Daughters of Fortune: A Novel (3 page)

She never went back to Melville. She found cheaper lodgings and convinced the owner of a small café to take her on. And William was right, she told herself every night as she cried herself to sleep. It had had to end between them. She needed to forget him so that he could forget her and be with his wife. However much it hurt, it was the right thing to do.

That had been three months ago. And now here she was, waiting outside his house, where they had spent that first night together.

The familiar purr of a car engine broke into Katie’s thoughts. She looked up from her place on the park bench. Sure enough, it was William’s Rolls. Her heartbeat quickened. Despite everything that had happened, she was longing to see him again.

The car slowed, pulling up in front of his house. The chauffeur got out first, putting on his peaked cap before opening the rear door.

Then William stepped out onto the sidewalk. In the shadowy light from the streetlamp, Katie could still make out his broad shoulders and solemn expression. She stood up, shivering with cold and anticipation. She was about to call his name—but then he turned back to the car and held out his hand. Katie watched as slender fingers gripped his strong wrist.

She recognized the elegant blonde in the fox fur, immediately: it was his wife, Isabelle. Katie wondered idly where they had been tonight. The opera? Dinner with friends? Not that it was her business.

She watched as they walked up the steps together and disappeared
into the house. A moment later, the Christmas-tree lights flickered on in the front window. In the half-light, she saw William draw Isabelle into his arms. He pointed up at the mistletoe above them, and she giggled. He brushed her fair hair back and bent his head.

Katie couldn’t watch any longer. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the image of them together. Then she reached down to touch the gentle swell of her belly. She could never tell him now. She had been foolish to come here tonight; just as she had been foolish to get involved with a married man. Now she would have to deal with the consequences alone.

_________

V
ALLEYMOUNT
, I
RELAND

Katie O’Dwyer died on a Tuesday. She was buried three days later, on a warm June morning, Valleymount’s first glimpse of summer. The whole village turned out for the funeral, testament to her popularity with everyone who’d ever met her.

Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Caitlin, stood by the graveside, watching the pallbearers lower her mother’s coffin into the ground. She’d made it through the Mass without crying, but now, as the priest began the Rite of Committal, it finally hit her. Mam was gone, and, for the first time in her life, she was all alone.

For as long as Caitlin could remember, it had just been the two of them, her and Mammy. She never realized how close her mother had come to giving her up.

Alone and pregnant in London, Katie’s options were slim. She knew girls who had got themselves “fixed up,” but her Catholic beliefs forbade it. Telling her parents wasn’t an option, so she resolved to have the baby in London, put it up for adoption, and then go home. No one would ever have to know . . .

When it came time for the birth, she went into a home for unmarried mothers in the East End. There was little kindness or sympathy among the staff. They encouraged the young mothers to give up their babies and then sent them off, warning them not to sin again.

After a surprisingly easy five-hour labor, Katie took one look at her daughter’s wide blue eyes and knew exactly what she should be called.

“You look like a Caitlin to me,” she murmured to her newborn.

A nurse overheard her and sniffed disparagingly. “Don’t matter what you call her. Her new mother will decide that.”

But I’m her mother
, Katie thought.

Two days later, after a huge argument with the head nurse, she left the hospital with Caitlin in her arms. It was a brave decision. One that meant she had no choice: when she was recovered from the birth, she would have to return to Ireland.

Caitlin couldn’t remember her grandparents, which was probably just as well. When Katie turned up on the doorstep of the little house in County Mayo with her two-month-old baby, her mam and dad did nothing to disguise their dismay. They gave Katie and her child a place to sleep, but little else. Caitlin was treated like their dirty little secret. It was just as well they never knew that the father was married, Katie often thought.

