The Hoffmann Plague: Sisters by Tony Littlejohns

Author:Tony Littlejohns [Littlejohns, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-06T22:00:00+00:00

Twenty

While Jamie was out repairing the hedge with Bill, Jane had been tending to the horses as Annie was away, and was now in one of the greenhouses in their garden, splitting some of her herbs and re-potting them. Having spent the morning with the others working in the fields, she loved these occasions when she could spend time on her own in the garden, especially when the weather was good and the sun shining. While she worked, her thoughts were of Annie and Megan: where they might be, if they were okay, and whether they’d met anyone.

It was only the second day they’d been gone but she missed them terribly, and they had been on her mind the whole time. She made no distinction between Megan as her adopted daughter and Annie as her biological one, loving them both equally. At the time of The Plague, she’d been in her late-thirties and hadn’t been in a relationship for several years, so had already resigned herself by then to the probability of not having children, even though she’d wanted them. It had been a strange twist of fate that within a year of the devastation, she had become first a surrogate mother and then a real one.

Surrogate motherhood had come surprisingly easily to her after they’d found Megan and brought her to live with them, and she had come to love her as her own very quickly. Actual motherhood, on the other hand, had been harder to deal with and to come to terms with back then. It had been a scary time for them, with no hospitals any more, and when Annie had become very ill at a few months old, they’d thought they might lose her. Tom and Karen had been unsure of the exact nature of her illness, and there had been no way to take blood samples to analyse. She’d hardly left Annie’s side the whole time.

A memory came to her, of coming back from the bathroom one day to find Megan in tears, leaning over Annie’s cot and holding her tiny hand, saying, ‘Please don’t die, Annie, please don’t die! I’ve never had a sister and I love you so much!’

The memory made her cry and she sat on a stool, sobbing quietly. Annie was obviously a fighter, though, because despite things being touch-and-go at that point, she’d pulled through and became stronger in the following week, to make a full recovery eventually.

She then remembered when Annie had spoken her first recognisable word, and smiled tearfully. Megan had come running out to her in the garden with a huge grin and wide eyes, saying, ‘Mum, Mum, Annie just spoke! She said my name! She said “Meg”!’

Jane sighed, wiped her eyes and stood up to continue her work. ‘Please be safe, my darlings,’ she whispered.

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