Awakening to Sunlight Read online

  Lizzy wasn’t sure what to say, but something Maurice used to say popped into her head and although she didn’t want to, she felt compelled to say it to Judith.

  “Someone used to tell me that everything happens for a reason. We don’t always know the reason at the time, but the ultimate intention is that we learn and move on into the next stage of our life, wiser than we were before.”

  “Do you believe that’s true?”

  Again Lizzy found herself at a loss for words. For years Maurice’s proverb had made sense to her, but then Maurice had died and nothing had made sense anymore. It still didn’t, but Lizzy didn’t want to have to think about it. Not thinking about it was the only way she could keep her promise. The black hole inside her started to churn again and she could feel Judith studying her. Trying to ignore the discomfort, she managed to shrug in response to Judith’s question.

  Judith averted her gaze and started tracing an invisible line on the cover of the book that lay in her lap. “What if you don’t want to enter the next stage? What if you feel you can’t do it?”

  Lizzy found Judith’s gentle demeanor and humble honesty endearing, but the intimacy of the conversation was making the black hole in her chest churn even harder. She gave her the only answer she knew. “Just take it day by day.” As soon as she said it, she knew she needed to leave the room before the dark abyss of emotion inside her pulled her in. She got up to leave, but before she left she felt compelled to say one more thing and forced herself to look at Judith.

  “Whatever it is you’re doing, Judith, you seem to be doing it because you feel you must. You can’t ask more than that of yourself.”

  With that said she quickly turned and headed for the sanctuary of her bedroom in the hope of finding her numbness again.

  Chapter Five

  Leaving Menno had been a big step, but Judith felt that she was no further than she had been the day she left him. Finding work and a place to live was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. The job agencies still didn’t have any work for her, her application for welfare was still being processed, and her hunt for a place to live had been futile. She’d signed up for government housing, but the list was apparently so long it could take at least a year before she was eligible, and her attempt to find private housing had proved equally futile. There were places enough, but they were expensive and the landlords would only rent to people with paid jobs. She had three days left before her two-week arrangement with Lizzy ended. Time was running out.

  She had hoped that she wouldn’t have to call her sister again, but after another day of futile attempts at finding a place to live, she knew there was no way around it. She was jobless, penniless, and soon to be homeless. She needed to get things sorted, quickly, for Emily’s sake; there was no room for pride in the current equation. Mustering up the nerve yet again, she picked up the receiver and punched in her sister’s number.

  “The van Baarn residence, how may I help you?”

  Judith felt a small relief that a housemaid had answered and not her brother-in-law again.

  “I would like to speak to Catherine, please.”

  “Whom may I say is calling?”

  Judith took a deep breath. “Her sister, Judith.”

  “One moment please.”

  There was a click and Judith listened to the silence that followed; then, after what seemed an eternity, she heard her sister’s voice for the first time in ten years.

  “Catherine van Baarn speaking.”

  Judith took one last long breath before speaking.

  “Catherine, it’s me, Judith.”

  There was a momentary silence before her sister’s sharpness filled the void. “What do you want, Judith?”

  There was no easy answer to the question, no masking of the truth. “I’ve broken up with Menno.”

  “So, you’ve finally come to your senses, have you?”

  Her sister made no attempt to hide her gloating satisfaction, making Judith want to reach through the phone and strangle her, but she checked herself and concentrated on keeping calm. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

  “Hmm. I know you didn’t just call me to tell me this bit of delightful news, so what is it you want?”

  Judith took another deep breath. “Well, I—”

  “Oh, let me guess, you need money, but you’re forgetting something, dear. You walked out on your money, remember? Thought you were better than us, didn’t you?”

  “No, Catherine, it wasn’t like that.”

  “Oh, that’s exactly how it was, and now your plan has backfired and you think you can come crawling back.”

  Judith could feel her self-composure slipping away.

  “For Christ’s sake, Catherine, I have a child to think of.”

  “Oh yes, the child. Well, you should have followed my advice and gotten rid of it when you could have.”

  Judith could no longer contain her anger.

  “She’s not an it, her name is Emily, and she’s the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re her aunt, for God’s sake. No, you know what? Forget it, I should have known better. Just forget I even called.” Judith hung up and steadied herself against the table, trying to calm herself. Her body was shaking and she didn’t know whether she wanted to cry or hit something.

  “Are you okay?”

  Judith spun around to find Lizzy standing in the doorway looking concerned. Judith quickly turned away from her, feeling exposed.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Well I am, okay? I just need some time to myself.” Judith forced her trembling legs to move and just about made it to her room before bursting into tears.

  *

  Lizzy waited for the kettle to boil, mulling over the conversation she had just overheard. She gathered Judith must have been talking to her sister, because she’d used the word aunt. She didn’t know anything about Judith’s background or her family, but her sister didn’t seem to be a nice woman and obviously had no feelings for Emily. Lizzy wondered whether she should go to Judith or to just leave her be. Judith had made it clear that she wanted to be alone, but something in Lizzy told her that it would be best if Judith talked about it. On the other hand, it wasn’t any of her business and she wasn’t sure if she could cope with Judith’s sad emotions. She made an extra cup of tea and reluctantly headed for Judith’s bedroom. Her knock on the door got no reply and was the excuse she needed to walk away, but something inside her stopped her from doing so and before she knew what she was doing, she carefully opened Judith’s door.

