Gabby couldn’t explain how hard it was to walk away from her mother these days. She believed she had genuinely changed, and she wanted to make amends. But her nana and granddad couldn’t see that. She knew they had reason to feel like they did, but this was still her mother they were talking about, Cherie’s nanny. In producing this child she felt, for the first time in her life, like she had done something good in her mother’s eyes, and she was enjoying that feeling. It was almost as if Cynthia was loving her through her baby, and that felt good. All her life Gabby had felt there was something wrong with her; if her own mother couldn’t love her, then who could?

‘Oh, Nana, I know you think I’m wrong, but she has changed. She loves little Cherie like we do! Please, Nana, don’t ruin this for me.’

Mary was shocked at those words. As if she would ever ruin anything for this girl, or the child she had produced. The only person who had ever ruined anything for her she was now welcoming back into her life with wide open arms. And no good could come of it, she would lay money on that.

She understood why Gabby was desperate to make some kind of connection with her mother, even after everything had happened. When all was said and done she was her closest kin. Mary was being forced to sit back and wait and then eventually pick up the pieces, because unfortunately she knew, as sure as she knew her own name, that this reunion could only end in tears.

Chapter Ninety-Five

As Jack Callahan looked at his wife, he felt the power of her, as he always had. She was stronger than he would ever be and it had taken her heart attack to make him appreciate just what a good woman he had bagged all those years ago.

Now he could see she was hurting. She had buried a child – something no parent should ever do. It was the wrong order of things; a child should bury its parents, not vice versa. And it had upset her that Gabby was all over her mother like a cheap suit.

‘It can’t last, Mary. You know Cynthia like I do – she’ll fuck it up and Gabby will see her for what she is.’