Facing Up To Fatherhood

by Miranda Lee

  Not that he’d hold her to it. If she ever wanted to return to the stage, or television, or whatever, he would support her wholeheartedly. A girl as smart and spirited as Tina might need creative outlets outside the home at some time in the future.

  Still, he would cross that bridge when they came to it!

  Doris interrupted his happy thoughts by bringing in the morning mail. ‘A parcel for you, Mr Hunter,’ she said, and popped it on his desk. ‘It was marked for your attention only.’

  ‘Thank you, Doris.’

  He frowned at the small book-sized package.

  Shrugging, Dominic ripped it open and tipped the contents out onto the desk.

  It wasn’t a book. It was a diary. Flowers on the cover. And fairly new-looking. A letter accompanied it.

  Dear Mr Hunter

  You told me to let you know if I remembered anything else Sarah might have told me. I haven’t, but I recently moved into the bedsit Sarah occupied and found this under the mattress. I think you’ll find it tells you all you need to know about the baby and its real father.

  Yours, Betty Longford

  Dominic stared at the diary as though it were a deadly spider.

  Burn it! came the instant thought.

  But he knew he couldn’t. He had to read it. Had to find out.

  His hands shook as he picked it up and opened the contents.

  Half an hour later, he closed it and just sat there, numb. Slowly he rose and walked over to the window, staring blankly down at the street below.

  He wasn’t Bonnie’s father.

  Dominic dragged in a deep breath, then exhaled. He couldn’t put a name on what he felt. ‘Dismay’ didn’t describe it. Neither did ‘disappointment’. ‘Shock’ was more like it.

  Till fury took over. What in heaven’s name had possessed Sarah to pick up some sleazebag at a pub whose name she didn’t even know? And then to do it with him in a car without using a condom. The girl must have been mad!

  It had happened a week after the night she’d spent with him. She hadn’t religiously written in her diary every day, and what she’d written sometimes didn’t give the full picture. But there was enough detail to put two and two together.

  The diary contained answers to other questions as well.

  When she’d found out she was pregnant, Sarah had initially thought Damien was the father, because he’d had sex with her without using a condom sometimes, and the date of her last period had seemed to indicate he was the father. But when she’d gone to him with the news he’d scoffed at her, revealing his sterility and giving her money for an abortion.

  At this point Sarah’s diary clearly indicated she’d believed the father was this stranger she had picked up. Dominic had been dismissed as the potential father because he’d used protection, although Sarah did say she’d wished he was the father. She’d wished she could have fallen in love with someone decent, like him, instead of a creep like Damien.

  With no way of tracing the real father, Sarah had set about having her baby alone, too ashamed to contact Tina and tell her the truth. After Bonnie had been born, she’d become depressed and started thinking of Damien again. It did seem she’d really loved the man. She’d rung Hunter & Associates, only to be told Damien was dead. That was the last entry in the diary.

  Dominic did his best to find some good news within that wretched journal, finding some solace in the fact that at least the real father would never come and claim Bonnie.

  He would still marry Tina, after which he would adopt Bonnie. She might not be his biological daughter, but she could be his daughter in every other way.

  Dominic’s depressed mood rallied at this last thought. Yes, that was what he would do!

  But what about the diary? Did he show it to Tina, or destroy it? Would knowing he wasn’t Bonnie’s real father affect her feelings for him?

  He worried that maybe Tina’s love for him was somehow bound up in her deathbed promise to look after her best friend’s baby.

  Dominic hoped not, but his pragmatic side insisted it was possible. Tina’s love for Bonnie was incredibly strong. She might do anything to make the child happy, even convince herself she loved the baby’s father. Or the man she believed was the father…

  Tina sensed something was wrong the moment Dominic came home to take her to the hospital, but she waited till she was alone with him before she said anything.

  He didn’t deny there was a problem, then somewhat reluctantly handed her a small diary, his handsome face looking almost as worried as when Bonnie had been ill.

  ‘It’s Sarah’s,’ he explained while she frowned down at it.

  ‘But Sarah never kept a diary!’ Tina protested.

  ‘It seems she started one this last year.’

  ‘How…how did you come by it?’

  ‘Remember that weekend when I tried to find Bonnie’s real father?’

  She nodded, unable to take her eyes off the diary, equally unable to open it, Dominic’s tension sparking a crippling tension of her own.

  ‘I went back to Lewisham on the Saturday and questioned that Betty woman, then left my business card with her in case she remembered anything. Anyway, she sent me this in the mail. She found it under Sarah’s mattress. Apparently she’s since moved in there.’

