Eloise’s Last Wish

Chris te Lindert

Description

This novel, written in five parts, tells the story of Eloise – a very young Melbourne girl who went to stay with an older friend and work in Smithton Tasmania – to avoid the shame of being an unwed mother and possibility of being forced into an abortion by her own family to protect their reputation. When her son Michael was born, after a few short months, she knew that she did not have the means to keep him. And, that to take him back to Melbourne would mean a permanent separation from her family. Michael was adopted by a loving childless couple and grew into a loving father himself. Eloise, thanks to the letters she received from her friend in Smithton, was able to stay informed about the good life he was enjoying thanks to her most difficult decision to give him up. Despite her ongoing sadness, as she matures, she meets a very gentle man, Arthur, and they marry and have a daughter of their own. In turn her daughter Penny has three children of her own, the youngest of these, Charlotte, is very close to Eloise and at times lives with her. With the support of his parents, Michael makes two attempts to meet his birth mother, but is unsuccessful as Eloise fears the judgments of others should his existence be revealed. Instead, she leaves a letter addressed to Charlotte in her bookcase, telling her the truth and hoping that she will be the bridge between the two families. And so, Charlotte begins a journey of discovery about her extended family.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris AU
• Date de parution: 02 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781669830511
• Langue: English

Extrait

Eloise’s Last Wish
 
 
 
 
 
Chris te Lindert
 
 
Copyright © 2022 by Chris te Lindert.
 

Library of Congress Control Number:
2022912503
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-3053-5

Softcover
978-1-6698-3052-8

eBook
978-1-6698-3051-1
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 07/04/2022
 
 
 
