Ali Mercer [Mercer - His Secret Family (ARC)

Lost Daughter

His Secret Family

Lost Daughter (Available in the UK and US)

When I was a child I had a book that told the myth of the Furies, the three terrifying goddesses of vengeance who pursued people who had done wrong. Once they were on your case, there was nothing you could do to placate them. They would haunt you and torment you without pity, because that was their job: they were there to inflict justice. To make sure that even hidden wrongdoing came at a cost. You could keep secrets from other people, or defend yourself against them. But there was no defence against the Furies.

I never would have imagined that one day Id play the Fury myself.

But times change, dont they? People change. And motherhood changes you. The Furies werent mothers. If they had been, they really would have been too horrifying to contemplate. Because if theres one thing more insatiable than a goddess bent on vengeance, its a mother who is driven by the wrong that has been done to her child.

Anyway, I didnt just decide to hunt him down out of the blue. I was provoked.

Id done my best to leave him in peace. To move on. To forget, if not to forgive. I didnt even think about him all that much. I was always busy, and anyway, hed asked me to stay away and Id chosen to honour that request. After what he and his wife and family had been through, it seemed the least I could do.

But then I found out quite by chance that his daughter was getting married.

It had to be the older one. The first one. By now, shed be the right sort of age for all that. Mid-twenties. Heading into the baby-making years. Young-ish to settle down with the four-slice toaster and the his n hers TV trays, but not too young.

Marriage wasnt something I saw in my own daughters future, but I was well past being bitter about that. Still, it struck me as odd that theyd chosen to stage the big day in my town, right under my nose.

It made me wonder how much they knew. The family hed chosen. The wife. The girls.

Had they forgotten? Or had they decided it didnt matter?

Maybe they had just assumed I wouldnt find out. But I had. I had a friend who did bookings for the abbey hall where they were holding the reception, and she mentioned it to me. She recognised his name on the seating plan. And she knew hed lived with us, once. A long time ago. Small-town memories are long longer than the internet and theres no right to be forgotten.

She warned me so that I could stay away.

But I didnt.

When it came to it, I couldnt.

I didnt make a conscious decision to do what I did. It was as much of a shock to me as everyone else. But we were in town that morning anyway, and the abbey hall drew me like a magnet.

It was a beautiful day for a wedding. Even a wedding you werent invited to, that you most definitely wouldnt be welcome at. Daisy came with me quite willingly, and the sun beat down on us as we skirted the car park and turned down the narrow path that led to the abbey hall.

We went up the steps to the double glass doors. The reception was already in full swing; I could hear the hum of conversation. I pushed on through and held the door open for Daisy. She didnt hesitate. We went through the lobby, past the sign displaying the seating plan, and came to rest in the dim space under the arch that led to the long medieval hall, the only surviving building of the abbey that had once dominated the town.

It was beautiful. There were flowers all along the middles of the long narrow tables. White roses. The air smelled sweet and heady and the thick old glass in the ancient windows dimmed the light streaming in from outside and made everything watery, as if the hall was at the bottom of a lake.

A spoon chimed against a champagne flute and the room fell silent.

Silent for him. There he was, at the head table, standing to give his speech.

Twelve years since Id last seen him, ten since our divorce. He was older, yes greyer, a bit more tired-looking, and hed put glasses on to read the notes on the cue cards he was holding. But in spite of everything he looked fit and well.

He was handsome still. Dignified. Tailor-made to wear black tie. His wife was next to him, looking up at him adoringly, oblivious to us.

I didnt care any more what he had suffered. I took Daisy by the hand and stepped forward out of the shadows.

He saw us. He opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. The champagne glass fell from his hand and smashed. But nobody looked at the shattered crystal. They were all staring at us.

He pressed his hand to his heart as if hed been poisoned, then to his head. He sagged forward; his hands scrabbled for purchase among the shards of glass. He made a strange and terrible sound, the scream of someone who cant breathe.

We all looked on in horror as he crashed down onto the ancient wooden floor, and it occurred to me that I might just have killed him.

After everything shed been though with Dad, Mum was in no mood to get involved with anybody. What she said was, Men are terrible to live with always leaving toenail clippings in the bath. I knew that when she said this she was thinking of Dad, and that the toenail clippings were a stand-in for other failings that were worse and made her reluctant to let him into our flat at all.

I couldnt actually remember what it had been like when he lived with us, as hed left when I was a baby. It seemed very odd that there had been a time when wed shared a living space with him, toenail clippings and all, and though part of me was secretly very sad that he had gone, another part of me shared Mums relief.

Mum only joked about men and their annoying personal habits when she was in a good mood. At other times, she made it clear that what was wrong with men was serious. And every now and then shed open up a little bit and Id get a glimpse of what she was sheltering me from. One of those times was when she told me about her old schoolfriend Karen, a story which explained even better than the toenail clippings why we lived as we did.

Karen had two daughters who were about the same age as my big sister Ava and me, and like Mum, she was divorced. So far, so much like us. Except that Karen had got herself a boyfriend. And then, after a while, Karen found out that the boyfriend had been coming on to her older daughter, the one who was Avas age.

When Mum let this slip, her expression of disgust told me everything I needed to know: she wasnt going to start seeing someone anytime soon. She resented it bitterly when people asked her about her love life. It annoyed her that they seemed to think she either ought to have a man in her life, or want one. Sometimes she imitated them to us as if their presumptions were totally ridiculous: Do you have a boyfriend? Are you seeing anybody yet? As if Id have the time for that!

And I was glad. I hated the idea of some weirdo coming into our lives who might make a pass at Ava, or even at me. Anyway, Mum really didnt have the time. She worked long hours, she looked after the flat and she had us. A man would have been an intrusion, and would have taken up time and energy she didnt have to spare.