  Tina swallowed. ‘Will I…not like what’s in here?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On your point of view.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Just read it, Tina. Then we’ll talk.’

  So she read it. Alternately, she felt angry with Sarah, then just so terribly, terribly sad.

  ‘Oh, Dominic,’ she said at last, her voice cracking. ‘You must feel terrible.’

  His smile was rueful. ‘At least you sound as though you care about what I feel.’

  ‘But of course I care about what you feel. Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t?’

  ‘I guess I was worried you might not love me any more once you found out I wasn’t Bonnie’s father.’

  ‘But Dominic, that’s crazy! My love for you happened almost despite Bonnie, not because of her. I could say the same to you, you know. Maybe your so-called love for me was bound up in your love for Bonnie. Maybe now that you know she’s not your daughter, you don’t love her any more. Or me, either, for that matter.’

  ‘But that’s not true. God, don’t say things like that!’

  ‘Then don’t you! It’s demeaning to my love for you.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve been going crazy ever since that damned thing came in the mail. Hell, I’ve never been so devastated, or so disappointed. Not that I don’t still love the child. I do! And I’ve been thinking. This needn’t change any of our plans. Not really. I can still be her father, in every way that counts. And I could adopt her after we’re married. Is that all right with you?’

  Tina’s heart flooded with emotion. ‘Of course it’s all right with me,’ she said in choked tones. ‘You’ll be a wonderful father.’

  ‘I’ll certainly do my best.’

  ‘Dominic…have you thought about what you’re going to tell your mother?’

  ‘Yes. And it’ll have to be the truth. Look what happened this last weekend at the hospital about the penicillin. No…unfortunately, she has to know.’

  ‘She’ll still love her too, you know.’

  ‘Yes. But she’ll be disappointed. It’s only natural.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Mum. She was so sure.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘Oh, well…life stinks sometimes.’

  Neither of them said a word for the rest of the trip. Seeing Bonnie so well improved their spirits, and by the time they arrived home Tina was glad to see Dominic had shaken off the worst of his underlying depression. But his eyes were still a little flat.

  If only she could think of some way to cheer him up.

  She watched the careful way he extracted the baby capsule out of the car and thought to herself that life
just wasn’t fair. He deserved to be Bonnie’s father, not some drunken idiot.

  When Ida came outside to meet them, all smiles and relief, Dominic darted Tina a meaningful glance, as if to say, Not now. She nodded her agreement, thankful that she’d left Sarah’s diary in the glove-box of the car.

  Ida scooped the baby capsule out of Dominic’s hands, her happy eyes peering down at Bonnie’s bright little face before lifting to her son.

  ‘While you were away the doctor rang,’ she said, still beaming. ‘It seems he contacted the pathology clinic on Monday and gave them a come-hurry, because of Bonnie’s sickness. He told them it was a medical emergency and he needed to know if you were the father post-haste. Anyway, the results came back this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll go get them after we’ve settled Bonnie,’ Dominic said tautly, and Tina’s heart went out to him. ‘But first, Mum, perhaps…’

  ‘You don’t have to go get them, silly. The doctor told me over the phone. Can’t you tell?’ She began shaking her head at her son. ‘I do wish I was a betting person, because I could have made a fortune on this if I’d put some bets on earlier!’

  Tina forgot to breathe while Dominic simply looked shell-shocked.

  Ida began to look exasperated. ‘For pity’s sake, why are you both standing there like stunned mullets? It’s not as if we weren’t ninety-nine per cent sure of the result, especially after what Joanna told me. Of course, if you hadn’t been so pig-headed, Dominic, I could have shown you on that very first day how many of your genes Bonnie had inherited. She even has the Hunter birthmark! But you men always think you know everything.’

  Dominic didn’t know whether to kill his mother, or kiss her.

  ‘What birthmark?’

  ‘The one behind her ear? Both you and Mark have one. Your father did too.’

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Yes. Haven’t you ever noticed?

  ‘I can’t see behind my ears. And I didn’t make a practice of inspecting Mark’s.’

  ‘Well, it’s there. Trust me. Mothers wash behind little boys’ ears a lot.’

  Dominic couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. His eyes met Tina’s, but she wasn’t laughing. She was crying. With undisguised happiness.

  Ida looked from one to the other in bewilderment. ‘Come on, Bonnie dear,’ she said, shaking her head at them both. ‘Best get you inside out of the sun. Your parents have temporarily gone mad. Anyone would think they’d just been told they’d won the lottery.’

