2

There was one task Amy dissuaded Sarah from attempting.

‘I’ll ask Lizzie about looking after Dave,’ she said. ‘I’d rather do it myself. Not today, either, there’s no need to rush. And I’d like to… Sarah, would you mind if I told Lizzie about you? Who you really are, I mean. I won’t if you don’t want me to.’

‘Tell the world if you want,’ Sarah said easily. ‘I’m not ashamed of you, dearest.’

‘No, not the world. Only Lizzie, I think.’

‘You’re not going to tell Dave?’

‘I… I don’t think so,’ Amy said after a pause. ‘Not yet, anyway. I might one day. Do you think I should?’ she asked anxiously.

Sarah gave a small shrug. ‘It’s your decision, not mine. I’ll admit to a little idle curiosity as to how he might react. I’d be able to tell him it’s my right to order him about, since I’m his big sister.’

It was more than idle curiosity that Amy felt; it was something akin to fear. How would David take the knowledge that she had borne a child before her marriage? Could he ever think of her in the same way again? And the darkest question of all whispered from a deep recess of her mind: would he still love her? Why search for the answer when it was so easy to avoid the question?

*

Letting Sarah go was a wrench for Amy. But she had her trip to Auckland to look forward to, and before then she had a job to do. It was time to go and see Lizzie.

Few enough of Amy’s family had even known of the existence of her first child; of those few, Lizzie was the only one who had ever let her talk about the baby. The joy of her new knowledge bubbled inside Amy, making her step light as she walked along the track down the valley.