The old woman’s eyes darted from side to side as she tried to think quickly. Eventually she took Olivia’s hand in hers. ‘None of us knew at first – Jess was a complete surprise. You were so young, and so exhausted from your experience, we thought you were having difficulty expelling the afterbirth, because of course it still hadn’t come out, so when Jess appeared it was quite a shock.’ She looked at Jess. ‘The cord was wrapped around your neck, so we had to whisk you away in order to get you breathing.’ She turned back to Olivia, her eyes now glistening with tears as well. ‘I told your father that there was another baby on the way, but he didn’t seem interested.’ She blew her nose on the handkerchief Tom had handed her. ‘So I got on with the job in hand. It didn’t occur to me that he wouldn’t hand the two of them over to the Quinns. When I asked the nurse looking after Dana to come and take Jess to join her sister, the poor girl was inconsolable because your father had already sent the Quinns on their way.’ She shook her head as tears fell into her lap. ‘How anyone could knowingly split the girls up was beyond us, but we’d already been told to keep shtum and get on with things, so we did. We all made a pact that night to never speak of it again.’ She glanced miserably at Jess. ‘And I didn’t, until Jess came into my life.’

Olivia stared at the girls, tears silently trickling down her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what to say, apart from I’m so sorry.’

The girls enveloped her in a tight embrace. ‘There’s nothing for you to apologise for,’ said Dana, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘None of this was your fault, you are just as much a victim in all this as we are.’

Jess beckoned Ted to join them. As he did, Olivia stared over their shoulders to a woman who was eyeing the girls with such deep-rooted affection, Olivia knew it had to be Colleen. She gave the other woman a wobbly smile. ‘Thank you for loving my children.’

Colleen’s bottom lip trembled. ‘It was my honour.’

Ted kept his head lowered. ‘All this because he thought I wasn’t good enough for his daughter or his family,’ he said quietly. ‘He was so keen for me to never be part of his life, he made sure we couldn’t come back and trace the girls.’

Auntie Edna spoke up. ‘You say he didn’t think you were good enough, but he suspected you’d try and find your girls, and only a loving father would go to that much trouble.’