My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (35 page)

As she aged, Connie became increasingly frail and began to have memory problems, though she still knew me and remembered much from my childhood and her early life. Her deterioration was very gradual. As the three children were young and lively, they took up nearly all my time, so I knew my birth-family research would have to wait a little longer. I would return to it as soon as I could, determined to follow it through and try to find my half-sister and half-brother, wherever they were.

CHAPTER 31

Jenny

Finding Mercia

For some time we had been planning a family move to Florida, so we all went over with Connie for three months one winter and tried it out. We had a great time and loved the lifestyle, which convinced us to make the move over there for a couple of years. So we signed the contract to rent out our home, booked our flights and began making all the arrangements for our move nine months later.

During this time, Connie had a series of mini-strokes. It all happened very quickly and her health deteriorated so fast that it became clear she needed full-time care. With three young children, the school runs and everything else, I just couldn’t look after her round the clock, as she needed, so when the doctor offered respite care for her, we accepted it.

Ill though she was, my mother was still aware enough to hate losing her independence, and I didn’t blame her for being crotchety about it. Sadly, the strokes increased in both frequency and severity. Meanwhile, our Florida plans were finalized for December that year, 1998. We had planned to take Connie with us, but of course now we couldn’t.

I tried to visit her every day, but soon she no longer recognized me. Every visit was heart-rending. My occasional tears of frustration, and I suppose grief for the person she had been, confused her even more.

Her care home was in Surrey, a long drive away from Edenbridge, but it was the best place we could find. When they took her in, they said she could last two years, or three weeks. The weekend before we left, Connie had a massive stroke.

‘I’m afraid your mother may not last the weekend,’ said the matron in a gentle voice that Saturday morning.

‘Oh no. We’re due to move to Florida on the Monday flight,’ I gulped. ‘She was meant to be coming with us, but now of course . . .’ A tear ran down my cheek as I tried to come to terms with this awful situation.

‘Your mother is in and out of consciousness, so I don’t think she will be aware of anything much now. But she is comfortable, and not in any pain.’ I realized the matron was trying to be kind, but I was in a turmoil with so much to think about combined with the guilt that my mother was so ill and I wasn’t there with her the whole time, and the added thought that I might have to leave her like this.

Sam went straight up to see her that afternoon.

‘I sat with her, Jen. She was asleep most of the time and looked very peaceful. She did wake for a few moments, but didn’t seem to be aware who I was,’ he said. ‘I think you need to go and see her yourself. She might recognize you.’

So we went up together the next day, the day before our flight. I knew it would be the last time I saw my mother. She was semi-conscious, but she didn’t seem to know who I was. I held her hand and kissed her. I didn’t want to leave her, but I knew I had to go, for the children and for Sam. I cried all the long drive home.

The next day, I wept all the way to Florida. My mother died just six days later. The dreadful thing was that I couldn’t even go back to England to arrange the funeral as the US passport office were updating our visas. I didn’t get my passport back till January.

Thankfully, my dear cousin Wendy organized it all for me. All except the flowers, which Sam ordered from Florida while I was on my way back to the UK. On the day of the funeral, I was in quite a state, but I tried hard not to show it; to be positive about celebrating her life. That was what she would have wanted. Of course, I would have loved Sam and the children to be there with me, but it wasn’t possible.

Wendy, her husband Edd and I took our places at the crematorium with relatives and friends. The music started as the coffin came in with our flowers on top. There were three arrangements, one each from me and the children, and a ridiculous big thing, like a football, made of red and white flowers. Well of course I knew straightaway what that was about. I smiled through my tears. Sunderland, Sam’s team, wore red and white, whereas Mam’s team Newcastle was black and white. I knew that if Mum was looking over us, she would really appreciate that, because Sam had had the last laugh.

I called Sam that evening to tell him about the funeral.

‘Did the flowers arrive OK?’ he asked.

‘They certainly did. I wish Mam could have seen them herself. But you wait – I’ll have the last laugh on you when you go!’

