The Lost Sister by Kathleen McGurl (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

see off a cat that was threatening their nest. ‘Birds are such fabulous parents,’ he’d say. ‘They protect their chicks; keep them safe in the nest. And then they let them go. When the fledglings are ready to leave the nest, they let them fly high and free, to make their own way in the world. As Davina has.’ But that was the hard part, with Davina having flown so distant.

‘Love is always open arms. We have to let her go,’ he used to say. He’d counselled this the first time back when Sally was 17, beginning to go to parties and come home late and Harriet had fretted about it. He’d said it again when Sally left home to go to university and Harriet had felt like her world was crumbling without her older daughter there. And when she’d spent so much time with Lucas. Perhaps she’d then clung to Davina to make up for missing Sally so much. Looking back, she could see that possibly she’d kept Davina too close, restricting her freedoms more than she had with Sally at that age. Easy to see with hindsight, but at the time Harriet hadn’t felt ready to be the mother of two grown-up women. She understood now that in trying to hold on to Davina’s childhood, she’d only managed to push her daughter away. She’d wondered if John had been wrong, and that you should hang on to those you love and never let them go. That hadn’t worked either. She’d wrapped her arms too tightly around Davina, when she was a teenager. And now she was left holding only herself.

‘I don’t know what the answer is,’ she said to John’s gravestone. ‘I don’t know what’s best to do. I try to let her lead the way, but in all these years she’s made no effort. To think, you never saw her again after she left home at 17. And I only saw her for a couple of minutes at your funeral. She’s not been fair to us. If I think about it, it makes me so angry. And that just bubbles up every time I talk to her. I can’t help myself. It makes Sally so angry too. I can’t even talk to her about it.’ She fell quiet, listening, wishing that in the sigh of the wind in the trees, in the song of the blackbird there’d be some comforting words from him. She missed him so much.

‘I know we were wrong, trying to force her to come back that time. I mean – Sally and Lucas were wrong. I’d never have let them do it if I’d known! Oh, if I could turn back time to that moment and stop it happening … Davina might have come home after the tour. Gone back to college. At least stayed in touch more.’ As she spoke, the wren looked at her quizzically then flew away.

Her eyes were filling with tears. Realising that there were people approaching – a middle-aged couple meandering their way through the cemetery hand in hand – she quickly dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and took a deep breath. She wasn’t in the mood for explaining to well-meaning strangers that she was OK, really she was, and thank you but no there was nothing they could do for her. She smiled at them as they passed, then stood up, bade John’s grave a silent farewell, and went on her way.

On Tuesday as planned, Sheila came to Harriet’s for lunch, so they could discuss their upcoming cruise. Harriet had no idea what to pack to wear on board, and they needed to arrange travel to the cruise liner terminal.

Sheila arrived with a bottle of wine in her hand. Her hair was wound up in a colourful scarf and her lips were painted her trademark pillar-box red. Harriet smiled as she welcomed her inside. Seeing Sheila always lifted her spirits.

‘Come in! I hope you’re hungry!’

‘Absolutely starving, my dear. Let me get the cork out of this little beauty first, and you can tell me all your news. After that we can talk about the cruise. I can’t wait, can you?’

Harriet served up lunch of a quiche and salad and while they ate and sipped a glass of wine, she updated Sheila about Davina’s phone call, and the old trunk she’d found in the attic. She fetched the photo of the three girls to show Sheila.

‘It seems my gran had a second sister, one she never talked about. I know one died young, but what of the other girl?’

‘Hmm. They certainly look alike,’ Sheila said, pulling her specs from her handbag for a closer look. ‘Well, it should be easy enough to find out her name. Can I take the photo out of the frame? There might be something written on the back, or at least a date.’

‘There is. It says, “The Three Higgins Sisters, 1911”.’

‘Well, that’s excellent,’ Sheila said. ‘The 1911 census is available online, and this photo dates from that year so all three girls should be mentioned in the census. We just need to find your grandmother and see who is listed as living with her. They look young – so I think they’d all be still living with their parents at that time. Do you know where your grandmother lived as a young girl? I could borrow your laptop, log into my Ancestry account and have a quick look.’

‘That’d be amazing! But look, let’s finish lunch first and then start digging into history.’

Half an hour later, with lunch eaten and the dishes cleared away, Harriet topped up their wine and leaned back in her chair. ‘I have a dessert for you too, but honestly I can’t eat another thing. What about you?’

‘Not for me, thank you. At least not just yet. Come on, I want to start investigating your mystery great-aunt!’

Harriet fetched her laptop for Sheila to use. ‘Gran lived in Southampton – somewhere in Northam though I am not sure which