cold.

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s nice here,’ Julie said, when Liz returned with two fresh cups of coffee.

‘The apartment or Pelican Crossing?’

‘Both.’

‘What’s it like where you and Tilly live?’

‘Busy. We live in the suburbs. Lots of houses, traffic. A long way from the ocean.’ She stood up, walked to the window and gazed out at the view Liz loved but often took for granted. ‘Have you lived here long?’

‘In Pelican Crossing since I was sixteen, this apartment, six years, since my divorce.’

‘You didn’t live here when I was born?’

‘Brisbane.’ Liz shivered at the memory of that time, of the impersonal hospital ward, then the move to Pelican Crossing and the pretence that nothing had happened, that her life hadn’t been torn apart.

‘How did it happen?’

Liz took a deep breath.

*

‘I didn’t know,’ Julie said when Liz had finished.

‘How could you? My parents took every precaution. No one knew. Only us.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘Sorry for what you had to go through, sorry I didn’t understand, sorry I hated you, sorry I waited so long…’

‘You’re here now.’

‘Yes. It must have been hard… to start again.’

‘It wasn’t easy, but Pelican Crossing is a friendly town. It was relatively easy to make new friends. It helped that no one knew…’

‘They didn’t ask?’

‘We were newcomers to the town, said we’d moved from the country. That was all they needed to know.’ But Liz remembered how it had felt to be the new girl in town when everyone else had known each other since kindergarten. Olga, who had now left town, had taken her under her wing, then there had been Tommy…

‘Tell me about your daughters, my… half-sisters. Do they look like me?’

‘A little. You look exactly like I did at your age. Tara and Mandy both have a little of their dad in them.’ Liz realised Julie hadn’t asked about her dad. She was glad, hoped she wouldn’t. That part of her past was somewhere Liz didn’t want to go .

Julie’s eyes alighted on a photograph on the wall beside the window. It had been taken the previous summer and showed Tara and Mandy laughing wildly at the camera. ‘Is that them?’

‘Yes.’ Liz joined her. ‘We were celebrating my birthday last year.’ Liz remembered the day like it was yesterday. Her girls had decided to treat the three of them to a spa session for her birthday. They’d driven down to Bellbird Bay to the new spa in The Leonard Family Resort , spent the morning there, then enjoyed lunch in the hotel restaurant.

‘Tara’s the oldest?’

‘She’s thirty and married. She and Mark are in Paris right now. Mandy’s twenty-four. She’s a personal trainer and she and her boyfriend are up north on a dive trip.’

‘Wow! So, I won’t be able to meet them?’

‘Not this time.’ Liz would need to prepare them, tell them about Julie and Tilly. She wasn’t looking forward to it.

‘I can’t quite get my head around the fact I have two half-sisters I knew nothing about. I’ve always wanted a sister.’ She stared at the photograph. ‘And your parents?’ she asked, turning to Liz.

‘Dad’s passed, and Mum lives in a retirement village.’ As soon as she spoke, Liz realised she had opened a can of worms.

‘A retirement village? Here in Pelican Crossing?’

‘Yes. She doesn’t know we’ve been in touch.’

‘Oh!’

Suddenly Liz was swamped with guilt. Why hadn’t she told her mother about Julie… and Tilly. While Joan had been glad to sweep her birth under the carpet at the time, to start a new life, surely after all those years she could forgive Liz and accept Julie and Tilly into her life? Her reluctance to let her mother know about Julie contacting her now seemed foolish, selfish… even if she’d done it with the best of intentions.

‘Could I meet Tilly?’ she asked, to cover her confusion, and to avoid having to answer any questions about her mother, who was Julie’s grandmother, after all. It was only natural she’d want to know about her and meet her – and open that can of worms.

A variety of expressions flitted across Julie’s face leading Liz to believe all wasn’t going to be smooth sailing there either.

‘If she doesn’t want to come here, maybe we could go to the beach? ’

‘I’ll call her. Can I…?’ Julie took out her phone and gestured to the deck.

‘Sure.’ Liz picked up the cups and the plate of uneaten biscuits and took them into the kitchen while Julie made her call. Peeking out the kitchen window, she could see her pacing up and down and gesticulating as she spoke.

When she returned to the living room, Julie was already there, slipping her phone into her bag. ‘Tilly’s agreed to meet us at the beach,’ she said. ‘She says she’ll wait by the marina.’