by Smith, Wendy
James cocks his head. “You’re talking about Lily, right?
“Maybe I’m an idiot thinking she’d want me after all this time. I wasn’t going to go and throw myself at her, but when I ran into Max … she still feels so right. And spending time with her and Max is incredible.”
“I’m surprised she let you anywhere near her.” James takes a swig from his beer.
“What makes you think that? Anyone would think it was me who ran out on her.”
James leans forward, flushing red. His eyes narrow. “Holy shit. How do you not know?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, big brother, you did run out on her. What I don’t know is why Mum and Dad clearly didn’t tell you what happened.” He shakes his head before swallowing the rest of the bottle in one gulp. “Shit, Adam. The whole freaking town knows what happened.”
Anger builds in me again, especially after Mum’s sanctimony. Whatever it is has to be big to get this kind of reaction from James. He seems far too level-headed to kick off over nothing. “You have about thirty seconds to tell me.”
He takes a deep breath and continues, “Shit. I feel awful. If I’d known, I would have found some other way to tell you. I thought you knew and still didn’t want to come back. That’s what we were all told. I even thought long and hard about calling you over Mum, she was so insistent that no one contact you.”
“James. You’re not making any sense. Tell me what the hell you know that I don’t.”
He takes another bottle out of the chiller and hands it to me. “Load up. When I’m finished, you’ll need it.”
“What do you know about what happened here after you left?” he asks.
I shrug. “Not a lot. Mum told me Lily had come back and set up house with Eric Murphy. I stopped asking about her after that. It was too tempting to come back and punch him out for stealing my girl. Even if she wasn’t mine by then.”
There’s so much pain in James’s eyes, and he shakes his head. “She did a real number on you.”
“Who? Lily?”
“No. Mum.”
I frown as I gaze at him. “Lily didn’t shack up with Eric? Why would Mum lie to me?”
James’s eyes grow big. “Have you met our mother? She lied to you. She lied to all of us. I knew she was controlling, but this is beyond shitty.”
I’d gone as far away as I could, stayed away as long as I could before I came home. I’d avoided my brothers, my friends, anyone who might tell me about Lily moving on. I hadn’t wanted to hear it, and I’d been too young and stupid at the time to stay and see why she’d left me at the altar. Mum had been all too happy to encourage me to leave, even finding me a place to go.
“Damn it, Adam. I don’t want to be the one to tell you this.”
Anger grows in me the longer I wait. “James. I am going to beat the ever-loving shit out of you if you don’t spit it out.”
James drops his gaze, shifting it to the ground. “Lily didn’t stand you up that day. Her mother locked her up.”
I let out a sigh. “I went to her house. Nearly tore it apart looking for her. She wasn’t there.”
“Did you check her mother’s sewing room? The basement?”
My stomach drops to my knees.
“Lily’s mum flipped out the night before. Lily made amends with her, or so she thought. Her mother told her she’d forgive her for marrying you, but she wouldn’t attend the wedding. Her dinner was laced with her mother’s sedatives.”
“What?” I hear my own voice crack.
“She took Lily down the stairs to that little space she’d converted into her sewing room. You remember how she used to take in repairs? Well, she shut up shop and kept her daughter down there. I doubt when you were in the house Lily even knew you were there. She was probably still unconscious.” He sighs. “Jesus, Adam. It was in the papers when they found her. Although they gave Lily and her mother permanent name suppression to protect Lily.”
I swallow hard, unable to process what I’m hearing. “In the papers?”
“She was terrified Lily would leave her, and she went off the rails. She kept her there for months and told everyone that Lily had run away.”
I’m numb. “How long?” I whisper.
“Six months. She lived on what her mother fed her, making it stretch when she had to.”
Nausea sweeps me, and I place my beer down and my head in my hands to steady myself. My girl, my delicate flower trapped inside a basement. No daylight, very little food.
My head’s spinning. “What about the report of a blonde girl hitchhiking? I thought that was Lily leaving town.”
He frowns. “Oh, that was Gina Parsons. I don’t know if you remember her.”
“I remember the name. Went out a couple of times with Drew. Or it could have been Owen?”
James shrugs. “I’m not completely sure. But her dad beat up her mum the night before Lily went missing. Gina ran away.”
“How did they find Lily?” I don’t care about anything else right now. Lily’s house was in the centre of town. It was a little rundown back then, but it was the one thing that had given her security. A roof over her head. Every day people would have walked past it. I fume at the thought of them all going about their lives, not doing anything to help. I agonise that I was in that house while she was there and didn’t find her.
“Her mother called an ambulance when Lily went into premature labour.”
My head’s swimming. Lily was pregnant. I’ve not asked how old Max was—just assumed with the boy being so small that he was ten or so, maybe younger. What if … “The child. Was it Max?”
James nods slowly. “He never stood a chance. Lily was malnourished so Max didn’t get all he needed. They managed to stop labour when she got to the hospital, but only for a few weeks. He was in hospital forever. I have vague memories of visiting him. I was only a kid, but that baby had tubes for Africa in him, he was so small.”
