Chapter 22
‘Oh, you’re back,’ exclaimed Lili. She was sitting in their kitchen, watching the ten o’clock news on a large wall-mounted TV screen and eating some leftover smoked salmon sandwiches, when Kyle walked in carrying her box. He set it down on the table for her.
‘Thank you.’
He threw her a disarming smile. ‘You’re most welcome.’
Lili caught Hannah throwing him a look she couldn’t quite fathom.
He passed Hannah, touched her arm, and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. Lili could have sworn he had whispered something in her ear too. She was envious; she wondered what it felt like to be so much in love. Surprisingly, Alex didn’t come to mind – but Nate did.
Lili swiftly brushed that thought aside. After leading him on and allowing him to believe Maisie was her daughter, she couldn’t imagine he’d ever want to see her again.
Thinking of Maisie, she glanced at her best friend. She was dying to ask her about Nate and what she was going to do about letting him see Maisie.
Lili noticed that Hannah was preoccupied and not her usual chatty self. Recalling the argument she had overheard on the stairs, she sensed something was troubling her friend; perhaps that something was Nate. Lili looked at her box and decided that it wasn’t the right time to bring up the subject of Maisie’s father. Besides, she had enough issues of her own.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Hannah asked.
Lili said, ‘I hope the most precious thing is in this box.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ Hannah blurted.
Lili looked up, wondering why she sounded so defensive. ‘I’m talking about this,’ Lili said in relief when she found the old file.
‘What is it?’ Hannah asked.
‘It’s the file they gave me after I officially left care when I turned eighteen.’ Lili didn’t add that it was the time when she had intended to go straight to university, but circumstances – namely, her pregnant best friend who needed her support – had meant her plans changed.
Lili didn’t begrudge having put things on hold. She had still achieved her degree. If she had moved away from London to study, she wouldn’t have gained the work experience at Kew.
She had no regrets about the lovely bond she had built up with Maisie either; something she would not have had if she hadn’t been around. But Lili was still upset about Alex. She didn’t blame Hannah for the fact they had split up. Yes, she had put on her over the years, perhaps a little too much, and it meant there were times her relationship with Alex had been strained with a mother and toddler crashing at theirs; it wasn’t ideal for a young couple in love. But Maisie was eight. They’d got through the worst of it. Why had he decided to call it a day now?
At the back of her mind, Lili knew the answer to that: Hannah turning up with Maisie again had been the final straw. She supposed he had been envisaging what their future lives would look like. What would happen if they had children and, as time went by, there was also a sulky teenager, who wasn’t his own, crashing on their sofa? Lili guessed he had been looking into the future and had decided that enough was enough.
Lili gave her best friend a sideways glance. She had always felt she owed Hannah. If it hadn’t been for her, boarding school wouldn’t have been quite so much fun. Especially the holidays. Lili felt fortunate to have spent them with Hannah at her grandparents’ cottage. When Connie and her family had moved abroad with her husband’s job for a time, without Hannah she would have remained at school alone, or back in a room in London in care.
Thinking of Connie, Lili opened the file. Inside was a single sheet of paper. There was a passport-sized photo attached to one corner with a paperclip.
‘What is it?’ Hannah asked.
‘It’s everything I know about my background before I came to England.’ It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.
‘May I see?’
Lili removed the clip and handed her the picture of a small child.
‘You were so cute with those ringlets.’ She looked up. ‘You still are.’
‘Thank you.’
They exchanged a smile.
‘It was so good of you to drive all that way to get it. I know this doesn’t look like much, but it means a lot to me.’ Lili reached over and squeezed her hand, feeling grateful she had such a wonderful friend who would do that for her. She didn’t think she would have been able to face going back to the shop or bumping into Sarah or Ray or any of the lovely people in the courtyard who had taken her under their wing. She felt she had let them all down.
Hannah glanced at the file. ‘Have you considered returning to Flower Island?’
Lili looked at her best friend, perplexed. ‘Where?’