  Judith was seated on the edge of her bed with her head resting in her hands. Lizzy placed a mug of tea on the bedside table before sitting down on the floor against the opposite wall. Judith kept her head buried in her hands and for a few moments Lizzy simply watched her cry, unsure what to say.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Judith slowly shook her head. “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” Lizzy replied gently.

  Judith lifted her head. Her face was tear stricken.

  “I thought…I just hoped that maybe, maybe she’d changed, you know?” Judith shook her head. “I’m an idiot. There’s no denying it, I’m a total idiot.” She buried her head in her hands again.

  Lizzy had no idea what had happened to Judith or what she might have done to end up where she was now, but she felt sure that Judith wasn’t an idiot.

  “I may not know you well, Judith, but one thing I’m sure you’re not, is an idiot. From what I’ve seen so far, you’re an intelligent, loving, responsible mother, whose life seems to have changed one hundred and eighty degrees, but who is trying her best to make things right for herself and her daughter, and from what I could gather from that phone call, it’s your sister who’s an idiot, not you. Is there no one else you can turn to?”

  Judith shook her head again.

  “Your parents?”

  “They
have both passed away, but my mother wouldn’t have helped anyway. She considered Menno beneath our family status. Can you believe that?” She shook her head. “And when I made it clear I wouldn’t break up with him, she threw me out of the house and made it very clear I was never to come back again.”

  “And your father supported this?”

  “He had already passed away by the time I met Menno. He was nothing like my mother and sister, though. He was a kind and gentle man. We were always close and I could talk to him about anything. I’m convinced he would have supported me, been happy for me. I mean, at the time I was happy. When I met Menno I really believed I’d met somebody with whom I could share the rest of my life. You know, explore the world together, start a family, and eventually end up as two oldies who still hold hands while walking down the street, like you still sometimes see.”

  Lizzy snorted. “The ideal family life: a rare oddity if ever there was one.”

  “Yes, but that was what I wanted and thought I’d found.”

  “So I take it your mother never met Emily?”

  “No. I called the house and left a message as soon as I realized I was pregnant, but I never heard from her.” Judith wiped her nose on a piece of tissue. “I’m not saying my mother was bad. She was good to me while I was growing up, but we never really connected. As a child I was aware that my mother’s love was different from my father’s, but it wasn’t until I grew older that I came to realize what that difference was. My father loved me for who I was. My mother loved the idea of me. She had it all planned, you see, what my sister and I would be like and how we would live our lives. As long as I lived the life she thought I should, we were fine. She regarded it as a personal betrayal when I wouldn’t give Menno up, and she never forgave me for it.”

  Lizzy shook her head in disgust. “And I take it your sister sided with your mother?”

  “My sister, hah!” Judith laughed cynically. “Well, when she found out I was pregnant she was considerate enough to send me a short letter advising me to have an abortion.”

  Lizzy was dumbstruck. She couldn’t believe the audacity of it, let alone the twisted thinking behind it. “That must have hurt!”

  “At the time it did. I felt misunderstood and unjustly treated, but when I held Emily in my arms for the first time and thought of them, the pain was replaced with sorrow. That they rejected me was one thing, but that they rejected Emily, so innocent and pure, it just shut the book for me. I was no longer welcome in their world, and they were no longer welcome in mine.”

  Lizzy had always had trouble trying to understand how people could be so cold and cruel to one another. It was bad enough that Judith’s family rejected her, but to deny Emily’s right to exist—Lizzy just couldn’t believe it.

  “What have you told Emily?”

  “That was the hardest thing. For years I dreaded the moment when I would have to explain to her the absence of a family. Even Menno didn’t have contact with his family. Then one evening, when she was six, as I was tucking her into bed she told me how her friends talked about their grandparents and she asked me how come she didn’t have any. So I tried to explain it in a way that she could understand without upsetting her. I told her, her grandfather, who was a good man, had gone to heaven before she was born and that she did have a grandma, but that her grandma wanted to keep me locked up in this big castle and that her father had rescued me.”

  Lizzy raised her eyebrows. “And she believed it?”

  “Well, she accepted the story. She said if Grandma didn’t like me, then she didn’t like Grandma.”

  They both fell silent and Lizzy felt the urge to tell Judith she could stay longer, but she was worried about the implications for herself. If she offered, it would mean them staying most likely for quite a while, and having people stay in her home for a longer period of time was quite different from having them stay for only a few weeks, but the more she thought about it, the more it seemed the right thing to do.

  “You know, you can stay here longer if you like, until you’ve got things properly sorted.”

  Judith looked at her with disbelief. “Do you know what you’re offering?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why would you do this?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Judith’s expression turned pensive. “It could be a while. I have no idea how things are going to turn out.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure, I mean really sure?”

