by Fiona Harper
A rock hit the bottom of Alex’s stomach.
‘Wake up, Mummy,’ the girl wailed, then attempted to climb onto the bed beside her. But the bed was too high and her legs were too short, so she just held on to the pale hand nearest her. Her eyes filled with tears.
Becky had a child? A daughter?
He didn’t know whether he ought to be happy or sad for her. Becky had got what she’d wanted—and quickly, too, he guessed. The girl had to be…what? Two?
‘Is the man who was driving the car when Becky was injured her boyfriend?’ he asked Flora.
She shrugged. ‘I believe so. They moved him into one of the other wards earlier this afternoon.’
Alex looked down the hall but, before he could ask Flora where he could find the idiot who’d been driving too fast in the wrong direction down a one-way street, she laid a hand on his arm.
‘It might be better if I go. If you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on her…’ She nodded to the child. ‘You know what to do if you need help.’
He nodded. Becky’s alarms had gone off with worrying regularity since he’d been camped out here. He knew the drill and the nurses’ station was a two-second sprint away.
While Flora was gone, he walked over to the little girl and crouched down. He tried talking to her, but she didn’t acknowledge him. Not really. She kept staring at her mother, but blinked hard every time he started a new sentence. After a while, he gave up trying to talk and pulled a chair close so he could sit near her. He understood the need to be left alone with your own thoughts when you felt like this.
They stayed like that for quite a while and well before Alex heard Flora’s footsteps in the hall outside he’d decided that making sure this little one was reunited with her family would be part of his debt to Becky. If he didn’t, she’d be in foster care, just like her mother had been. Or, even worse, handed over to Becky’s parents, and he’d breathe his last breath before he let that pack of hyenas mess this child up the way they had their daughter.
He breathed out. It felt good having a purpose, something concrete to do rather than sit here and wonder whether there’d be a miracle
and Becky would open her eyes.
Eventually, the little girl turned and looked at him. He smiled. She didn’t smile back, just yawned. He patted his lap.
‘Would you like to come and sit here? You look tired.’
Slowly, she slid her hand out of Becky’s and sidled over to him. She didn’t reach out with confidence, as his cousin Toni’s boys had done at that age, knowing he’d swing them into his arms. Instead, she backed up until her behind was touching his knee and lifted one leg in a tentative attempt to hoist herself up. He gently slid a hand under each armpit and eased her into his lap. Even though she yawned again, she didn’t rest herself against him.
‘What’s your name?’ he whispered.
She turned her head to look at him. ‘Mollie,’ she said quietly.
Alex looked into her big blue eyes and smiled. He should have known. Becky had always loved that name. When they’d been trying for a child of their own, she’d settled on it straight away.
And then something odd happened. It must be the lack of sleep, he’d thought at first, because he had the oddest sense of recognition as he and Mollie regarded each other. It was like looking at a photograph he knew by heart, which was strange because he’d never seen any photos of Becky as a child, so it couldn’t be the resemblance to her mother that had registered something in his head. Anyway, Becky’s eyes were hazel, not this clear, warm blue with a darker ring around the irises.
Like his.
And then the words that had been circuiting his head for the last couple of days unscrambled themselves and Alex felt himself plummet down a lift shaft that had opened up in the floor of the ICU.
Suddenly, Becky’s last gasped message made sense.
Tell Alex she’s his.
As Alex talked, Jennie folded her arms tighter across her middle, listening with growing horror. Horror at what Alex’s shattered family had endured, and horror at her own adolescent foot-stamping when she hadn’t got her own way.
Worse still, a little voice inside her head was prodding her to stamp some more, to put her hands on her hips and say it wasn’t fair. To demand to know why Alex hadn’t communicated any of this to her earlier. Had he done so, she might not have done such a thorough disappearing act.
But that was also a childish urge. She couldn’t turn things around and blame Alex for her bad behaviour. He’d had a terrible situation to deal with—no wonder he’d sounded so spaced out when he’d managed to find time to call her—and he’d thought he’d married a grown-up, a woman who’d only days before had promised to stick with him through thick and thin. He’d had every right to ask for her understanding, and she’d had no right to deny it.
She sat down on the chair facing him and covered her face with her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. So sorry…’
‘It wasn’t your fault my first marriage was a runaway train,’ he replied bleakly.
‘No… I meant for the way I acted.’ She moved one finger so she could peek at him from behind her hands and found him looking at her. She slid her hands apart and left them on her cheeks. He looked so weary, hardly any hint of the usual vital Alex energy she loved so much.
At least he wasn’t angry with her any more. She could tell that from his eyes—they were no longer hard and icy. But he must be terribly disappointed in her. She should have been there for him. She should have been his shoulder to lean on. A wave of regret washed over her and she ached deep down to her toes. That time could never be bought back. She couldn’t charm her way into having another shot, but she wished she could. She really wished she could.
‘You said you weren’t sure,’ she muttered, as her brain continued to sort through the deluge of facts and images that had bombarded her at the beginning of this conversation. ‘What did you mean by that?’
Alex peeled his gaze from hers and stared into the shadows of the fireplace. ‘Just that. I’m still not sure that Mollie is my child.’
‘But you said…’
Only his eyes moved as he glanced back in her direction. ‘I know what Becky told the paramedic, but I have no idea if it’s the truth.’
