The Art of Secrets by Vicky Adin

Author:Vicky Adin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: symbolic meaning of flowers, symbol of life, coping with death of loved one, family betrayal and forgiveness, family based series, secrets about the past, depression anxiety depression symptoms mental health psychosis nervous breakdown mental illness mental breakdown, roses as the symbol for the circle of life
Publisher: Vicky Adin

*****

The day the Auckland Harbour Bridge officially opened, 30 May 1959, was the most important and eventful day of my life, and the day the girl known as Rose-Anne Thomas lost her most precious possessions. The day when a decision, made against my will, would influence the rest of my life.

How can I ever explain? I can’t even justify it to myself; I only know that day tipped me over the edge into the anger, confusion and heartache that has never truly left me. I thought I was beginning a new life. Instead, they took a new life away from me.

“What do you mean, you are taking her away?” I squeezed the tiny bundle in my arms tighter.

“Come along now, we’ve been through all this.” The matron was a no-nonsense sort of person with hard features and an absolute belief in the righteousness of what she was doing.

My heart hammered in my throat, and the feelings of desperation and loss I’d felt when my mother died attacked in full force, leaving me stammering in their wake.

“No, no. Leave her be. She’s mine. She’s all I have. You can’t … you can’t take her.” Tears streamed down my face and my nose was running, but I wouldn’t let go to wipe either away.

“It’s best for baby. You shouldn’t have been allowed to hold her in the first place,” said matron, glowering at the two nurses, even though it hadn’t been their decision.

I’d been caught in a web of my own making. Tom had abandoned me as soon as he heard about the baby, so I hadn’t been entirely untruthful, but neither was I a wife or a widow, despite my pretence to the contrary. For that reason, I’d used the name Charlotte Day to travel to New Zealand. I wanted to continue my new life in my new country without any links to the past, but my legal name remained Rose-Anne Thomas. I didn’t understand when I used that name to register for a midwife and the authorities realised I didn’t have a husband, that my baby would be taken away from me. I signed forms that had not been fully explained. They promised me I would be looked after, they would help me find employment and they would give me a home while I waited for the delivery. Afterwards, I could never work out whether they said taking my baby away was punishment for my sins or that I was a wonderful mother for giving her away. Either way, they took her, and they might as well have taken my heart too.

“Miss Thomas, you are behaving irrationally,” said Matron, who was fast reaching the tip of her tolerance. “Now stop being difficult and let the nurse take her.”

“Will I be able to see her?”

“Of course not! Think of the harm that would do to the child.”

“What about the harm to me?”

“You should have thought of that earlier,” she snapped back with malice.

“But what will I do without her? She needs me, I’m her mother.

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