We sit in silence as I take all this in. My eyelids are so heavy, the weight of this newfound knowledge slowly crushing me. “Why did you visit him?
James shrugs. “Mum took me.”
I stare at him. Max is mine. That smart, crazy kid is mine. “So if Mum and Dad knew about him, knew all about this, why the hell didn’t they say anything? And why does Lily have nothing, living on Eric Murphy’s mother’s property?”
James shakes his head. “I guess they want to protect you. I don’t know. You rang one day and I told you we went to see the baby. It’s vague, but I’m sure I can remember it. All we knew was that you went away, joined the army, and travelled a lot. Mum said you knew you were too young to be tied down so you weren’t coming back. Hell, Corey was just relieved to not be the black sheep anymore.”
We sit in silence. My pain is so great I don’t even know what to say. “You tried to tell me. I can’t … What about the Eric Murphy thing?”
“His mother took Lily in. I don’t know, I guess so many people freaked out at Lily’s mother and what she did so they wouldn’t go near. They were always afraid that she had too much of her mother in her.”
I drop my head to my chest. The pain grows, stabs me right in the gut. We were kids, but if I’d stayed, I could have tried to protect her, taken care of her.
“I have a kid.” I look up at James, picking up my beer and taking another sip. “I have a kid.” Letting go of the tension, I grin.
“What are you boys doing?” Dad stands in the doorway, smiling at us.
I stand, turning slowly to face the man behind me. “Getting the truth from someone who gives a damn enough to tell me.”
Placing the beer on the table, I step off the porch and into the darkness. “Going to talk to the mother of my child. The one you didn’t have the decency to tell me about.” So much makes sense. Her anger at our first confrontation in her yard, telling me she didn’t want parenting advice from me, the tears in the restaurant. She thought I knew.
“Adam.” Dad’s voice carries through the d
arkness. But it’s too late. I climb into the car, start it up, and back down the driveway.
* * *
I drive through town, my anger growing the further I get from the house. All this time. I hadn’t been the best at keeping in touch, but there had been phone calls home in the early days.
My agony hits me as I pass into the countryside and down the dusty road where Lily lives. The living room light is on, and I drive slowly, still painfully aware of the little boy I could have hit the last time I came down here. My little boy.
Out here it’s quiet. There’s no road noise, and apart from the crickets in the grass nothing else makes a sound.
Stumbling from the car, I reach the front door and hammer on it.
A curtain twitches in the corner of my eye and when I turn to look it’s back in place.
“Lily, it’s Adam. I need to see you. Please.” I waited too long to come back, losing another minute with her is too much.
A gentle halo of light surrounds her as she pulls the door open. There she is, the girl I loved and left, thinking she’d turned her back on me.
“You’re drunk,” she says, fanning her hand across her face as if to get rid of the beer smell.
“I’ve just had a couple. I need to talk to you.”
Lily frowns, looking me over as if deciding whether to let me in or not. “Well, be quiet. Max took ages to get to sleep, and I do not want him waking up.” She turns and walks away from the door. I trail behind like the lovesick puppy I always was with her. All this time and nothing’s changed. I could try and deny it, but she holds my heart, the same way she always did.
I sit on the couch as she takes the chair opposite, suddenly tongue-tied and feeling like that love-struck eighteen-year-old again. The one who had the prettiest girl in school on his arm, in his bed. The years haven’t changed the feeling, not now I’m in front of her again.
“What do you want, Adam?” She sounds so tired.
“I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?”
I sigh. “Any of it. You were so frustrated with me not understanding, but I only found out what happened tonight.”
Her eyes are full of bewilderment. All these roundabout conversations we’ve had where she probably assumed I knew.
“James told me. Not even Mum and Dad. All the years I was away and they never told me.”
Tears form in her eyes, and I sit on my hands rather than give in to the temptation of trying to hold her. She’s so on edge—I don’t know if she’d let me.
“You left and never looked back. I heard all about it. How you were off to this country or that country. With this girl or that. Your mother made sure she told me.” She waves her hands on the air, never meeting my eyes.
The nausea’s back again, and I place my hands palms-down on the couch to steady myself. “What?”
“I was in hospital with a baby who survived despite the shitty hand we were dealt. All my focus was on him. All your mother worried about was that I’d wreck your life because you were going places.” She lets out a sob. “My baby was eight weeks early, and my mother killed herself because she was stressed. That’s what you left me to deal with.” She crosses her arms, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“If I’d known, I would have been here in a second. I was doing everything to forget you because I thought you’d moved on. I might have left, but my heart stayed here.” I move from the couch, crawling across the floor to her feet. “The memory of you has driven me crazy all these years.” I look up at her.
She avoids my eyes, looking past me to the wall behind the couch. “Don’t, Adam. Don’t you dare. It’s the drink talking.”
I reach out, placing my hand on her knee. Strain is plastered all over her face as she looks down at me. “It’s not the drink—it’s my heart. When I saw that ring on your finger, it damn near broke me thinking of you with someone else. Even if I had no right to be upset about it.”
She closes her eyes and takes deep breaths. For a moment it looks as if she’s fallen asleep.
