‘I’m so glad Jason pointed me in your direction for the furniture,’ I call over, above the noise of the coffee machine. ‘It fits in here perfectly, don’t you think?’
She smiles. ‘It does, doesn’t it? I really love how pretty and cosy the place looks.’ She lingers by the children’s play area, stooping to pick up a picture book. Watching her leafing through it with a distant look on her face, I can’t help myself. I have to ask.
‘Did you say you had children, Rowena? I couldn’t remember.’ I busy myself wiping up coffee spillages, my heart beating fast.
She walks over to collect her coffee and for a moment I think she’s not going to answer me. Then she stands by the counter, drawing her coffee towards her, and says, ‘I had a daughter.’ She picks up the spoon and starts carving through the froth, making patterns in it.
The silence in the café, now that the machine noises have stopped, is absolute.
‘What … happened to your daughter, Rowena?’ I ask.
She looks up at me and says simply and matter-of-factly, ‘I let her go.’
My heart lurches. I don’t know what to say, so I just reach across and press her arm.
She gives a sad little smile. ‘It was for the best. I can see that now, but it was so hard at the time.’
My heart is beating very fast. I look at her lowered head as she stirs the coffee. She has short dark hair, the same shade as Paloma’s, although no doubt both women use colourants to enhance the shade. Paloma said her birth mother’s name was Margaret, but perhaps Rowena changed her name or goes by her middle name.
‘Do you ever wish you hadn’t?’ I ask softly. ‘Let her go, I mean.’
Her eyes fill with tears and she laughs and grabs a paper napkin to dab them with. ‘Every day, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.’
At that moment, the door opens and Betty and Doreen come in, which means I can’t ask anything else.
The three friends greet each other and I stand there, thinking: What if it really is her? What if Rowena Swann is Paloma’s birth mum and neither of them even realises it?
Should I mention my suspicions to Paloma? But immediately, I decide against that. The chances of it being true are slight, and the last thing I want is to build Paloma’s hopes up only for them to be dashed. But it’s so frustrating, not being able to ask outright if her baby was adopted and if so, when?
I’m so lost in thought, I don’t even notice Rowena’s purse on the counter until they’ve all gone.
After leaving her a message saying I’ve found it, I decide to close up for an hour so I can nip over and see how Mum’s getting on. I’m expecting her to be in, perhaps lying on the sofa watching some daytime TV, but she’s left a mysterious note on the kitchen table saying she’s nipped out but will be back later.
I’m wiping the tables in the café just before five, ready to close up, when she walks in.
‘Hi, Mum. Had a nice afternoon?’
There’s an odd look on her face, an expression somewhere between nervous and excited.
‘What is it?’ I ask, pausing with the cloth in my hand.
She stands in the middle of the café and looks around her. ‘This place is so absolutely wonderful. What an amazing job you’ve done, love, and the cakes are second to none.’ She smiles at me, her eyes misting over. ‘When you told me what you planned to do, I never imagined something like this. I’m so proud. You deserve to do really well.’
I’m almost tearful myself at her enthusiasm. But I shrug. ‘I just don’t think it was meant to be.’
‘Well, I think you’re wrong.’ She flashes a mischievous smile, then says impulsively, ‘Let’s go up to the treehouse!’
‘What, now?’ I stare at her, puzzled. ‘But I’m making a pasta carbonara for dinner—’
‘Just humour me, love?’
‘Okay.’ Grinning, I drop the cloth on the table and collect my keys and bag. ‘You haven’t been up in the treehouse for ages.’
‘The last time was when you came home for your birthday last year, and we had cake and champagne up there, remember?’
I nod wistfully. Dad seemed well then, the life and soul of the party, telling his bad jokes. None of us had any idea …
I swallow hard as I lock up and we walk along the street and in through our back gate. Mum climbs up the treehouse ladder with ease, and soon we’re standing on the deck in the late afternoon sunshine, looking out over Dad’s leafy domain.
‘I miss the garden,’ she says wistfully. ‘It’s just as well your dad still has the gardener coming in every week, otherwise this view would be nothing but wilderness!’
‘Where were you this afternoon?’ I ask, leaning on the railing, curious to know what’s going on in her head.
‘Well, Betty and Doreen called in after they saw you at the café and took me out for lunch, and we had a lovely old catch-up. We were talking about The Twilight Café and I told them what your friend, Theo, said about putting the café in the treehouse instead and that he had a carpenter friend who could work on extending it and making the structure sound enough for purpose.’
‘Right,’ I say slowly, wondering where on earth all this is leading.
Mum turns to me and takes hold of my hands. ‘Betty and Doreen want to invest in The Twilight Café. You can get Theo’s friend to start work immediately. If that’s what you’d like.’
I stare at her, trying to process what she’s just told me.
Her eyes are shining with expectation, but all I can do is frown. ‘What? Really? Did you ask them to invest?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, of course not.’ She smiles, remembering. ‘I actually told them they were mad to even think of using their precious retirement funds to finance