It was the end of an era with both my parents gone. A time of vivid memories and sad tears, thinking back over all those happy childhood years and all the love they had poured onto me, all the opportunities they had provided, marred only by the chance discovery of my adoption dropping like a stone into my teenage years – a revelation that affected my life more than my mother could ever have realized. I’ve never held grudges, but I had not yet erased my resentment of my parents’ secrecy and the way I found out. Now, at last, I could stop pretending. I could come out with my need to uncover the truth. This was my time to start the search in earnest for my birth family.

Sam and the children were glad to have me back after the funeral and I soon picked up all the usual routines – the school runs, walking the dogs, games of golf, time out on the boat. My visa didn’t allow me to teach golf, but I could play it as much as I liked. We lived next door but one to Monica Seles and became good friends. This was when she was still playing major tournaments all over the world and still winning the occasional trophy, though her best years as a singles champion and world number one had been curtailed when she was stabbed on court by a deranged spectator during a match in 1993. Monica’s mother and I sometimes used to walk our dogs together and chatted a lot.

Our lives in Florida were full of sunshine and fun. We went for two years and we stayed for seven. Sam built some beautiful houses out there, and the children soon settled into their schools, made good friends and enjoyed the many outdoor activities. Sam flew back and forth to make sure the business was going well back in England, and often timed his visits to watch Sunderland play.

I kept in touch with my cousin Wendy with visits each way and frequent phone calls. Sometimes we talked about the way Mercia had rejected me when I went looking for her, and the two siblings whose names I didn’t know. At that distance, it seemed difficult for me to do much in the way of research. I tried to find Mercia’s address on the internet, but with no luck.

‘Look,’ Wendy suggested on the phone one day. ‘If you really want to give it another try, would you like me to see if I can find anything out for you? There’s a new adoption charity in the city, mind. They might have some useful suggestions.’

‘Could you? That would be great.’

I didn’t expect to hear anything further about it for a while, but she rang up again the next day.

‘I called them first thing this morning and they suggested I put an ad in the paper, in the
Evening Chronicle
. I emailed it in to them today.’

‘What did it say?’

‘“Trying to find the family of Mercia Dick” and my phone number.’

A few days later I could wait no longer so I called Wendy. ‘Did you have any replies?’

‘None at all, I’m afraid.’

‘Really? I wonder why not.’ The disappointment was like a punch to my stomach.

‘Perhaps she has remarried.’

Of course, we later found out that that was true when Wendy went to look through the births, marriages and deaths at Newcastle Civic Centre. After a long search, she found Mercia’s marriage in 1951 to Aaron Thomas Lumsden.

‘So she’s been known as Mercia Lumsden ever since then. No wonder we didn’t get anywhere looking for Mercia Dick.’

A few days later, with lots of encouragement from me, Wendy went back to check the electoral rolls for Mercia Lumsden. She called me that evening.

‘I’ve found Mercia’s address in Whitley Bay,’ she said. ‘I’ll email it to you.’

I pondered over this for a couple of days. Finally I decided to write to her. I wrote what I thought was a sensitive letter, telling her I had a great life and a lovely family. I wrote it out a couple of times to get it just right. Then I mailed it and waited to hear from her. Weeks went by. No reply came. So I wrote another friendly letter, quite brief, to follow the first.

This time I did receive a letter back from her. I didn’t recognize the writing, of course, but the fact that it was post-marked Whitley Bay told me it must come from her. I held it in my hands for a few seconds and studied the handwritten address, looking for clues. Would this be the letter I had so long yearned for? I tore open the envelope and found one single folded sheet of thin paper. Before I even unfolded it I could see there were only a few short lines of writing on it and my optimism fell away.

I don’t have that letter any more. But I remember the words, brief and to the point:

‘Stop bothering an old lady in ill health. Just get on with your life.’

I shed a few tears that day; tears initially of frustration more than anything, then shock and anger. This was my third rejection. Wendy and Edd were staying with us in Florida the day Mercia’s letter arrived, and I remember crying on Wendy’s shoulder as she hugged and consoled me.

