Haunted Ground

by Irina Shapiro

  He’d lost himself in work and began making plans to return to Skye, but the jobs kept coming, and he kept putting his departure off, until suddenly he wasn’t thinking about it anymore. Noelle might be gone, but he had no wish to return home with his tail between his legs. He’d made a life for himself here, and here he would stay until he was ready to start again with someone else, someone who would hopefully value his heart a little more. He smiled as he thought of Lexi. The time with her seemed to heal him more effectively than any amount of boozing, running, working, or avoidance. He couldn’t wait to see her in a few hours and reassure her that he meant to stay and hoped she wanted him to.

  Aidan came out of the shower, his hair dripping with moisture and a thick towel wrapped around his waist. He always liked this part of the morning, when he dressed for the day and had his breakfast. Every day was a new beginning, and every day was full of promise, especially now.

  Aidan was just pouring himself a cup of coffee when his mobile rang, the number of the pub appearing on the screen. Aidan swallowed a gulp of hot coffee and answered the phone. Likely, Abe just needed something mended in a hurry. They were old friends, and Aidan often did minor repairs at The Queen’s Head in exchange for a pint and a plate of fish and chips.

  But the voice on the line wasn’t Abe’s; it was Lexi’s. She sounded strangely flat, as if all emotion had been drained out of her voice as she inquired if this was a bad time.

  “No, not at all. Lexi, what’s wrong?” he asked, sensing that whatever happened after he’d gone had left Lexi in tatters. “What are you doing at the pub?”

  “I got a room here last night,” she answered quietly. “Aidan, would you mind coming over? I really need you right now.”

  “Sure, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Are you all right?” The question seemed awfully banal, but he wasn’t sure what to say until he knew more of what happened, and rather than spend time on the phone he was better off talking to her in person. Aidan pulled on his trainers, stuffed his mobile into his pocket and raced out the door.

  ***

  Aidan found Lexi sitting at a corner table on the back patio of the pub. The patio was deserted so early in the morning, the benches and tables covered with a slick film of dew that would evaporate as the sun warmed up. Lexi was staring out over the garden, a cup of something in her hands. She turned at the sound of his footsteps and put the cup down before hurling herself into his arms, her heart hammering like a drum. Aidan lowered himself to the bench and pulled Lexi onto his lap, holding her like a child who’d had a fright. She buried her face in his chest as if she were hiding from the world, and he just held her until she was ready to tell him what had happened to upset her so.

  Abe appeared in the doorway and offered Aidan a cup of tea, but Aidan waved him away.

  “Lexi?” Aidan finally murmured. “What is it, love?”

  Lexi reached into her bag and extracted some papers which she passed to him silently. Aidan gazed at the photograph in his hands and the realization of what happened last night began to dawn. The picture was dated and slightly faded, but there was no mistaking who he was looking at, or the resemblance between the woman in the picture and the one sitting across from him. He also looked at the photo of Kelly with her daughter. The little girl was smiling up at the camera, her pigtails tied with pink ribbons and her hazel eyes full of mischief. It wasn’t difficult to add twenty years to that girl and see how much she would resemble the woman sitting in his lap, crying silently. Aidan glanced at the drawings and felt his heart turn over. They were so sweet, so innocent, and yet so full of meaning. No wonder Lexi fled the house.

  Aidan wasn’t sure what to say. He’d been dead wrong on all counts. People in the village weren’t just looking for random connections, they actually saw one, and Lexi had been seeing the man in the ruins since she was a child. Aidan had never been one to believe in fate; people chose their own path and paid for their mistakes, but what he was looking at was inexplicable when using that particular bit of logic. Something had lured Lexi back to this place, that house. A force stronger than logic, a pull stronger than mere desire wasat play. She’d been brought here for a reason, and that reason was now clear— she was meant to learn about her past.

  “My whole life has been a lie, Aidan,” she finally whispered, “an elaborate lie. I’ve seen pictures of my mother when she was pregnant with me. There were baby pictures and even a sonogram. I never questioned why my mother never showed me my birth certificate, even when I applied for a passport as a teenager. She’d come with me and filled out all the paperwork. That story about giving birth to me in England while on a business trip was all a lie. I was probably born in Lincoln as she said, only not to her and my father.” Lexi took a shuddering sigh, and her eyes met Aidan’s for the first time. “But why did they give me away? I still had a grandmother and an aunt. Why was I sent to a couple in America? Was I too much of a reminder of what happened?”

  Lexi angrily wiped a tear from her cheek, her hand steadier than Aidan would have expected. Her eyes were blazing and her body was suddenly tense, her face full of resolve. “I intend to get to the bottom of this. Will you help me?”

  “Like you even have to ask? Lexi, I’m honored that you would share this with me, and I will do anything I can to help, but don’t you think you should talk to your adoptive mother first? She can probably answer all your questions. There must be an explanation as to why they chose to keep your past a secret.”

  Aidan felt Lexi shake her head against his shoulder as she pulled away and looked into his eyes. “I no longer trust anything my mother has to say. I am going to do this my own way, and I can begin right now if you’re willing to drive me to Lincoln.”

