Page 110 of The Next Chapter

It’s quiet again as my mind whirls. I’m building up to saying the thing that I’ve wanted to say this whole, entire time.

‘You never replied to my letters.’

Lola’s forehead creases.

‘What letters?’ she asks.

I roll my eyes, because after everything she’s told me, I didn’t think she’d deny them.

‘The letters I wrote to you every year.’

She’s still looking at me blankly.

‘Every birthday, I’d write to you. I was obsessed with you. All the clippings and videos. Mum and Dad passed the letters onto the adoption agency to give to you and every year I was so sure that this would be the year that you’d write back. Every year that you didn’t, it felt like another rejection. Like you were making it clear over and over that you never wanted me.’

I stand up, needing… I don’t know what I need.

‘I swear I never got them. Did your dad tell you I called once?’

My head is spinning. ‘Yeah, Dad said you called when I was eighteen. How did you even get our number?’

Lola is still sitting down, looking at the floor.

She nods. ‘I remembered about your mum. Her piano lessons. I found an advert for them and called the number on there. I spoke to your dad. Your mum had just died, and I think he wanted to give me a piece of his mind.’

I go to interrupt, and she holds her hands up. ‘Not that I blame him.’

‘Well, he had just lost the love of his life.’

Lola shakes her head. ‘I don’t think that’s quite true, Lily. Your dad obviously loved your mum, very much. I remember that about them. But that’s what he said about you. That you were the love of his life, and he wasn’t about to lose you. He said you hated me and that you never wanted to hear from me. It was… hard to hear that you didn’t want to know me, even though I understood it. I felt like I should respect your wishes. That I owed you that at least.’

I’m only half listening. Instead, I’ve zeroed in on the fact that Dad was worried I’d leave him when Lola called.

‘I never would have left him,’ I say, partly to myself.

‘They were good people.’

‘I know that.’

‘But I never got your letters, Lily. I swear it.’

‘But… but you must have done. I wrote them. Mum and Dad said that you were getting them.’

Lola just looks at me. I know what she’s thinking.

She’s thinking that Mum and Dad lied, that they never gave her the letters.

But that can’t be true. They’d never have done that to me.

Would they?

And suddenly I am furious with myself. God, how could I even think about doubting them like this? My wonderful parents who took me home and raised me when my birth mother – the woman standing in front of me – didn’t. I feel such awful, all-consuming guilt. Especially when they aren’t here to defend themselves either. What a shit daughter I am.

I can’t do this anymore. I need to get away.

I leave the office, ignoring Lola calling for me.

I storm through the hotel to the outside.