  ‘Better than the lottery, isn’t it, my darling?’ Dominic said, putting an arm around Tina’s shoulders.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Yes,’ Dominic agreed. ‘Yes, it surely is. Which reminds me…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was thinking of going to church tomorrow morning. Care to accompany me?’

  EPILOGUE

  TINA knelt down and arranged the red roses in the built-in vase, thinking how well they always looked against the grey marble grave and headstone.

  ‘Hello, Sarah,’ she said as she worked. ‘Here I am again to tell you all the news. All good, so not to worry. Bonnie started going to kindergarten a while back. Just two days a week. She didn’t want to go at first. Didn’t want to leave her precious baby brothers. She’s just like you, you know. A born little mother. I was in such a quandary that first morning. When Bonnie started crying, I almost relented and told her she didn’t have to go, but Dominic insisted, and of course he was right. Now she loves it.’

  The flowers fixed, Tina settled herself more comfortably on the soft grass verge next to Sarah’s grave, stretching out and lying on her side.

  ‘I have some special news for you, my friend,’ she murmured. ‘I’m pregnant again. Just on four months. Dominic’s thrilled to pieces. Not too many men would be, what with Stevie not even out of nappies yet, but he just loves being a dad. Lord knows how it happened, though. The pregnancy, that is. I thought breastfeeding was supposed to stop such things. But, as we both know, Dominic could probably get a girl pregnant wearing lead piping.’

  Tina laughed softly. ‘Not the girl. Dominic, I mean. Actually, that man continues to amaze me in more ways than one. Do you know, we all trot off to church every Sunday? I mean…can you imagine me in church, Sarah?’

  Tina rolled her eyes to the heavens, then smiled. ‘To be honest, I think it’s rather nice. And it’s good for the kids. Bonnie loves it, although I’m not sure if it’s church she loves or getting dressed up. Chip off the old block there, dear heart. She’s going to be a beauty too, just like her mummy. Dominic will have his work cut out for him, keeping the boys away. His mother teases him about it all the time. But he’s up to task, believe me. I’ve never known a man so loving and protective of his daughter. Yet he doesn’t spoil her. He’s quite firm. But she loves him to death.

  ‘I love him too, Sarah. More than I would ever have thought possible. Certainly more than you thought possible. But it’s so good to have a partner who knows where he’s going in life. We grew up without security, Sarah, and if ever there was a man who exudes security, it’s Dominic.

  ‘He exudes a few other wonderful qualities as well,’ she whispered, spying her handsome husband walking slowly towards her, looking sexier than ever. No wonder she’d spent most of the last few years pregnant!

  Fatherhood certainly suited him. He looked perfectly relaxed and content with ten-month-old Stevie propped on one hip and two-year-old Beau holding his spare hand whilst his three-year-old daughter skipped by his other side. He’d taken them all for a walk so Tina had a chance to talk privately to Sarah, something she liked to do.

  ‘Anyway, my dearest friend,’ Tina said, her heart catching. ‘I hope you think I’m doing a good job raising Bonnie. I also hope you’ve finally forgiven me for letting you down the way I did before she was born. You know, I used to wish you’d told me you were pregnant. But now I think maybe there was some higher purpose to everything that happened. Maybe it was written.’

  Tina stood up, throwing a warm smile in the direction of her approaching family. ‘They’re a good-looking bunch, aren’t they?’ she whispered, her gaze full of pride and love as it roved over the four of them. ‘Oh, and one last thing. The ultrasound showed my baby’s a girl this time. When I told Dominic he suggested we call her Sarah. I thought it was a lovely idea. I hope you don’t mind.’

  Tina didn’t think she would.

  ‘All those girlie secrets shared yet?’ Dominic asked with a teasing smile.

  ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘In that case, it’s time to go home. Stevie needs a nappy change and a feed, and Beau has just announced he wants a gog. So I thought after lunch we’d go gog-hunting.’

  ‘Oh, no, not a gog,’ Tina groaned.

  ‘Yes, a gog, Mummy!’ Beau insisted. ‘A big gog!’

  ‘Not a big one,’ she protested.

  ‘Yes, a big one,’ Bonnie chimed in.

  ‘And are you going to look after it, missie?’ Tina asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she pronounced solemnly. ‘I promise.’

  And so a dog joined the Hunter household, a big black dog named Bill. He wasn’t as good-looking as the rest of the inmates, but he was well loved. And well looked after.

  Dominic saw to that.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1094-3

  FACING UP TO FATHERHOOD

  First North American Publication 2000.

  Copyright © 1999 by Miranda Lee.

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