The Pharmacist

The Daughter

Rachel glanced impatiently at the little girl with the wide, moist eyes and trembling bottom lip. Why she wondered, does everyone have to ask so many questions, my mother, and now Millie? Her five-year-old daughter had just plucked up the courage to ask why she hadn’t seen her grandma for such a long time.

‘Perhaps Grandma doesn’t want to see us.’ Rachel’s abrupt answer was harsh, cruel, and one she knew would upset Millie, but she had no inclination to spare the child’s feelings or answer her daughter’s questions.

* * *

From experience, Millie knew better than to ask a second time, so the child turned away from her mother and went to sit with her book in the corner, confused and upset. Her mother’s brief answer suggested to her young mind that perhaps she’d done something wrong, something so naughty that her grandmother no longer wanted to see her. At five years old and without the understanding to process the sudden absence of her beloved grandmother, Millie was confused as to what she might have done. Being afraid to ask again, the child carried the hurt quietly in her heart, wondering whether perhaps Grandma didn’t love her as much as Millie had thought she did.

* * *

By this point in time, Rachel had expected to have her mother safely and permanently ensconced in a home where she could no longer ask probing questions about her life and Millie. Alice assumed a divine right to know everything about her daughter’s life, which frustrated and infuriated Rachel in equal measures.

It had always been the case that her parents wanted more of her than Rachel was prepared to give, a situation which could be reasonably well handled from a distance. But when her mother decided to move closer to Penrith, it was time for Rachel to sort out the problem once and for all.

Simply because Tom and Alice Roberts had adopted Rachel, they held expectations and an assumption that she should be grateful for the home they’d given her, or at least that’s how it appeared to her. Truthfully, even from a very young age, Rachel couldn’t wait to escape from their home, a desire which a place at university presented to her. The excitement of escape was considerably increased by the certainty that once the break from her parents’ home was made, she would never return. Tom and Alice, however, proved not so keen to let her go, and even though Rachel maintained the occasional duty call to assure them that all was well, they wanted, and expected, more than their daughter was prepared to give.

Looking at Millie snivelling in the corner, Rachel, not for the first time, regretted ever deciding to keep the child. Following the initial shock of discovering she was pregnant, Rachel had vacillated over what to do, knowing that the period for decisions was limited. It was a situation she’d never expected to find herself in, and her first thought was to get rid of the baby and continue the life she’d so meticulously mapped out – but she didn’t. Perhaps the shift in hormones played tricks on her, or more likely, it was the memory of the only other baby she’d ever known which changed her mind – Jenny.

Rachel often thought of her younger sister, the only person she’d ever felt close to and truly loved. Jenny, with her golden hair, soft pale skin and blue eyes, was such a beautiful child. Jenny, who laughed like an angel and looked up, adoringly, to her big sister. Jenny, who loved her unconditionally, and whom Rachel loved more than anyone else in the world.

Had Rachel been naive in thinking that Jenny could somehow be restored to her through this baby who’d been so thoughtlessly and unintentionally conceived? Or did she possess that primaeval need to procreate, to produce a child, to love a child?

Eventually, Rachel decided that yes, she did want the baby, but that was then, when the rosy memories of Jenny danced so often through her mind, the most delightful time of her life, a time she’d do anything to get back again. But the reality proved to be something vastly different to what she expected.

Alice and Tom were stunned when Rachel eventually told them about the baby, as Rachel knew they would be. Their relationship’s rocky journey had thrown up more than a few shocks over the years, but Rachel could tell that this news completely threw them off-kilter. They assumed that their daughter must be in a relationship but had typically kept them in the dark and questions flooded their minds again. Rachel stood firm, refusing to be drawn about the father, and insisting that he would have nothing to do with the child’s upbringing. Her silence paid off, and her parents backed off, left with no choice but to content themselves with the knowledge that they were to be grandparents.

It was a remarkably easy birth, but from the moment the beautiful, tiny baby girl was placed into her arms, Rachel felt nothing. No rush of emotion, no bonding or strong feelings, simply complete indifference. Other new mothers on the ward were gushing and tearful, besotted with their new offspring. Rachel felt nauseated by their visible displays of emotion.

If she’d expected to feel anything like the love she’d known for Jenny, she was sorely disappointed and bereft of any genuine sentiment. Perhaps, if the baby had resembled Jenny, it might have been different, but with her mother’s red hair, a fractious temperament, and an apparent inability to do anything but cry, Rachel stared at the child as if she was an alien being. There was no notion that this tiny scrap of humanity belonged to her – no warmth in her heart and no desire to hold and comfort her tiny newborn daughter.

Rachel was instantly aware that the decision to keep this baby was a huge mistake, especially when she sensed the hope blossoming in Alice’s heart and knew that her mother viewed the baby as the key to building a closer relationship between them. Both Alice and Tom made it clear that they would provide as much help and support as she wanted, a thought which appalled Rachel.

Their involvement, however, was to be denied when, only months after Millie’s birth, Rachel finally attained the prize for which she’d worked so hard and became the owner of a dispensing pharmacy in Penrith.

Leaving Millie with a childminder each working day, Rachel experienced only relief at offloading the crying infant and showed very little interest in how the woman cared for her child. Work was Rachel’s escape. Her enjoyment was in the mental challenge, the precision of dispensing, and the need to concentrate on avoiding mistakes. This was her domain, where she was in charge and everything was orderly. Customers were tolerated, but Rachel generally left dealing with them to the counter staff, and the financial rewards quickly increased. Rachel had achieved the goal of being her own boss, no longer answerable to anyone. She could finally be her own woman.

Millie’s childminder was adequate and her fees reasonable. Rachel was satisfied with the arrangement and took up no references nor asked any pertinent questions before leaving her daughter in the care of a woman who was virtually a stranger. As time passed and Millie appeared quiet and withdrawn when her mother picked her up, Rachel hardly noticed. It suited her not to have to cope with a noisy child, and besides, she’d been the same herself at that age. Millie’s introverted ways seemed perfectly normal to her mother.

To Rachel’s chagrin, even after she was settled and enjoying her pharmacy’s new challenge, Alice continued to ask questions and, within a few years of Rachel’s move, followed her to Penrith. It was simple enough to keep her parents out of her hair when they lived at a distance, but the move made it so much more complex, so much so that Rachel felt compelled to put an end to the problem of her mother’s interference. She devised a plan, one she thought to be foolproof, but now her well thought out scheme was beginning to unravel. Why was her life so complicated?