Read Online A Scandalous Secret by Jaishree Misra - Free Book Online Page A

had already had to lay out vast amounts on her holiday.
    But her father’s response was typically dismissive, ‘Naaaah, just a couple of quid.’
    â€˜Aw, thanks. You home for lunch, Dad?’
    â€˜Yes. Ask Mum if she wants me to pick up anything?’
    Sonya looked enquiringly at her mother who was emptying the dishwasher, stacking plates in the cupboard above. Laura shook her head. ‘I went to the shops yesterday, we’re all stocked up,’ she said.
    â€˜Think we’re okay, Dad,’ Sonya said into the phone. ‘Mum stocked up yesterday, which must mean we have supplies to last us till Christmas.’
    Richard laughed before hanging up but Sonya saw thather mother’s face was unsmiling. She had been sulking on and off like this for days. It really wasn’t like her to be so consistently down in the dumps. Realizing suddenly that it was uncharitable to describe Laura’s distress as ‘sulks’, Sonya walked across the kitchen, leaned over the open dishwasher and kissed her cheek loudly. ‘Cheer up, Mum,’ she said, ‘I’m not going for good, am I?’ To her horror, Laura’s eyes filled with tears and, before Sonya knew it, her mother had turned away, shoulders shaking as she suddenly broke down. ‘Oh, Mum,’ Sonya said, suddenly close to tears herself, ‘Don’t cry, please. You’ve got to understand why I’m doing this. Please?’
    â€˜But I can’t, darling,’ Laura sobbed, tearing off a strip of kitchen paper to wipe her eyes. ‘It may be stupid of me but I just can’t understand why you would want to go on such a punishing quest. As it is, Dad and I would have been beside ourselves worrying about you being so far away. But somewhere like India! All that poverty and disease. And trying to find your natural mother? Why, Sonya? Have you lacked for anything at all in your life with us?’
    â€˜Of course not, Mum!’ Sonya cried. ‘Why would you even ask that?’
    â€˜Then why ?’ her mother asked again, her tone anguished.
    â€˜Mum, Mum,’ Sonya responded, dodging around the dishwasher to take her mother’s plump frame in her arms and squeeze her tightly. ‘It’s so hard to explain but this has nothing at all to do with Dad and you. It’s just something I need to do. For me. When Chelsea told me about her search, it made utter sense, you know. Even though what she found at the end of it was a squalid council flat and a smelly old couple. It was just something she needed to know – don’t you understand?’
    â€˜I’m trying,’ Laura said, now looking mutinous throughher tears. ‘Chelsea may have made light of it but the whole experience must have been terribly traumatic at the time. And so unnecessary, especially given what a lovely family she has. I met them at least twice back in your primary school days and, really, they couldn’t have been a nicer family. Anyway, how can this search for your birth mother be nothing to do with us? I feel as if we must have failed you in some way.’
    â€˜Of course you haven’t!’ Sonya responded crossly. ‘But let me do this, please – Chelsea’s parents did. You hear all the time of people going off in search of themselves, don’t you? Well, it’s something like that, Mum. It’s been like a missing piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Or a gap in my teeth that’s annoyed and irritated me for years.’
    â€˜But you always seemed so happy, so … so contented,’ Laura cut in, ‘And we’ve told you everything we possibly could, everything we knew, Sonya.’
    â€˜That’s exactly the point, Mum. “Everything we knew” isn’t really very much. I read somewhere once that when children who’ve been adopted or are in foster care don’t know about their biological parents, it’s as if they’re carrying great big holes in