A life, it has been said, is nothing more than a succession of single events laid end to end. Each of these events is the result of a choice – make a different choice and you will end up with a different life.

Ronnie Mitchell had made some very bad choices in her time, and the life she had ended up with was consequently scarred. In a cold, bleak waiting room, she sat and thought about all of the poor decisions that had blighted her life. Somewhere near by, her daughter was lying in a hospital bed. She knew now that Danielle was safe. So why did she not feel pure relief? The relief was there, true, but it was polluted by something else. Not quite anger – no, she wasn't angry that Danielle had asked that she be kept in the waiting room. It wasn't just sadness either, at least not sadness that her daughter didn't want to see her. Maybe regret is the right word? No, that doesn't show us the whole picture either. She regretted her choices, of course. She regretted allowing her dad to take her baby away in the first place, and she regretted the myriad ways in which she had hurt Danielle over the past few months. But there was another regret too, one so horrible that she couldn't allow herself to develop it into a coherent idea. She regretted, just a little bit, that Danielle was okay. Don't misunderstand me, she was happy that there was no lasting damage, of course she was, but still… When she was sat in the waiting room simply feeling guilty over her words, she was also hoping beyond hope that her daughter would be okay. But she was hoping that any moment a nurse would come out and tell her that Danielle Jones was okay, and wanted to see her mum. That hope was gone now, that hope that Danielle would, in spite of all the bad choices that Ronnie had made, still want her mother. That hope had gone, and she mourned it.

Hope, though, can never really die. Stacey walked into the waiting room so quietly that Ronnie didn't notice her at first.

"Ronnie?"

Ronnie looked up at her daughter's best friend. Stacey's face was a mess, all tears and make up. Ronnie's tears had long since dried up, despite the pain she felt.

"What is it Stacey? What's happened?"

"She's fine. Well, not fine, buy you know, okay. She wants to see you now."

Ronnie laughed. It was an instinctive, involuntary laugh, borne from a single moment of utter elation. She ran, literally ran, in her heels and bridesmaid outfit, to Danielle's ward.

A life is a succession of single events, laid out end to end, each one derived from some decision made. A young girl standing in a road sees a car travelling toward her, and chooses to remain in its path. A young girl lying in a hospital bed fantasising asks for her mother. But each event is followed by another, and each choice soon forgotten. For one brief moment, all Danielle wanted was for her mother to be there with her. As soon as Stacey left though, everything became muddy. She was coming – the woman who'd given her away, who hadn't wanted her. The woman who'd wished she'd been aborted, who had questioned whether anyone would want her as a daughter. This was the woman who had held her after the car hit her, who had been dreaming of her for years.

Danielle undulated between these two trains of thought – Ronnie as the answer to her dreams and Ronnie as the cruel bitch – when the woman herself arrived.

"Danielle," sobbed Ronnie, "Danielle, how are you?" Danielle looked at her mother with longing, but longing tinged by a subtle but significant shade of resentment.

"I'm fine." Her voice sounded cold.

"Danielle… I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. For everything that I've said to you, for the way I've treated you." It was as if whatever had been keeping Ronnie's emotions in check for so many years had finally burst from the pressure. "If I'd just known Danielle, I would have been there for you. I would have been there for you every second of every minute of the day."

"Been there for me?" Danielle asked, her voice still bitter. "Why? Why would you want to be there for me? You never wanted me, did you?"

"Sweetheart, I always wanted you. Since I was fourteen years old, I haven't wanted anything else. Just you."

Danielle felt like she was going to choke. She wanted so much for Ronnie to love her, but doubt and anger were still clouding her emotions. She wasn't ready to be happy yet.

"Always wanted me? Who would want a daughter like me?"

"Oh, baby! I'm so sorry," Ronnie wailed, "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it, I swear! I thought my Amy was dead, I thought you were dead! I was so angry, that's why I said those things to you, because I didn't know. If I'd known who you were I would never have said those things. You have to believe me!"

And Danielle wanted to believe her, more than anything. Perhaps, she even did believe that it was true. But still…

"Why should I believe you? You didn't believe me. I told you who I was, I begged you to believe me! Why? Why didn't you?"

"Because my dad. He told me, he told me you were dead."

"Why did you believe him? Why did you believe him over me?"

"I don't know!" cried Ronnie, the absurdity of her actions hitting home. Why had she believed her lying, manipulative, evil father over her own daughter? How could she have been so stupid?

"I was scared. For twenty years I've been dreaming of finding you. I was scared. I didn't want to let myself believe something and then have it ripped away from me. It was last year, that my dad told me you'd died. Something inside me broke. Since I was fourteen, I'd been clinging to that one thought, that I would find you one day, and suddenly that was torn away. I couldn't let it happen again. I wasn't strong enough. I'm not strong enough to lose you now. Please Danielle, please! You're everything to me!"

"No! You told me that you wished you'd had me aborted!"

"Never! I never ever wished that, baby. I said that to make you feel better, so you wouldn't feel guilty. I never wished that, not once. Since the day I first held you in my arms you've been everything to me. The only regret I have is ever letting go of you."

"I can't take it. I'm sorry, I can't take it. I've already lost one mother, I can't lose another one."

"You won't my darling. You'll never lose me."

"I will! You don't want me. You want your Amy, not me. I'll never be good enough for you."

"You're not my Amy. You're my Danielle. And you'll always be good enough for me, and I'll never make you feel like you're not, never again."

"I wanted you so much. I wanted you to love me so much."

"I do. I do love you. I love you more than I've loved anything else in my whole life."

And the warmth in her voice melted the icy resolve that had been keeping Danielle aloof. All that girl wanted was there – a mother to tell her that she loved her. A mother who would take care of her, who would make her feel wanted again. Finally, after months of fear and anxiety, after all the heartache and misery that she had gone through in London, she had found her.

"Mum?"

Ronnie and Danielle both broke down in tears of unfettered joy.

"Yes, my angel?"

"Can I come home with you?"

"Of course you can. It's your home too, for as long as you want it to be."

"I love you mum."

"I love you too Danielle."

It was as if they were found themselves no longer in a hospital in East London, but standing atop a very tall mountain, one that had taken nearly twenty years to ascend. Past clouds of secrets and hopeless longing and abject despair they climbed, to that undying apex of contented togetherness. If only they could have reasoned then what they would learn through experience – that mountain-tops rarely signify a journey's end, for nobody can stand the maddening air for long.