The Secrets We Left Behind Read Online Free PDF

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whispered. ‘If one more person tells me how much he looks like his father, I’ll scream.’
    ‘Well, he does,’ Duncan said and I shot him a look.
    ‘I had hoped my children would look like me, at least a little bit.’
    At that point, Duncan got it. ‘Sorry, Han.’ He parted Hannah’s shoulder. ‘That was insensitive.’
    Hannah shrugged. ‘Forget it.’
    ‘You okay?’
    Hannah nodded and managed a small smile, though her face was tense and full of shadows, just like it had been a couple of years ago during that horrible time when they were trying to find out
what was wrong, when her sweet young face had been lined with worry and haunted with fear. She’d rung me as soon as they left the consultant’s office and she was crying so much it was
difficult to make out what she was saying. ‘They said . . . they said I’ve got . . .’
    For one awful moment I thought they’d told her she had something terminal. Fear shot through my body like a steel bolt, pinning me to the spot. ‘Darling, please tell me. What did
they say?’
    Marcus came on the line. He sounded pretty shaken. ‘They reckon she’s got something called premature ovarian failure. It means that her eggs are—’ Then I heard Hannah
take the phone back again. ‘Mum, I’m going through the fucking menopause. I’m thirty-one, for fuck’s sake. And my eggs are . . . are dying.’
    I felt tears spring to my eyes. ‘Oh Hannah. Oh darling, I don’t know what to say.’ I could hear her trying to stifle her tears. ‘They say it can run in families, but you
managed to get pregnant when you were forty-three. Hang on.’ I heard her blow her nose, then sigh. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I shouldn’t have brought it up.’
    I tried to gather myself; I was still trying to take it in. ‘No, no, it’s fine.’
    ‘Mum, can we come round?’
    They sat in the kitchen, pale and red-eyed from crying. Monty positioned himself at Hannah’s feet and laid his head in her lap while she absent-mindedly played with his ears. I made tea,
remembering to add lots of sugar. Once, when Hannah was five, she pirouetted off the table in our bedsit and broke her collarbone. The landlady drove us to the hospital, stayed with us and drove us
home again, and then while I put Hannah to bed, she made me a cup of tea. ‘There we are, love, nice and sweet.’ In a still-shaky voice, I thanked her but told her I didn’t take
sugar. ‘You do today,’ she said. And I remembered Scott making us both sugary tea that time all those years before, and I remembered that it helped.
    ‘How old was your mum when she died?’ Hannah said, sipping the tea and grimacing at the sweetness.
    ‘Forty-one.’
    ‘And did she . . . ? Was she still . . .’
    ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I sighed. ‘Mothers and daughters didn’t discuss things like that back then. And my mum had other problems, as you know, so it was difficult to
talk about anything.’ I felt dizzy so I pulled out a chair and sat down. Nothing could change the situation, so what was the point of talking about family histories?
    ‘I’m glad we can talk about things,’ Hannah said. ‘Most of my friends just moan about their mums.’
    ‘I’m glad, too.’ I took a gulp of my tea, burning my mouth. ‘So . . . is there anything they can do? I mean to help you have a baby?’ I‘d often half hoped
that Hannah wouldn’t want kids, because much as I loved the idea of grandchildren, I couldn’t shake off the crippling anxiety every time I thought about her giving birth. My greatest
fear had always been of losing Hannah – my precious only child. I couldn’t bear seeing her like this. I remembered my own misery each month when my period came, and when it didn’t
come, the delirious happiness, followed by the utter despair when the pains started a few weeks later.
    ‘Seems like we’ve got two options,’ she said. ‘We can adopt, but there’s a long wait for babies, or we could try to find an egg