Father Unknown by Lesley Pearse

Author:Lesley Pearse [Pearse, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780141924601
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Ellen saw her father’s old truck parked outside Truro station and ran towards it through the rain. Her small suitcase was heavy with Christmas presents, banging against her legs as she ran. But as she got closer to the truck she knew there was something badly wrong, her father’s face was taut with anger.

A cold chill ran down her spine. Had he found out about the baby somehow?

‘Hello, Dad,’ she said nervously as she opened the truck door. She supposed if he got too nasty with her she could go and stay with the Peters. They wouldn’t turn her away at Christmas. ‘Is something wrong? You look awfully fierce.’

‘It’s bloody Josie,’ he snapped. ‘She’s shamed us all.’

Ellen’s last visit home had been back in August. Since then she’d received two letters from Josie. Her first reaction was one of hurt, as Josie hadn’t asked anything about her baby. Not what sex it was, its weight or how Ellen had coped with giving it up. All she wrote about was herself.

But reminding herself Josie was only fifteen, still a child really, Ellen put the hurt aside and was pleased for her sister that she’d managed to get into modelling. She sounded happy in London, and the lack of address on the letters was understandable, given Josie’s fear that Violet might turn up on her doorstep. It was sad for Ellen to think she couldn’t write back, but she had taken Dr Fordham’s advice to get on with her own life, and if Josie didn’t feel she could trust her, well that was her problem.

Thoughts of the baby still tormented her, and she often cried at night over her, wishing there had been a way she could have kept her. But once Catherine was six months old, she’d had to sign the final papers and the adoption was then legal and binding.

Shortly after that she had a letter from the adoptive couple, sent via Dr Fordham. That letter gave her far more than she’d ever hoped for, every little detail: what she ate, that she had three teeth and more coming, and that she was a happy, placid baby who smiled and gurgled all the time.

Aside from all the detail, Ellen was deeply touched by the way they thanked her for what they called ‘her gift to them’. They said Catherine had given them more happiness than they could measure and they understood at what cost to her. They said that they sincerely hoped she too would find happiness and success in her life, and that when Catherine was old enough to understand they intended to tell her she had been adopted.

There were also three photographs, one taken in a studio, the other two in their home. Catherine was as fat as butter now, with a few tufts of hair sticking up and a wide, gleeful smile. Those photographs meant everything to Ellen, for they bore out all that Catherine’s new parents had said, and more. She could look at them

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