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I am trying to avoid the miserable binary of ‘this means so much to me/this means nothing to me’. I am trying to respect my own complexity. I had to know the story of my beginnings but I have to accept that this is a version too. It is a true story but it is still a version.

I know that Ann and Linda want to include me in their family; that is their generosity. I don’t want to be included; that is not my hard-heartedness. I am so glad to know that Ann survived and I like thinking of her surrounded by the others. But I don’t want to be there. That’s not what’s important to me. And I don’t feel a biological connection. I don’t feel, ‘Wow, here’s my mother.’

I have read a lot of overwhelmingly emotional accounts of reunion. None of that is my experience. All I can say is that I am pleased – that is the right word – that my mother is safe.

I can’t be the daughter she wants.

I couldn’t be the daughter Mrs Winterson wanted.

My friends who are not adopted tell me not to worry. They don’t feel they were ‘right’ either.

I am interested in nature/nurture. I notice that I hate Ann criticising Mrs Winterson. She was a monster but she was my monster.

Ann came to London. That was a mistake. It is our third meeting and we have a serious row. I am shouting at her, ‘At least Mrs Winterson was there. Where were you?’

I don’t blame her and I am glad she made the choice she made. Clearly I am furious about it too.

I have to hold these things together and feel them both/all.

As a young woman Ann wasn’t given much love. ‘Mam didn’t have time to be soft. She loved us by feeding us and clothing us.’

When her own mother was exceedingly old Ann found the courage to ask the question, ‘Mam, did you love me?’ Her mother was very clear. ‘Yes. I love you. Now don’t ask me again.’

Love. The difficult word. Where everything starts, where we always return. Love. Love’s lack. The possibility of love.

I have no idea what happens next.

Acknowledgements

With love and thanks to Susie Orbach.

Thanks as well to Paul Shearer who traced the family tree. To Beeban Kidron’s helpline! To Vicky Licorish and the kids: my family. To all my friends who stood by me. To Caroline Michel – fantastic agent and fabulous friend. And to everyone at Cape and Vintage who believed in this book – especially Rachel Cugnoni and Dan Franklin.

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Copyright © Jeanette Winterson 2011

Jeanette Winterson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

‘Burnt Norton’ from Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot. Reproduced by kind permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. ‘The Rowing Endeth’ from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton by Anne Sexton (Houghton Mifflin, 1981), © Anne Sexton, reprinted by permission of Stirling Lord Literistic Inc.

The author and the publishers have made every effort to trace the holders of copyright in quotations. Any inadvertent omissions or errors may be corrected in future editions.

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Jonathan Cape