She frantically searches for it at the back of her mother’s shoe racks and delves behind her stacked jumpers. It’s got to be here somewhere.
Having exhausted the cupboards, Kate pulls on the handles of the dressing table, knowing that it’s nigh on impossible for the box to fit into its shallow drawers. She searches under the bed, before heading to the airing cupboard on the landing, wondering why her mother would find it necessary to move it. She reaches behind the neat piles of towels and runs her hands all around the pipework of the dark cupboard, burning her fingers on the hot water inlet.
‘Shit,’ she says aloud, though she’s not sure whether it’s because it hurt or because she’s frustrated.
The pole hook for the loft hatch stands in the corner and she snatches a glance at the square door in the ceiling of the landing. Could it be? Would her mother have gone to the trouble of putting the box up there? And if so, why?
As she slides the ladder down, she remembers how her father had told her many a bedtime story about the loft monster, who everyone feared, yet when they were asleep, he’d come down in the dead of night to make their family’s life easier. Kate would give her dad a sceptical sideways glance until the night she’d gone to bed without doing her history project.
‘It’s too late to do it now,’ her father had said as he’d tucked his distraught daughter in.
‘But I’m going to get a respect task,’ Kate had cried, unable to understand how she could have forgotten it. ‘My name will go in the report book.’
‘Well, maybe it’ll teach you to be more organized in future,’ he’d said.
The next morning, she’d gone down to breakfast to find the most intricate castle, made entirely out of recycled cardboard, sitting on the kitchen table. Foil-covered toilet roll holders had crenels cut into them for turrets and a string-operated drawbridge had been created out of a cereal box.
‘Where did this come from?’ Kate had asked, with tears of happiness rolling down her cheeks.
Her father had shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. ‘I have no idea,’ he’d said, flicking his broadsheet newspaper out in front of him. ‘Must have been the loft monster.’
Kate smiles as she climbs the ladder, amazed that she’d fallen for it for so long, but it seems that if it came from her father’s mouth, she believed it. The irony weighs heavy on her shoulders.
The rudimentary light casts an ominous glow over the eaves, as Kate carefully makes her way across the beams, bending down low to get into the far corner, where everything seems to be stored. Her back aches as she flashes her phone light into the dark, the need to stand up to full height overwhelming. She can see the hat box sitting on top of a larger box and she edges her way towards it.
‘Hello?’ comes her mother’s voice from somewhere beyond the hatch.
Kate’s head bangs on a beam in panic.
‘Hello, who’s there?’
Kate considers not answering, but contemplating her position, she doubts a stand-off would work in her favour.
‘Mum, it’s me,’ she calls out.
‘Kate? What on earth are you doing up there?’
She needs to think quickly. She looks at the box under her arm and a carrier bag of tinsel on the floor, wondering whether emptying the letters into a bag would be less conspicuous.
‘I’m . . . erm, I’m just looking for the baby clothes you kept of ours,’ she says. ‘I won’t be long, go back downstairs and put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ says Rose. ‘What are you thinking, going up there in your condition?’
Damn. ‘I’m pregnant, not disabled,’ says Kate.
‘Well you shouldn’t be doing it, especially if you’re alone in the house. Anything could happen. Come on down now. I’ll hold the ladder for you.’
Kate wonders what would be worse. Taking the letters and incurring the wrath of her mother if she discovers what she’s up to, or not taking them and never really knowing the truths they may hold. She feels she’s in too far not to at least take the chance.
‘I’ve got you,’ says Rose, as Kate backs herself down the ladder. ‘Pass me the bag.’
Kate holds on to it unwaveringly.
‘Give me the bag,’ repeats Rose. ‘You’ll be able to hold on better.’
There’s a tussle as they fight for the innocuous-looking carrier, and it knocks Kate off balance. There’re only a few more steps until ground level, but it could still cause some serious damage if she falls. She resignedly gives the bag up, but as Rose pulls it towards her, the letters spill out and fall onto the carpet. The two women look at each other, both seemingly too shocked to speak.
‘Wh-what’s going on?’ says Rose, bending down to pick them up. ‘What are you doing with these?’
Kate looks at the floor, her cheeks red with shame. ‘I just . . . I just . . .’
‘You just what?’ says Rose acerbically.
‘I just wanted to . . .’
Rose puts a hand to her head. ‘What are you looking for, Kate? What are you hoping to find?’
‘I just want to know the truth.’
‘And what are you going to do with it once you have it? When it’s not what you want to hear?’
‘Why did Dad need to forgive you?’ asks Kate, taking the carefully folded letter out of her pocket.
‘You had no right,’ says Rose, reaching out to grab it.
Kate holds it out of her reach.
‘Give it to me,’ says Rose. ‘It’s private.’
‘What did Dad need to forgive you for?’ Kate asks again.
‘You need to stop this now, for all our sakes,’ says Rose.
‘Jess is your child, Mum. I know that much. But what I don’t know is why you gave her up.’
Rose takes a sharp breath and holds a hand to her chest. ‘You need to leave this alone now, Kate.’
‘I won’t stop until I know