‘How can she do this to me?’ I sobbed. ‘What have I ever done to her?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, holding me. ‘Nothing that you could help, anyway. She must be a very mixed-up old lady. Maybe she still feels too hurt by her own past to come to terms with it.’ Wendy always knew the right thing to say. But just now I felt too hurt myself to think about Mercia’s feelings.

I don’t know why I’d set myself up for this. I didn’t want anything from her, but had hoped she would show me a little compassion. Instead her letter was cold and hurtful. I’d gone through so much, and rejection wasn’t any easier the third time round. I’d tried hard to find her, to follow her trail, and now that I’d tracked her down at last, it didn’t seem fair. I was indignant, not just for me but also because my children were her grandchildren and she didn’t want to know. I was drained and totally crushed.

A couple of years later, in 2003, Wendy and Edd’s daughter was about to get married, and of course we were all invited to the wedding. Sam had the trip organized like a route march. We had a few days in Kent to see all the southern family, then we shot up north to have Katie’s bridesmaid dress fitted. While this was going on, we spent a few relaxing days in Bamburgh and Embleton near the coast.

I felt so refreshed, coming from Florida’s suffocating humidity to stand in the bracing North Sea breeze as we walked over the sand dunes and across my beloved third green to the bungalow, which we still owned, then down to the beach. We paddled across the ebbing stream, splashing each other and laughing, to stand on the Emblestones as I had done all those decades before. This was my place, my heaven. I thought of my dad, those little golf clubs he’d made me and our companionable days together on the course. I remembered my mam and how hard she had worked for us to keep the bungalow all those years after Dad died. I had been well blessed in my childhood and I silently thanked them both as I watched my own children, young teenagers now, breathe in that salty sea air, serenaded by the seagulls as they soared overhead.

I had a plan in my mind to visit Mercia. I had her address. I knew she had made it clear in her letter that she wanted no further contact with me, and I should have respected that, but I couldn’t. It was an urge almost beyond my control. I’ve always been annoyingly optimistic and determined. This time it wasn’t to win a trophy – it was much more important than that. I needed to find peace of mind. When I told Sam my idea, he agreed.

‘But I’m not sure what we should do when we get there,’ I said. ‘I’d like her to see the children and for them to see her. After all, she’s their true grandmother. Surely she won’t be able to turn her grandchildren away?’

‘Don’t worry. We’re going to do something about it, even if I get the door shut in my face!’

I felt wary but hopeful. Sam can sell a fridge to an Eskimo. I was confident we were not going to have the door shut in our faces. I was adamant that I would succeed this time.

Friday 1 August 2003 will stick in my mind for ever. It was the day before the wedding and the sun shone down on us as we five stood outside her house, Sam in the front, me crouched behind him and the children in line behind us. We must have looked ridiculous!

Sam strode over and knocked on the front door. Three sharp knocks. I felt apprehensive, almost a sense of foreboding, as I steeled myself for a fourth rejection. And more importantly, a potential rejection for the children. It was a risky strategy. But I had faith in Sam.

The moments slowed into a freeze-frame as I waited an age to see what would happen next. I wanted to speak to this person I had so many questions for. I didn’t feel anger at that moment. She was my mother and I wanted to be reunited with her at last.

I observed a lot in those few frozen seconds before she answered the door. Mercia lived in what looked like an assisted-living flat, with a front door onto the street. It was in a red-brick building, newer than the terraced houses that surrounded it, in quite an old-fashioned area.

I clicked back into normal time as the door began to edge open.

Sam put out his hand. ‘Hello, Mercia. I haven’t seen you for a long time.’

‘Really?’ she said, and shook his hand. This little old lady, with a quizzical look, stood in her doorway, plumpish, in a white top and a patterned skirt, with grey hair and glasses. She was a little stooped but moved easily as she stepped forward to take a good look at Sam. She was obviously perplexed, uncertain, but not unwelcoming. I don’t know if she was what I expected her to be, and of course she was so much older than her photo.