When they died two years later—her father first, after a stroke, followed by her mother, whose heart gave out just a few weeks later—Katie decided she needed a fresh start. The thin gold band on her left hand hadn’t fooled the neighbors, and she didn’t want Caitlin growing up in a place where everyone called her a bastard child. Katie had kept in touch with Nuala over the years. She’d moved back to Ireland, too, with the man she’d met in London, and they were now raising their young family in a picturesque village called Valleymount, in County Wicklow. Known as “the garden of Ireland,” with its lush hills, cascading waterfalls, and glassy lakes, it had seemed to Katie on the two occasions that she’d been to visit that it would be the ideal place to raise Caitlin. So she sold her parents’ property and used the proceeds to buy a tiny cottage near her friend.

It turned out to be a good move. Caitlin’s early years were spent with a pack of other village kids, running barefoot through the pretty glens and swimming in the nearby Blessington Lakes. Work was hard to come by in eighties Ireland, but Katie managed to find a job as a cleaner in one of the luxury hotels nearby. Each day, after school, the little girl would help Katie dust the bedrooms and restock the toiletries. And, even though there might not be much money, mother and daughter were happy. Twice a year, they would take the hour’s bus ride into Dublin and spend the day shopping on Grafton Street before having afternoon tea in Bewley’s. But the rest of the time, they were content with Valleymount—and each other.

“You’re so lucky, Katie,” Nuala would remark enviously. “Caitlin’s an angel.” Her own daughter, Róisín, was anything but.

When Caitlin turned twelve, it was time for her to go to the local secondary school, Holy Cross. With less than twenty pupils per class, most of whom she’d grown up with, it was like spending each day with a large extended family. She was bright, but not especially academic. Her real talent and interest was art. She spent hours drawing and could capture a likeness with a few brief pencil strokes.

Of course, her adolescence brought more changes. With her Snow White looks—jet black hair and milk white skin—she was rapidly becoming a beauty, much like her mother. And as the puppy fat melted away, leaving behind womanly curves, the boys she had once played easily with turned shy around her. Tongue-tied, they took turns asking her to the pictures, but she always refused. Boys were the one area forbidden to her.

She had no idea why she wasn’t allowed out on dates. All her friends were. Saturday nights, they would head into town to go bowling with their latest boyfriends.

“Sneak out after yer mam’s asleep and join us,” Róisín said. Like their mothers, the two girls were best friends.

But Caitlin never did. As always, she obeyed her mother. It was because it was just the two of them. They had to pull together, couldn’t live in a permanent state of war like Róisín and Nuala. Róisín never understood. But that’s because she
had
a father, Caitlin reasoned; while hers had died before she was born, leaving her mother to raise her singlehandedly. Financially, it had always been tough. Caitlin wasn’t about to add to her mother’s worries.

Sometimes Caitlin wondered why Katie hadn’t ever remarried. There were plenty of men around the village who seemed interested. But her mother would always clam up whenever she asked, and Caitlin guessed that she still hadn’t gotten over her father’s death. She never pressed the subject, and mother and daughter lived happily and effortlessly together. That was, until six months ago.

Caitlin first realized her mother was ill one night after dinner. As she emptied the leftovers into the trash, she noticed that her mam had barely touched the shepherd’s pie she’d made that day in Home Economics. It might not be a fantastic effort, but Katie was the type to clean her plate, if only to save her child’s feelings.

Over the next few days Caitlin monitored what went into the trash. Sure enough, each night Katie barely touched her meal. When Caitlin asked if anything was wrong, she dismissed it as a spot of indigestion. Caitlin said no more—but she couldn’t help noticing how, instead of insisting that she go to do her homework, these days Katie was happy to let her daughter wash up while she dozed in front of the television.

As the weeks went on, her mother’s appetite didn’t improve. It was getting increasingly hard to ignore her sunken eyes and dull hair and the way her once-plump cheeks were now almost concave. But whenever Caitlin suggested going to the doctor, Katie dismissed her with increasing irritation.

“Stop it, Caitlin,” she snapped one Thursday night. “I’m fine—it’s just—”

But she never finished the sentence. Instead, she ran for the bathroom. Caitlin waited outside, listening to her bring up the supper that she’d managed to swallow earlier. Finally, when everything was quiet, Caitlin pushed open the door. Her mother had collapsed, exhausted, on the floor. Caitlin went over to the basin and started to wash it out. This time she couldn’t ignore the blood. She didn’t say a word until she’d helped her mother upstairs and into her nightdress. Then, once her mam was settled in bed, she said, “Please go to the doctor. You’re not well.”

