Chapter 24: Everything to Say

Maud was buried on the hill above Dock Street, in the cheap row facing the harbor.

I had paid for her stone with the cash from the envelopes.

It said MAUD GARRATY, and under that, in letters I had chosen at the last minute: She kept us.

We went in the afternoon.

Gareth drove and parked at the gate and stayed in the car.

My mother had asked him to, and he had nodded and not argued.

Rhys walked on my other side, carrying a folding stool and a flask of tea, because my mother had said her knees were old.

The wind came up off the water, and the gulls went round and round over the cranes.

She stopped in front of the stone.

She stood a long time without speaking, in a black coat Rhys had bought her.

Then she lowered herself onto the stool, set her bandaged hands on her knees, and looked at the name.

"You do not know me," she said.

Her voice was low and clear, and the wind carried it a little way and dropped it.

"I am the woman who sent you money every month for twenty years and never knocked. I am sorry about that."

I felt Rhys take my hand.

"You opened a crate on Dock Street at four in the morning. You were fifty-one years old, with a bad back and a laundry to run."

She drew a breath.

"There was a baby in it with a luggage tag and a gold ring. You could have gone to the police."

My mother stopped and swallowed.

"You did not. You took her in, and you did not ask anybody for a thing."

My mother's voice thinned.

"I saved two years for that passage, Maud. It was the only plan I had. It could have gone to a drunk on the dock, or a house that wanted a servant."

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