  “All right. What’s in Lincoln?” Aidan had a fairly good idea. Lexi probably wanted to visit the hospitals and locate a record of her birth, but what she replied wasn’t at all what he expected.

  “Neil Gregson – my biological father.”

  Chapter 53

  I couldn’t help but smile as we pulled up outside of HM Lincoln Prison. The red-brick building with truncated towers, graceful arched windows, and a massive tower gate that at one time probably came with an equally massive portcullis was like something out of a picture book about knights and princesses, and nothing like I would expect a prison to look. Only in England could a prison look like a castle and not a high-security, cinderblock monstrosity surrounded by chain-link fences crowned with barbed wire and guard towers. The inmates probably had a chef and tennis courts, and practiced gardening as part of their rehabilitation.

  “Would you like me to come in with you?” Aidan asked, already opening the driver’s door, but I put my hand on his arm and shook my head. I needed to do this alone, and I needed to do it now, before my nerve failed me. It was all well and good to want to confront the man who killed your mother and was biologically your father, but my stomach was doing somersaults and backflips, and the tea that I’d drunk that morning was rising up my esophagus like mercury in a thermometer.

  I tried to keep calm as I signed in, went through a mandatory search, just in case I was trying to sneak in weapons, drugs, or a cell phone, and was led to a utilitarian room with a barred window set high in the wall and a scarred plastic table flanked by two chairs. I expected to talk to Neil Gregson through a partition, using a telephone, as I had seen people do in movies, but the realization that I would be sitting so close to him nearly drove me to change my mind. I wasn’t afraid for my safety, but the partition provided a mental separation as well as a physical one, whereas now we would be sitting here like father and daughter, facing each other across the narrow table for the first time in over two decades.

  My legs shook under the table as a guard led my father in. He was wearing a prison jumpsuit and his hands were cuffed, but I still leaned back into my chair as far as I could. I was tempted to look away, but I’d have to face him sooner or later, so I braced myself and looked up. The man in front of me was no longer the lean, young
man of the pictures. He was still handsome in his own way, but he’d gained weight, and his hair, which was once worn carelessly long, was buzzed and almost all gray. The dark eyes were round with shock behind rimless glasses that reflected the fluorescent light fixture from the low ceiling.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t tears. Neil Gregson slumped heavily into a chair as his shoulders heaved and his face contorted with grief. He raised his cuffed hands to cover his face from me and buried his head in them, blowing his nose loudly when the guard silently offered him a tissue and patted him on the shoulder. It took Neil a few moments to finally compose himself before he could meet my shocked gaze. His eyes were glistening with tears behind his glasses and his skin was ashen, as he absentmindedly tore the tissue to shreds with nervous fingers. I was speechless. I opened my mouth several times to say something, but no sound came out. I seemed to have lost my voice.

  “Sandy,” he whispered. “Oh, Sandy. I’m so sorry, so very sorry. They never let me see you after what happened, never let me try to explain or even say goodbye. I didn’t think I’d ever lay eyes on you again.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and the guard, who stepped from foot to foot in obvious embarrassment, handed him another tissue just in case. He wiped his nose and eyes and gave me a watery smile. “You’re so like her,” he said hoarsely, “so like your mother.”

  “Why?” I asked. I’d finally found my voice, but that was the only question I could think to ask. “Why did you do it?”

  “It was an accident, a terrible accident. I never meant to hurt her. I loved her since I was a boy.” His eyes were pleading for understanding, but I couldn’t understand; not my mother’s death, and not my father’s subsequent refusal to fight for his own life. If he’d agreed to legal representation the charge could have been reduced to manslaughter, if it had truly been an accident.

  “Why did you refuse an attorney?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  “Because I’d killed the love of my life; I’d robbed you of a mother, and I’d taken a daughter from a woman who treated me like a son. I didn’t care how long I got. I could never lead a normal life again. It just didn’t seem to matter at the time.”

  “Why did you hit her?” I whispered.

  Neil shook his head as if trying to ward off the memories. It took him a long time to answer, but I waited patiently, needing to know what led to the moment that left me motherless. “We had a terrible row that night. We’d been fighting more and more, and I had no idea how to get through to Kelly. It just seemed as if she couldn’t find peace; something was gnawing at her. She was like a caged tiger, pacing back and forth, growling, clawing at the bars, but unable to escape. I’d brought up the notion of having another child, thinking it might make her happy.

  She’d been serene when she was pregnant with you and for a time after you were born, but the idea seemed to infuriate her. I couldn’t understand why she was so angry. She loved being your mum, so her fury took me completely by surprise. It’s as if something came unhinged at the thought, and she turned on me, furious. That’s when she finally told me that you weren’t mine. She said she’d never known what love was until she met your father, and that I was just a stand-in for the man she loved. I was second best.” He sighed and looked away. “I never meant to hit her. It was just a knee-jerk reaction of someone who was coming undone. She broke my heart that night.”

  I just stared at him. I was reeling. I thought that what I’d remembered last night was just a child’s interpretation of the quarrel, but it seemed that I had it right. According to Kelly, he wasn’t my father. But maybe she’d just said that in anger. Maybe she’d been taunting him because she wanted to hurt him.