  “The way I see it is that we’ve gotten along so far, and you need a place to build from and this is as good a place as any, considering.”

  “And what happens if our presence starts to annoy you?”

  “That won’t happen. I think as long as we’re considerate with one another, like we have been, we’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t have any money to—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure there’s always food in the cupboards, and if you want I can lend you some money until you get sorted. It’s not the greatest way, I know, but it’s a start. What do you say?”

  Judith grimaced. “I haven’t always been so helpless, you know.”

  “I don’t see you as helpless, Judith. I just see a woman who is trying to figure out in which direction her life is heading. There’s no shame in that and there’s no shame in accepting somebody’s help.”

  The phone started to ring and Lizzy pulled herself to her feet. She knew it was Anita, her producer, because they’d arranged the call earlier in the day.

  “It’s up to you, Judith, but I meant what I said.”

  “I’ll pay you back, I promise, every penny.”

  Lizzy understood that it was important to Judith that she believed her. “I’m sure you will.”

  “You’re too kind, Lizzy.”

  Lizzy turned in the doorway. “There’s no such thing, and besides, my offer is purely egoistical. I like your cooking.” She caught a glimpse of Judith’s smile before she raced off to take Anita’s call, and despite her initial concern about letting them stay, felt good about being able to offer Judith the breathing space she needed.

  Chapter Six

  For the first time since leaving Menno, Judith had managed a proper night’s sleep. After her talk with Lizzy the previous night she had stayed in her room feeling too tired to do anything but sleep. She had decided to take Lizzy up on her generous offer—not that she felt she had much choice, but knowing that she and Emily had a place to stay until they could get their own place took a load off her shoulders. She now had the time at least to rethink her situation and come up with a new approach to solving her problems. That morning she had awoken early with an unexpected sense of newfound confidence. She had hoped to speak to Lizzy at breakfast, but Lizzy had still been asleep and by the time she returned from dropping Emily off at school, Lizzy had left for work. She decided to take advantage of her solitude and spoil herself with a long, hot shower.

  As the hot rays of water cascaded down her body, her thoughts wandered to Lizzy. She was astounded that a person could be so generous to someone she didn’t know. She thought back to the conversations they had had since their arrival. There was something about her demeanor that evoked trust, but there was also a barrier, a sort of invisible line that Lizzy drew around herself, separating her from the space around her. Then there were those moments when something in her demeanor would change. The gentle look in her eyes would harden and she would find a way to cut the conversation short and leave the room. Her generosity and her aloofness were a contradiction Judith couldn’t quite understand. She was still thinking about her when she stepped out of the shower and realized that the phone was ringing. She grabbed a towel, flung it around her waist, and ran, dripping wet, to the living room, managing to reach the phone before it stopped ringing. She quickly picked up the receiver and remembered that this was Lizzy’s home phone. She hesitated, not sure how she should address herself. Then, squirming at the inelegance of her choice, simply said: “Hello?” />
  “Miss Hilford?”

  “Yes, speaking.”

  “It’s Yvonne from Top Line Job Center. We may have something for you. An employee from one of the companies we represent, Care All Round, has fallen sick and they need an immediate replacement for this week. We know it’s not in your field, but on your application form you indicated you were prepared to do other work.”

  “What would I be doing?”

  “You’d basically be going into old people’s homes and helping out with the general chores that they can’t manage on their own. It’s mostly cleaning.”

  Judith needed a moment to let it sink in. She’d never done this type of thing before and it was a far cry from teaching.

  Yvonne continued. “They want you to start tomorrow at half past eight, and it’s six hours a day, minimum pay.”

  Judith quickly did the math and decided she should be able to get Emily to school and make it on time. “Okay. I’ll do it. Where do I have to go?”

  Judith jotted down the details and thanked Yvonne before hanging up. It wasn’t a teaching job, but she felt immensely grateful for the opportunity to earn some money.

  *

  It was nearly midnight when Lizzy got back, so she was surprised when Judith greeted her in the hallway.

  “Hi, you’re up late.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, and well, I was kind of waiting for you.”

  Lizzy was a little surprised by the statement, but guessed by the glint in her eye that she had some good news.

  “What is it?”

  “One of the job centers called me. I’ve got work.”

  “That’s great, Judith.” Lizzy felt relieved for her, understanding how important this news was.

  Judith quickly continued. “It’s only cleaning. I’m supposed to go into old people’s homes and help them out, but it’s a start, right?”

  For a moment Lizzy hesitated, realizing Judith was relying on her for confirmation. A job meant money, a way to move on, but Lizzy knew that having to clean other people’s homes could sometimes make a person feel small and insignificant—and even if the work itself didn’t have that effect, people’s attitudes often did. Lizzy’s own mother had done the same type of work for a while after her own divorce. There had been times when she had had to swallow her pride and then there had been times when she had found the work rewarding. It had helped pay the bills, and she had done it for as long as it had been necessary.