Xlibris
AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)
AU Local: [phone] ([phone] from outside Australia)
www.Xlibris.com.au
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Contents
CHARLOTTE
A Most Unexpected Discovery
Sharing with the Family
MICHAEL
A Most Happy Childhood
A Special Friendship Blossoms
Making a Life Together
PENELOPE
The Early Years
Finding Love
The Wedding Approaches
Married at Last
Building Careers and a Family Together
ELOISE
A Life-changing Shock
Preparing for a New Home and Business
Barkly Street Life Begins
A Series of Sad Farewells
FAMILY
Building the Bridge
The Families Meet
Michael Reads His Mother’s Letters
About the Author
PART ONE
Charlotte
A Most Unexpected Discovery
S ome household chores can stare you in the face for days, even weeks, before you feel inspired enough to tackle them. However, today was the day – the day that I decided that while I was still at home with my little ones, it was time to declutter my bookshelves. They were meant for better things. After today, I hoped they would only hold books that I might like to read again, that I had bought to read in anticipation of those quiet moments when the children were sleeping and I could just read in uninterrupted quiet. How naive of me.
Along the way, there were many distracting moments: a farewell card from one of my ‘supporting a poor student’ part-time jobs tucked in between books, photos of friends in costumes from parties celebrating 21 st birthdays bringing back many happy memories, and books that I had really enjoyed – even the second time I read them. Despite that, at the end of the second day beavering away, I had reclaimed my personal space on the shelves, travel books and my travel journals proudly sharing space with books waiting to be read or reread. Books that I hope my own children will love when they are older now occupied their own shelf as well as photos marking the really significant moments in my family’s life. As I stood back to admire my handiwork and take the obligatory photo for social media, it occurred to me that the cover of one of my oldest books, Gone with the Wind, wasn’t sitting quite right. What I discovered taped inside the back cover astounded me. It would, literally, set me on the most unexpected journey of discovery of my life.
My grandmother and I had always had a special relationship. In my childhood, there were endless sleepovers, and in the first year of my tertiary education, I left home to move into her rambling old terrace house to be closer to the university I was attending. We enjoyed each other’s company and tended to be more ‘on the same page’ with the way we viewed the world around us, in stark contrast to my mother’s quite conservative, even judgemental attitudes at times. As a consequence, it was usually with her I sorted out any concerns I had with friends and relationships. When I met James, it was to her I poured my heart out, confessing that I had found the one I wanted to be my life partner. The day she died was one of the saddest moments in my life. She had always been there, had loved me unconditionally and doted on my very young children. The letter, taped inside the dust cover of the book, was in the beautiful handwriting that was recognisably hers, and it was addressed to me. Why had she hidden it? Whatever it had to say, why didn’t she say it to me when she was alive a short two years ago?
With trepidation, I detached the letter and could hear her voice speaking to me as I read her words.
My Dear Charlotte,
I know it was cowardly of me to leave this letter to be found after my death rather than discuss my conundrum with you years ago. I hope you will understand that I really wanted to make ‘a wrong right’ but knew I wouldn’t have the strength to go through with it. I can only hope that the strength I recognised in you from your early teens will allow you to do what I couldn’t.
Times changed so much over my lifetime, I’m sure if I had had the courage and didn’t fear the public censure, I could have made life so much easier for the son I abandoned. He could have met the rest of the family. Following his adoption, I was able to follow his childhood through a good friend and knew that he matured into a good husband and father. But I always regretted not giving him the opportunity to meet you all. I hid his letters that arrived requesting that we meet. I can only hope that it is not too late and that you can be the bridge between his families. The details of the bank safety deposit box holding all the information you will require are at the end of the page. Please do this in remembrance of me.
Your loving grandmother always,
Eloise
It took some time for the shock to sink in. My grandmother had another child. My mother, who had always wished for siblings, had a brother. Also, as close as we had become throughout her lifetime, my grandmother had never been able to talk to me about it. Of course, I would do what I could to be that ‘bridge’, but in my heart of hearts, I did wonder what the impact on others may be. Would ‘he’ want to be found at this point in time? Would it be a shock to his family? How would my mother, still quite a conservative woman in her early fifties, take the news that her mother had had a child ‘out of wedlock’, as she would put it? I would retrieve the documents, but before I proceeded any further, I really needed to seek some sensible counsel.
The rest of the day disappeared in a blur: lots of ‘likes’ on the now-decluttered-bookshelf photos, a main meal to be prepared, and one child to be wrestled into the bath and PJs and the other to be coaxed out of the bath by the promise of ‘ice cream’ after dinner – all of this, more or less, achieved on autopilot as the letter ran like a broken record repeatedly through my head. James arrived home and played with Katelyn and Sean until it was time for us to sit around the table. He sensed I was distracted but knew me well enough to give me time to decide whether I wanted to discuss it or not. Once the children were asleep, he looked at me to see if I was ready to share. They say ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’, and I could see no chance of getting any sleep without discussing today’s most unexpected events.
In the year before we married, James and I would often call in to see my grandmother, and she was very fond of him and soon gave her seal of approval. As he listened to me read the letter aloud, he was as shocked as I was, mostly that she had not raised this with me in her lifetime. By now, I had had time to consider how the very different social values of her time and importance of reputation would have influenced her reticence to share her secret. James conceded this to no doubt have been a factor, as would my mother’s more conservative views/outlook. Accepting this truth was not hard and answered the ‘why she hadn’t talked about this son’ question but still left so many more questions unanswered. Realising that there was little that could be achieved by mulling it over right now, we called it a night. After all, ‘tomorrow’ would be, as so succinctly put by Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlett, ‘another day’.
Fortuitously, the next day was a Saturday. Following a morning of shopping at the market for the week’s supplies, we allowed ourselves time to join other parents watching their children at the time at the playground, sipping coffees. Meanwhile, their children were busy catching up with their friends and enjoying this beautiful day before we made our way home. Once there, the children settled in front of one of their favourite TV shows, and I had time to collect my thoughts and make a list. Lists had always helped me to clarify my thoughts, to set goals, and often allowed me to feel the satisfaction of crossing off achievements at some time in the not-too-distant future. That may work really well for shopping lists, gift lists, and ‘to do’ lists, but in this case, I was really struggling to see where to start. Instead of going round in endless circles of ‘what if’ and ‘how will so and so feel’, I knew the only logical starting point was to follow the instructions and head to the bank to read the contents of the safety deposit box on Monday morning.
The bank was a very old building in the finance district of Melbourne: beautiful high ceilings with intricate designs and lighting that had been mode