“You didn’t recognise the ring,” she whispers.
I reach for her hand, cradling it in mine. It seems so small, her wrist so thin it might snap, but my skin on hers feels good. Perfect.
“It’s my wedding ring. I had it on a chain around my neck so I didn’t lose it before the wedding. It brought me comfort during the worst times, and it helped me remember the good.”
I roll the ring around her finger. It’s a little loose now, but that’s not surprising given how slim she is. It’s thinner underneath than on top where the metal’s worn. It’s not even gold. Neither of us could afford anything like that way back then. “Lily.” I let out a sob, resting my head on her hand, hearing her crying too.
She’d been broken, and I wasn’t there when she needed me most. No wonder she’d been so weird about my return, ranting that they didn’t need me. She thought I hadn’t wanted to be there when that was the opposite to how I felt. It’s amazing she ever let me near either of them.
“I don’t even know how to deal with all this. It’s so much to take in. I need to think. Maybe you should go.” Her voice is so small.
I raise my head. Her lips tell me to go, but all I see in her eyes is love. “I’m not going anywhere. Not again. I’m right where I need to be.” I slowly stand, grasping her arms in my hands and pulling her to her feet. I’m face to face with the girl I never forgot. The mother of my child.
“If you feel you’re obligated to us, I don’t expect anything from you. You’re free,” she whispers, and it damn near breaks my heart.
Pressing my forehead to hers, I close my eyes. “I was never free. All this time I wondered what I’d done. My heart ached so much. I can’t believe my parents hid this from me.” I open again to see the blue gazing back at me. “Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
18
Adam
She let me in.
I don’t know if I deserve it after taking so long to find out the truth, but Lily lets me hold her trembling body against me as we stand in silence, absorbing what just happened.
“I never stopped loving you,” she whispers.
My heart swells in response. “I never stopped loving you.”
She nuzzles my chest, the contact sending my body into overdrive. I have to have her, be with her, show her just how much I love her. How much I’ve always loved her.
I grasp her chin, raising her face to meet mine. Her eyes widen as I bring her in close, and I ache with need to kiss her. All these years, places, women, and I’m finally back where I belong. The realisation that she’s had to deal with everything without me all this time eats at me.
I start my kiss gentle, slow, before deepening it. She relaxes in my arms as I claim her mouth, my arms wrapping around her slight body. I want to treasure her, bring her back to health, and love her for the rest of my days.
When we finally break apart, the longing in her eyes is clear as she gazes at me. I take in every feature, unchanged in the years we’ve been apart. This is the girl I dreamed of for all this time, the woman I fantasised about. So much has changed, but looking at her now, my heart still feels as it did so long ago.
“Adam,” she whispers.
The years melt away as I grin, scooping her into my arms and kissing her again. “Where?” There’s only one thing I want now, and from the look in her eyes, she wants it too. No more sneaking around like we used to, sex in the back seat of my car, me climbing in her bedroom window.
“Up the stairs. I’ll walk though, they’re narrow.”
I shake my head. “I carried Max fine. If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you like a sack of potatoes, I’ll do it.”
She laughs, burying her face in my neck. Her laughter is the most beautiful sound. When was the last time she laughed like this? “I want to get up to bed too, but in one piece.”
We reach the foot of the stairs. “I can do anything when I’m with you,” I say softly, taking it one step
at a time when all I want to do is run, get her up there as fast as possible. She points at the door to indicate which room.
“We’re here. See? Nothing to worry about,” I murmur.
Warm drops run down my neck, and I rock her as we enter the room. “Shh, Lily. We’re together now, and nothing is ever going to keep us apart again.”
The bed’s unmade, the duvet at the base of it. I lower her onto the sheet and kick off my shoes, lying down beside her.
She reaches over to stroke my face, her eyes searching mine. “I never thought this day would ever happen.”
I turn my head to kiss her hand. “Neither did I. I was always so scared I’d come back and find you with someone else, making a life without me.”
A sob breaks from her throat. “I can’t imagine making a life with anyone else. Not with Max. No one understands him.”
I lean over and kiss her long and deep, running my hand down her side as she shivers. “I do. No wonder I feel such a bond with him. I can’t believe I have a son,” I whisper.
Fresh tears roll down her cheeks as she smiles. “He’s amazing. You were never truly gone when he was around.”
I kiss her again, unbuttoning her blouse, slipping it back to reveal her bra. Lily blushes, moving her arm across her chest as if ashamed.
“It’s okay.”
“I’ve got old underwear. We don’t have a lot of money. I can’t afford new stuff all the time. It’s embarrassing.”
I grin, pushing her arm away and planting a kiss between her breasts. “Just as well I get to pamper you then. Give you everything you need. Oh, God, Lily, I have such a surprise for you.”
She sits up, sliding her blouse down her arms and unclipping her bra. I love the sight of her—I always did, with those perky breasts that used to fit snugly in my hand. As she discards her bra, I reach for her, pulling her back down beside me, my hand covering one breast as I stroke the nipple.
“Adam,” she whispers.