A woman stood there. Dyed ash-blonde hair. Greenish-grey eyes that I knew instantly. A face whose creases curved in arcs of sorrow, not laughter. She wore a Breton jersey with cropped, navy trousers. The butterfly dangling on a pendant around her neck caused hope to surge in my chest.
‘Carole Armitage-Brown?’ Sam asked.
‘Yes?’ she replied, forehead creasing in suspicion. We probably looked like members of a religious cult.
Joan sucked in a huge gasp of air, causing the frown to deepen.
Sam introduced himself, then got straight to it. ‘I’m here as an advocate for Diamanté Butterfly Brown. Or Joan, as she prefers to be called.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘I know this is going to be a huge shock, but we believe that Joan is your granddaughter. Leanne’s daughter.’
Every molecule in Carole Armitage-Brown’s body froze. She stood there, like a statue of solid misery, before eventually giving a sharp shake of her head and swinging the door shut as if we’d been a mere figment of her imagination, or the ghost of a forgotten nightmare.
Joan turned to me, her eyes pleading with me to do something. In that moment, as her thin fingers curled into mine, I suddenly realised what it was to be a parent, the weight of responsibility slamming into me.
I took a deep breath, trying to wriggle past anything sounding remotely like ‘I told you so’, to find some word of genuine comfort, when the door was flung open again.
‘Peter, look at her,’ Carole breathed, one hand clutched to the chain around her neck, the other gripping the arm of the man who stood beside her. ‘It’s Leanne’s girl!’
Peter Armitage-Brown, six foot three with shoulders like the barn doors he used to build, face a craggy map of hard work and dependability, the kind of man who wore a tie even in retirement, dissolved into tears.
Carole stepped forwards, wrapped Joan up in a shaking embrace and joined him, wet cheek pressed against the top of her granddaughter’s head.
‘Oh my girl, my darling girl,’ she sobbed, in between kisses and pulling away to inspect Joan’s face before tugging her in close again. ‘I can’t believe you found us. You don’t know how long we’ve waited.’
Peter, who had soon gingerly lowered himself on stiff knees to join them, could merely shake his head, one arm around his wife, the other gently patting Joan’s heaving shoulders.
‘I knew it!’ Joan said, eventually pulling away to wipe her face on Peter’s offered handkerchief. ‘I knew that you were waiting for us all this time. They said not to get my hopes up, but I could feel it. My DNA knew that you were good and kind and wondering where we were, too.’
‘We?’ Carole asked, her eyes wide with a sudden rush of hope as she glanced to Sam and I, and then past us to the street beyond. ‘Is she here? Your mum?’
‘Could we perhaps talk about that inside?’ Sam asked.
Carole looked at him, her face plummeting as she swayed back on slippered feet.
‘She’s alive,’ I added.
Peter stood up, wincing. ‘Well, if that’s the best you can tell us, then I think we better had.’
They led us into a living room that at a guess hadn’t been decorated since long before Leanne had left. But none of us were focusing on the rose-pink carpet or mahogany furniture. As we sat stiffly on the stripy sofas, we couldn’t take our eyes off the dozens of photographs, lined up along the mantelpiece and decorating the end tables, bookcases and shelving units.
‘It’s Mum,’ Joan whispered in wonder.
‘You can take a closer look if you want,’ Carole said, waiting for Peter to start showing Joan the pictures before turning to Sam. ‘I’ll make us a drink, but I’d rather you tell us first, if you don’t mind.’
Sam nodded at me. ‘I’ll let Ollie explain.’
‘I’m Joan and Leanne’s neighbour,’ I started, fumbling slightly for the right words. ‘I’m taking care of Joan at the moment because Leanne is in hospital. She’s not in any immediate danger or anything like that, but she is fairly ill, and her long-term prognosis is uncertain, so Joan wanted to find you, so you could know, and, well… we can talk about that later.’
Once Carole had brought through tea and a glass of orange juice for Joan (‘I’m sorry, we haven’t had squash in the house since, well, since your mum left’), I explained what had happened, and how things stood, waiting patiently every minute or so to allow Peter and Carole to compose themselves.
‘So she doesn’t know you’ve found us?’ Peter asked.
‘She doesn’t know we’ve been looking.’
He nodded. ‘Waiting until you knew whether it was worth the trouble.’
‘Something like that.’
‘So what’s next, then?’
