Toni Maguire

When Daddy Comes Home


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      When Daddy Comes Home

      Toni Maguire

      

       To Alison Pierce. For thirty years of love and friendship. Through the worst of times and the best of times.

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter Thirty-Five

       Chapter Thirty-Six

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

       Chapter Thirty-Eight

       Chapter Thirty-Nine

       Chapter Forty

       Acknowledgements

       Praise

       Copyright

       About the publisher

       Chapter One

      ‘I’m an adult now, the past is dealt with.’

      That was what I told myself as I stood at the desk where my mother had done her household accounts.

      The voice of my subconscious mocked me then.

      ‘The past is never dealt with, Toni. It’s our past that creates us.’

      No sooner did those unwanted words flit into my head than my treacherous memories began to slide back to when I was the teenage Antoinette.

      Antoinette. Just the name filled me with sadness.

      I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and opened the desk, the only piece of furniture that remained from the joint home my parents had shared. I found the deeds of the house and put them to one side ready to give to the solicitor. Next came an old leather wallet which, on opening it, I saw contained two hundred pounds in notes of various denominations.

      Underneath them, I found letters yellowed by age and three photographs that must have lain there from before my mother’s death. One was of my mother and me when I was just under a year old, one was of my mother’s parents and there was a head-and-shoulder photograph of my grandmother when she was around thirty years old.

      The letters aroused my curiosity. They were addressed to my mother in an old-fashioned copperplate hand and opening one, I found a simple love letter written by a young man who was separated from his family by war. He was overjoyed by the birth of their baby girl. He had only seen his daughter once when she was just a few weeks old. He had been back to