What was ‘it all’, actually? Since Hope had resisted all temptation (and it was mighty) to open the letters, she was, in effect, leaving Quiet Isaac and Minnie alone together. She was anxious that the letters might have information that would be difficult for Minnie. What had he told her? What had his life turned out to be?
It didn’t help that Hope drank one large double-shot black coffee in each of the five cafés she went to. She was absolutely buzzing. Not the best way to deal with an already stressful situation. Her head was throbbing whilst her worst thoughts clamoured and clattered about inside it. Her biggest fear was that she might have lost Minnie forever. She wondered whether Minnie would ever forgive her? Hope’s only chance was to step back and trust that her daughter could work it through in her head.
Hope was forgetting that Minnie was in total shock. She’d only just discovered that everything she thought she knew, she didn’t. Her world was topsy-turvy. Hope had had seventeen years of normalizing this utterly strange situation, and it had been Hope’s choice. Minnie was only a few hours into her maelstrom and none of it was her choice. Not in the slightest.
Eventually Hope Parker, an ordinarily confident woman who held her head high and her shoulders back defiantly, stood trembling and hunched with worry outside the door of the flat, afraid for the first time ever to enter her own home. Everything that really mattered was inside, and she wasn’t sure what she would do if she’d lost it. Either way, there were momentous decisions to be made, which would undoubtedly change all of their lives forever. She needed to summon every last iota of courage, and at this very moment, she found it impossible to remember that she’d ever had ANY. She felt full of fear, as if she had no bones in her whatsoever, as if she was only jelly held together with skin.
Shaking, she slipped the key into the lock and walked in.
Ordinarily, she would call out Minnie’s name as she arrived home, but she somehow didn’t feel the right to. Only people with bones should be so bold, and Hope was currently skeletonless.
In a meek, small voice, she quietly asked, ‘Min?’
‘In here,’ came the response from Minnie’s bedroom.
Hope approached and went in, holding her breath. Minnie was sitting on her bed, next to Lee, in the small colourful room full of strings of pom-poms and Day of the Dead graphics and a messy criss-cross of hundreds of festoons of coloured fairy lights. She’d clearly been showing him the letters, and her face was glistening with tears. Under the beautiful twinkly lights, she appeared so vulnerable and so very young.
‘Are you … OK?’ Hope ventured.
Minnie leapt off the bed and straight into Hope’s eager arms.
Lee smiled from ear to ear.
‘Mum! Thank God you’re back. Just for a horrible minute, I thought you might’ve left …’
‘Min. I will never leave you. Not like that. I just wouldn’t. You must know that?’
‘Yeah, but I said some stuff …’
‘You’re very shocked. I understand, darlin’ heart. I really do. It must be awful for you.’
They hugged and hugged, and both of them wept as they didn’t let go. Lee looked on, and wondered what on earth was going to happen next.
Hope said, ‘What are the letters like? I’ve nearly opened them a hundred times.’
‘Oh Mum, look at them! There’s seventeen, one for each year. He’s written them on my birthday to let me know he was thinking about me … Look at this one … and this … Isn’t it lovely? He says, “I am your father, and I love you”; he says that a lot. And he explains why he went, so that you and I could be together and so that no one would ever know. I think he wished he could stay.’
‘Yes, yes, he did. But he couldn’t. He is too honest for that. He chose you over himself really.’
‘And he’s got a little boy. Elijah. Well, not so little any more – he’s twelve now. My brother. God, I’ve got a brother! Wait a minute, is he my brother?’ asked Minnie. ‘I dunno! It would be so cool to meet him. Meet all of them. He’s married; she sounds nice …’
‘Right,’ said Hope, trying to disguise the antiseptic sting of her hurt.
‘God, Mum, sorry. Did you know he was married?’
‘No, but listen, I don’t have a right to know anything about his life, much less judge it. I’m glad if he … found some happiness. He should. He deserves it. Just like you deserved him, but it was my fault you didn’t have him, and that bit I’m really sorry about. Are you OK, Min?’ Hope clocked Minnie’s anguished face.
‘Have you …’ Minnie looked at Hope, then Lee, then Hope again. ‘Have you been waiting for him all this time? Did you think he might come back? For you? For us? Is that why you don’t try with anyone else?’
Hope had nothing to say. She hadn’t really even admitted it to herself – she was an expert self-deluder – but her insightful, clever daughter worked it out in seconds. Hope had indeed denied so much. She’d denied all the hurt she’d caused. She’d denied that she was in limbo, hoping against hope that she might be with Quiet Isaac again some day. Only now, in the cold light of Isaac’s news, did she realize how much she’d clung to that hopeless hope. He was married, he had a child, he had moved forward and lived his life. Hope had lived Minnie’s life. Only. Minnie was her EVERYTHING, because in Minnie,
