The Garden of Stars (12 page)

 In the days preceeding Rosemary's death, my mind had gone blank, my feelings numbed as I stumbled blindly through each waking hour and fretful night. Every time I tried to think straight, to lift myself up out of the dense fog in my head, I became more confused, more empty and defunct.

And yet, as soon as we were on our way to Ivory Meadows, I had felt a new lease of life. The moment I uttered my false name, I realised that, by playing this fairy-tale character, I didn't have to play myself. I could be someone entirely different: a kind, caring woman who stood up for what she believed in and protected it, no matter what. My mother had always been full of fanciful ideas, with her bizarre notions and potions. I'd found I'd been thinking of her, and her strange ways, more in the last few months than I had since she'd died three years ago. I guess that questioning your role as a mother makes you think back to your own upbringing. Perhaps it was the madness of the previous months, or what I now recognise was probably depression, but the imaginary story I'd fabricated seemed to make perfect sense to me. Now I saw it was a kind of craziness, the vicar had seen it, as had Barbara and Mary, although they each dealt with it in their own ways.

At last, this make-believe world I'd created was crumbling around me, and I couldn't have cared less. I no longer needed it. I had changed, everything had changed.

 It had taken such a long time to even begin to come to terms with the loss of my baby girl, far longer than I'd been able to carry her in my belly. It was a loss I should have shared with my husband, a loss that should have brought us closer together in our struggle against it all. Instead, in my desperate guilt, I had tried to shift my blame onto someone else. And naturally, that culpability was passed to the one I loved the most.

 Jack picked me up and held me tight in his arms. He felt so strong, so capable, as if nothing in the world would go wrong when he was there. Why hadn't I felt like this before?

‘I'm so sorry,' I whispered, my words muffled as I burrowed my head into his neck the way I used to. ‘I'm so very, very sorry.'

 ‘You did what you had to do to cope. I just wish I could have done more to help you.'

 ‘You did so much,' I sobbed, ‘if it hadn't been for you, I'd still be by Rosie's incubator, two empty corpses side by side.

 ‘I realise now I was running away from myself, not you. I felt so compelled to try to save this little town, having failed so miserably to save my own little baby. And strangely, in doing so, I've built a life for myself and Lily here. Lily and I have actually managed to find happiness again.

 ‘But there's not a day gone by when I haven't thought about you, and missed you. Even though, in my head, you were the villain and I hated what you'd done, I still couldn't stop loving you. And that made me hate myself and you even more. Can you understand any of that?'

 ‘Yes, Cathy, I can. I've gone over and over that night I got you to sign the consent form to turn off the life support machine. I have been racked with guilt, wondering if I put too much pressure on you to do the right thing. But you have to remember I have been grieving since the moment our baby girl came into our lives too soon, too. The sun will never shine quite so brightly for me without Rosie.

 ‘But for me the grief has been threefold. Because in doing what the doctors advised, in doing what I felt was best, what I always believed you knew in your heart of hearts was best, I lost two daughters and a wife.'

 ‘Oh, Jack,' I wept, ‘how can you ever forgive me?'

 ‘In the way I hope you'll forgive me?'

 ‘Mummy, Daddy,' yelled Lily, ‘does this mean we're a family again?'

 ‘It certainly does,' said both Jack and I, at almost the same time.

 We smiled at each other, realising that old flame was still there after all these years.

 ‘And do I still get to keep the cat?'

 We laughed.

The next morning I awoke early and the house seemed still and quiet. Normally Rosie, sorry Lily, would be pestering me for breakfast. Had it all been just a dream?

 No. Jack was still there at my side, holding my hand, his head sweetly nuzzled into my neck the way he always slept. We had talked for hours after Lily had gone to bed, tentatively at first, each exploring how the other had changed, then rejoicing in what still remained; how our love had grown stronger over the passing of time and the poignancy of grief. Jack marvelled at all that Lily and I had achieved, and I cried when I learnt how his life had been put on hold while he'd spent every waking moment searching for us.