For the first time, her mother didn’t argue back. And that was what worried Caitlin most.

Dr. Hannon smiled at them both and said there was probably nothing to worry about, but he’d like to send Katie for tests. His smile couldn’t hide the worry in his eyes.

A few weeks later they sat down with a specialist. He told them that, although the pancreatic cancer had been diagnosed at a late stage, there was still hope. Like Dr. Hannon, he couldn’t fool the O’Dwyer women. He said they would use chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and then operate. What he actually meant was that at the moment, there was no point operating, and they would have to pray for a miracle.

When Caitlin wasn’t holding the bowl for her mother to be sick in or helping her wrap the scarf to cover her bald head, she was on her knees in the hospital chapel praying for that miracle. It never came. When
they finally opened her up, it was too late. The cancer had spread. There was nothing to do but wait.

Caitlin tried not to show her shock when she walked into the ward. Even though she saw her mother every day, was accustomed to the smell of antiseptic and death, she still couldn’t get over how quickly she had gone downhill. Unable to eat for weeks now, Katie had shrunk to a skeletal figure, hardly taking up any room in the tiny single bed. Only her distended belly, full of cancer cells, gave her any shape under the stark white sheets. Her eyes were closed, and she was so pale that if it hadn’t been for the gentle rise and fall of her rib cage, Caitlin would have assumed her mother was gone rather than simply asleep.

Caitlin busied herself by looking for a space to put the vase of bluebells that she’d picked that morning. It was no easy task. The bedside cabinet was already filled with half-dead flowers, futile Get Well Soon cards, and grapes that would never be eaten. She was halfway through clearing away the faded blooms when she heard her mother calling for her.

“I’m here, Mammy,” she said. “Can I get you something? Some water perhaps?”

“No . . . No . . . Nothing like that.”

Katie paused. The only sound was her labored breathing. She reached out and took Caitlin’s hand. Her fingers were thin and cold as death.

“I don’t have long now, Cat,” she began. Caitlin opened her mouth to deny this truth, but a look from her mother stopped her. “Don’t be contradicting me. I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, Mam?”

“It’s about your father. I never told you much about him. I should have.”

“Let’s not be worrying about that. He’s gone. There’s nothing more to say.”

Her mother closed her eyes, and when she opened them again Caitlin saw they were glistening with tears. “But that’s it, my child,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He isn’t dead.”

For the next half an hour, Katie explained to her daughter how she had met William Melville and fallen in love. She told her about his wife and daughter. And how even though they had both known the affair was wrong, they could do nothing to stop their feelings for each other.
She spoke with a clear determination to get it all off her chest. The deathbed made a good confessional.

“He ended it before I found out I was pregnant,” she said, avoiding the precise details of the breakup. “And we were happy, weren’t we?” she continued when Caitlin still hadn’t said anything. “Just the two of us. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

Caitlin managed to nod in answer. She knew she should say something, offer some comfort to her mother. But she was still too stunned.

“I’ve written to him, love.”

Caitlin’s head snapped up. “You’ve what?”

“I wrote to tell him that he has a daughter. A beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter.”

Caitlin pulled her hand away and stood up.

“He’s been in touch, too,” Katie said quickly. “He left a message to say he’s coming to see us.”

Caitlin saw her mam’s eyes dart over to the door, as though she expected him to appear at any moment. She realized then why her mother had never married. She still loved
him
. Even after all these years. Hurt and confused, Caitlin turned away.

“Cat?” She heard her mother’s voice, weak and pleading. She could feel her reaching out. “Please don’t be angry, pet. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him. I should have said something sooner.”

She stopped, and Caitlin knew that she was waiting for her to say something. But she couldn’t. Not yet.