Mum flew to London first. It was cold but it looked like it should and there was snow one day. She got a job in a bar and lived in a big house called a squat and made a good friend who lived there too. The friend’s name was Emma. Emma was funny and kind and Irish. On Mum’s days off she would go to art galeries and look at her favrite paintings. We have a postcard of her favrite on our fridge. When her job ended she went travelling to France and Italy and Spain and to the place in Ireland where Emma was from. She saw the Eiffel Tower and also the Collaseeum and she went to an incredible church which looks like a forest of bare tree trunks and a cave inside. She said there were fifty shades of green in Ireland because she counted them one day. She had lots of adventures and once someone tried to steal her backpack and if Mum hadn’t fought back all her wordly goods would have disappeared forever.

The other answers were shorter.

My Mum’s favourite colour is: red.

Her favourite food is: chips.

Her favourite flower is: a daisy.

I admire her because: she makes everything fun and she loves me so much that she says sometimes her heart feels like it might burst with all the love for me it holds.

Her teacher had given her an A. At some stage, Jeannie had added her own comment to the final page. I give it an A++++++++++++++++++++. Best school report EVER!!!! Best daughter EVER!!!!!!!!

Eliza had planned to leave the folder with Rose. At the last minute, she put it in her suitcase. It still meant so much that her mother had touched those pieces of paper. She thought Olivia and Maxie might like to see the school report too. She couldn’t remember if she’d showed it to them before.

The detail about her mother’s Irish friend Emma had also planted the seed of an idea. Perhaps Olivia and Maxie knew more about her. Her surname, where she was from. She’d only been a name in a school report for years. But what if Eliza was able to find her? Perhaps Emma might even have met her father too? She might be able to hear a new story about her mother. Something else to treasure.

Eliza gave up pretending she was watching a film on the screen in front of her. She leaned back and shut her eyes. As the plane brought her closer every minute to her godmothers, to the possibility of answers to so many of her questions, she gave in to her favourite pastime. One her counsellor Caroline always encouraged. Remembering moments with her mother.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jeannie had long planned a big eighteenth birthday celebration for her. She’d even promised to bake a huge cake. ‘I might jump out of it. Naked. Give you a real birthday to remember.’

‘Of course I’ll remember it,’ sixteen-year-old Eliza had said. ‘I’ve been counting down the days. I still think it’s unfair you haven’t told me anything about my father. I’m not a child any more.’