The Lost Twin by Diana Finley

Author:Diana Finley [Finley, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-08-08T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

2004

Robert

Dear Robert,

You may be surprised to hear from me. I know we have never met – perhaps you don’t even know of my existence – yet we are not strangers. I imagine this letter may come as a complete shock to you. My name is Barry Tully and I am your brother – your twin brother! We were separated soon after our birth. I have also only learned of your existence recently.

You may wonder why I have contacted you now. Well, sadly, Mum died of breast cancer two years ago. She was only fifty-one. I found myself thinking about you more and more. I wanted to get in touch with you, my only known surviving relative, (apart from my four-year-old daughter, Nina) as soon as possible, especially as I’m not in very good health myself – and none of us knows what the future holds. I think about you often, and hope you are fit and well yourself.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I live in London. Like you, of course, I am nearly thirty-four. I married in my twenties, but sadly the marriage has run into difficulties. At the moment, my wife and I live apart. My wife, Anaïs, is French, but she lives in Blackheath, in South East London, together with little Nina, while I now live north of the Thames, near Swiss Cottage. I’ve been lucky with my educational and career opportunities, and currently work for a large international bank in the City. I earn well, but I can’t say that’s brought me a lot of happiness.

I don’t know what you have been told about your/our background. Our mother, Marie Tully, was unmarried and only seventeen when she met our father. He was a ‘rolling stone’, working with a travelling fair that visited Mum’s village in Ireland. He charmed her, an innocent and uneducated girl at that time. Predictably of course, after a brief affair, he ‘hit the road’ and disappeared. Mum never saw him again.

She soon found out she was pregnant. Her parents, especially her dad, were very strict. Mum had to travel to London on her own, where she gave birth in a dismal home for single mothers – St Agatha’s – run by nuns. The senior nun was very harsh. She insisted Mum give up at least one of us babies for adoption. There was no choice.

By pure chance, I was the child she kept, and you were the one given to adoptive parents. The nuns told Mum it was ‘for the best’ and convinced her that you would have a better life with people who could afford to care for you properly. Her father wouldn’t have her – or us – back in the house. She could never return to Ireland. To her lifelong, desperate regret and sorrow, she was unable to support and bring up both of us. It broke Mum’s heart to give you up.

You may have judged her harshly over the years, Robert, but I promise you that all through her life, Mum never stopped loving you, thinking about you and longing for you.

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