  “Are you certain you’re not my father?” I asked, not sure anymore what I wanted to hear.

  Neil nodded miserably, his eyes on his folded hands. “I requested a paternity test after I was arrested. I had to know. Had you been my daughter, I would have fought for my life, would have fought for you, but the test came back negative. You were never mine.”

  “I’m sorry; I really am,” I said and meant it. This man was so broken that no prison sentence could come close to the suffering he was inflicting on himself. I just wanted to flee from that room, but there was one more thing I needed to know.

  “Mr. Gregson, why did they give me away? Why didn’t my grandmother and Myra raise me?”

  Neil Gregson looked up at me, his eyes clouded with the recollections of the past. He shrugged, as if everything that happened had been completely out of his hands, which I suppose it had. “Myra was living in New York when it happened, and your grandmother suffered a breakdown after Kelly’s death. She didn’t object when Myra took you away. I’d assumed she was going to raise you, but it seems she decided to put you up for adoption. Myra never really cared for children; she wanted a career.”

  “Thank you, and I wish you well. I doubt we’ll meet again,” I said as I rose to leave.

  “I loved you, Sandy, and I still do. It doesn’t matter if you were mine or not, I would have loved you till the day I died,” he said to my back. His words choked me up and I wanted to say something comforting to him, but nothing came to mind. Intentionally or not, this man was responsible for everything that happened to me, and although I wanted to pity him,I couldn’t ignore the resentment that was blooming in my belly— so I just left.

  Chapter 54

  The rain pelted the countryside, rivulets of water coursing down the windshield as I sat in the passenger seat and stared at the road ahead. The sky appeared low and menacing, the gray clouds pressing down on the hills like shreds of a dirty blanket with its stuffing hanging out. The landscape was deserted except for several fluffy balls that on closer inspection appeared to be sheep. They bahhed miserably, drops of rainwater sliding down their noses as they shook their heads in an effort to get the rain out of their eyes.

  I could barely make out the road, so I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. It took me a moment to realize I was crying, the tears silently sliding down my face and into my mouth: hot, salty, and bitter. So many things now made sense, and I felt a bubbling rage at the people who’d let me down, not the least of them my adoptive parents.

  As a child, I suffered terribly from separation anxiety, screaming in terror if my mother so much as walked out of the room. My eyes were always following her, terrified of being left behind and forgotten. She told me I was a silly girl as she gave me a hug and a kiss and promised that she would never leave, but the fear never left. As I got older, I had difficulty forming lasting friendships, my fear of abandonment turning me into either a clingy mess or later, an emotionally distant, guarded woman. Several men had given up on me, tired of trying to break through the wall of self-doubt and mistrust that I had built around myself to protect my fragile heart.

  Now it all made sense. I’d watched my mother die before my eyes, and in the space of a few weeks lost the man I believed to be my father, my loving grandmother, and then my aunt. I was torn away from the only home I’d ever known, given to strangers who did little to help me overcome the emotional trauma I’d suffered as a child. And now I was back where it all began, led here by some unseen force of destiny, my psyche subconsciously begging for some resolution and peace of mind. What was I to do? My adoptive father was gone, but my mother was still very much alive. Was I to hold her accountable for her mistakes? Had she even known what happened to me, or was she simply handed a three-year-old girl with no notion of her past? Could I blame her for failing to help me or was I just looking for someone to vent my anger on, someone to blame?

  They’d known I came from England. Their reaction to my drawings and dreams showed by the pained looks on their faces, the pursing of the lips and the desperate attempts to change the subject. How much had they known when they took me on? How much had they cared? They’d even changed my name, taking away the only thing left to me by my mother. I went from being Sandy, short for Alexandra, to Lexi, still short fo
r Alexandra, but completely different – a different name for a different girl.

  And my mother… It hurt to think of her, especially after my conversation with Neil Gregson. He hadn’t painted her in a very favorable light, despite his love for her. Had she been selfish and manipulative, or simply a frightened girl of nineteen who got in over her head and had no idea what to do? Maybe she truly believed that I had been Neil’s until she saw something of my real father in me, something that gave her pause. Had she loved me, or was I just a mistake she should have taken care of when she’d had the chance? And who was my real father? Did he even know of my existence? Had he known I was given up for adoption or had he gone on with his life, completely unaware that somewhere out there a little girl’s life had been torn apart by one act of violence?

  I was sobbing hard now, the sound of my anguish lost in the howling wind and rumble of thunder that now echoed over the distant hills. And I’d have felt completely alone in the world had Aidan not pulled over and held me in his arms, whispering softly in my ear that everything would be all right somehow, just as my grandmother did the night my life fell apart.

  Chapter 55

  The rain finally let up, and Aidan pulled away from the shoulder, his anxious eyes seeking reassurance that I was all right. He never asked where to take me, but drove straight to his house in Upper Whitford, and I didn’t object. I barely noticed the tidy kitchen or the living room that was so masculine in its lack of ornament and frills. I just needed to lie down. My head was pounding, and my eyes were closing of their own accord, my mind desperate to find oblivion after the events of the past twenty-four hours.