 Now that he lay here by my side, it felt as if we'd never been apart. I tenderly loosened my hand from his, pulled the cover over him then tiptoed out of the bedroom door.

 When I got to Lily's door I hesitated. What impact would all this have had on my lovely, caring little girl?

 Gently I opened the door and it creaked softly the way it always did. There on the bed lay Lily, just as before, only somehow different. She looked older, wiser, and more peaceful than ever. Hearing the door creak, she blinked, sat up and rubbed her eyes.

 ‘Do you love me, Mummy?' she asked.

 ‘Oh yes,' I answered, rubbing her cheeks, which were, once again, covered in glitter.

 ‘As much as Rosie?'

 ‘My Lily, I love you for you, just the way you are. I've never wanted you to be anything other than you. You've always been my Lily, my world, my everything. You are a very brave young lady, and you always make me hugely proud.'

 She shrugged and tried to smile.

 ‘Oh, my darling, I'm so very sorry. I should never have given you that name when we got here. I never explained to you fully what was going on, but you went along with it, you were such an angel. Rosie couldn't stay with us so we'll never know whether she was going to grow up to be such a beautiful, smart girl as you. But remember a little bit of your sister lives on in you, just as she does in me and Daddy. It's OK to talk about her, it's OK to talk about anything now. We're not hiding or running any more. We can be ourselves again, my lovely Lily.'

‘Oh, Mummy,' she said, sitting up to give me a hug.     ‘Does that mean we're going to keep seeing Daddy?'

‘We are, sweetheart. Have you missed him terribly?'

 Lily nodded solemnly and I felt my heart would break. My cheerful, sunshine girl had so carefully hidden away her pain to look after her broken, angst-ridden mother. I felt guilt searing through my veins again. How could I have been so blind as to think my eldest girl was happy without her baby sister, her father, even her own name?

 But then I stopped myself. Guilt eats away at you. I know that only too well. And hadn't I built a nice life here for us in Ivory Meadows? We had had a lot of fun and together, we'd been on a journey that had perhaps helped to heal us both. And yet at the same time, I'd felt a yearning, an emptiness in my heart. I tried to fill it by keeping busy, surrounding myself with people and the fight to save the town. Last night, for the first time, I realised what that gap in my life was. It was Jack. The force of my feelings had hit me hard and I'd clung to him in bed like a helpless child, tears streaming down my cheeks as he kissed each one away. We promised to try to keep each other, and Lily, safe and happy from now on. The raw pain and the torment of losing Rosie would still be present, something we woke to every morning and lay in bed thinking of each night, but it would be a sorrow we would share together now, a suffering which could perhaps soften a little with the passing of time. She was our girl. She would, forever, be with us in our thoughts and in our hearts.

 Now, I turned again to our beautiful daughter Lily, the sole surviving product of the love and devotion we once again felt for each other.

 ‘Although times have been hard, you've always made it so much easier with your cheeky grin and freckles. And all that hair, like the sun itself had fallen from the sky and landed on top of your head. I just hid you for a while behind Rosie. We can think of Rosie as a beautiful star twinkling over us in the night sky. But now it's time for you to shine and be the amazing girl that you are – as pretty as sunset and as bright as sun-up.'

 We hugged and hugged, tears rolling down our cheeks until I said, ‘Pancakes for breakfast?'

 ‘With Daddy?'

  ‘You bet!'

 We tumbled downstairs together to find Jack already in the kitchen, mixing flour, eggs, and milk.

 ‘When did you learn to cook?' I asked, slipping my hand around his waist.

 ‘When I had to become self-sufficient.' He laughed.

 With cherry jam dribbling down our faces, we laughed and cried together all morning, reminiscing about the past, fondly talking about Rosie, catching up where we left off and making plans for our future.

 At last, Lily and I were home, with the man we had both been yearning for all this time, in the beautiful and now flourishing town of Ivory Meadows.

The End

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Published by Accent Press Ltd 2014

ISBN 9781783751365

Copyright © Zoe Chamberlain 2014

The right of Zoe Chamberlain to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN