I shake my head at the man in the lilac shirt and he gestures to his friends and soon the other end of my table is full and they’re talking loudly and I can’t hear what Hedi’s group is saying anymore.

I go to stand up but my legs feel weak. My stomach is churning and I’m fighting to stop tears filling my eyes because the resemblance is so clear it takes my breath away. A piece of Mum, right in front of me, still walking this earth.

I walk past their table towards the bar and as I do so, Hedi looks up and for the briefest of moments our eyes meet. It’s over within a second and she turns away to say something to the blonde who can’t sing. But in that moment I see our lives running in parallel. I see her in Mum’s arms at the hospital right after her birth. I see her lying in the incubator next to mine, our lives about to be so profoundly altered. I see her with Anna, being pushed along the lakefront in Lutry in a buggy. I see Anna and Daniel telling a twelve-year-old Hedi they don’t love each other anymore. I see Mum, a letter in her lap, wondering what her nineteen-year-old biological daughter looks like, what she’s doing, how she is. I see all this and I see Hedi now, a successful young professional with fun colleagues and a life she’s made for herself in London, and I know I’m glad for her.

I don’t feel jealous. I don’t want to smash her life apart. And I don’t wish I had her life. I only feel sad for her that she didn’t know the mother I did, the mother I still love so much, who surely loved us both, just as Anna does.

I think of Mum, Dad and me sitting around at the dinner table in Greenwich. I remember the laughter we shared, the way she hugged me, the way they teased each other, the way the three of us just worked. Perhaps I should have had Hedi’s life. Or perhaps I was always meant to have the life I’ve had. Or maybe that’s irrelevant. Maybe life is simply what you make of the hand you’re dealt.

I step out of the door into the September evening chill, my ears ringing from the music. I take out my phone and write a message.

Dad, I’m coming down tomorrow, can’t wait to see you x

I stand there for a minute, laughter and music floating out of the bar, then I turn and walk away.

Author’s Note