Jennie’s hands slipped down her cheeks to cover her mouth. ‘Do you really think…?’
Alex got up and went to stare out of the large bay window behind his desk. ‘The woman—the babysitter—came back the next day to see Becky and apologise. It was too late by then, of course…’
Jennie stood up, wanting to go to him, but a sudden instinct told her to wait, to let him speak.
‘Tracey was Becky’s next door neighbour.’ He paused to make a disbelieving sound that might have been a laugh. ‘I didn’t even know Becky had moved back to London. The last I’d heard, she’d been in Southend.’
She took a step towards him. ‘What did she tell you…this Tracey?’
‘That the idiot driver had only been in Becky’s life a few months, and that when Becky had first moved in next door she’d been living with another man—one she’d referred to as Mollie’s daddy.’ He shook his head. ‘He’s been out of the picture for a year or so now.’
‘And you think…’
He looked over his shoulder at Jennie. ‘It’s possible,’ he replied, then turned to the window again. She walked over and stood next to him, stared at the same fields and bare trees, watched the same rooks circling in the sky.
‘Tomorrow morning everything will start opening up again after the Christmas break,’ he said. ‘I’ve got contacts who know how to get information—records—quickly. We’ll see what the birth certificate says first.’
‘And if it…’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to voice her doubts.
His shoulders slumped a little. ‘Then there’s DNA testing, just to make sure.’
Jennie was just about to place a palm on his shoulder blade when there was a knock at the door.
‘Just a minute, Mollie. This
is important.’
Jennie watched him, all of a sudden feeling as if Alex had just stepped out of a cocoon, transformed into something else. This was a father talking to his child. Alex was a father. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that the knowledge had changed him and there would be no going back. The Alex she’d shared a whirlwind romance with was gone. Instead of placing her hand on his shoulder, she smoothed down her jumper, then let her hands fall by her sides.
The door creaked open and Toni poked her head round the door.
‘That was my other half on the phone,’ she said, looking first at Alex and then at Jennie. ‘He says another of the boys has started sprouting spots and that Jacob’s spiking a fever.’ She grimaced. ‘I know I said I’d help out a bit longer, but I’ve got to go…’
Alex was already halfway across the room. ‘Of course you have,’ he said as he put a hand on her arm. ‘They’re your children…’
Toni managed a little wave and Jennie reciprocated, but by the time she’d got her fingers aloft and wiggling, both Alex and his cousin had vanished down the hallway, talking in low tones.
It was only then she remembered the coffee, still dripping from the desk onto the floor, and she hurried to the kitchen to get a cloth. She could see Alex saying goodbye to Toni as she got in her car. Mollie was nowhere to be seen, but Jennie didn’t think much of it as she ran a cloth under the tap and grabbed an armful of cleaning-type stuff from under the sink. Surely one of these sprays and potions was good for carpets?
She hadn’t even got as far as reading the labels when Alex came striding back into the room. ‘Where’s Mollie?’
Jennie just looked at him. ‘I don’t know. I thought she was with you.’
A look of sheer panic crossed Alex’s features, but before he could go into full crisis overdrive there was an ominous flushing sound from the downstairs bathroom. Did toddlers do that themselves these days? She really didn’t know. She and Alex looked at each other, then dashed out of the study.
The scene in the downstairs bathroom wasn’t pretty. Mollie was crying. There was a wet patch on the floor and a nappy wedged down the toilet. It was obvious that they hadn’t heard the first flush, because it was jammed right down the bottom and the toilet bowl was almost full to the brim.
‘No! ‘ Alex yelled as Mollie reached for the handle to flush once more. She froze for a split second, then she closed her eyes, opened her
mouth and the most terrifying sound emanated from it. It had the fluctuating pitch of a World War Two air raid siren, but was twice as loud.
Alex was obviously mortified to have caused that sound and looked helplessly at Jennie, his eyes begging. She looked at the devastation around her. Where did you start in situations like this? The floor? The loo? The air-raid siren? Alex was looking at her as if she was supposed to know. If her eardrums hadn’t been vibrating past the point of comfort, she might have called him on that. As it was, she decided to let him deal with the blockage while she went to the source of her current pain. She took Mollie by the hand and led her back into the kitchen.
Once there, she knelt down beside her and rubbed her hand. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart. Don’t cry.’
But Mollie’s face was bright red and scrunched up into the most unappealing shape. And the noise just seemed to be getting louder.
She took Mollie’s other hand and tried to make eye contact. ‘Mollie. Mollie? Mollie…’
There was a brief hiccupping pause in the wailing and Jennie grabbed her chance. ‘Did you have an accident, darling? Is that what the matter is?’
It was then that Jennie noticed the smell. Uh-oh. When she’d said the word accident, she hadn’t really comprehended the full horror of the situation. A quick peek under Mollie’s dress revealed the truth.
Jennie closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and picked the little girl up, trying not to think about how close her hands were to the source of the smell and whether it could seep through fabric. ‘It’s a bath for you, I think,’ she said brightly, and bounced down the corridor and up the stairs.
She was obviously doing something wrong because Mollie’s face stopped scrunching and she looked at Jennie in surprise. The plus side? She’d shocked the siren into silence. Jennie decided she liked being looked at like an alien better than she did putting her ears through that noise, so she just kept bouncing.
To her complete relief, she found a stack of nappies and a pouch of those baby wipe things in the bathroom. She popped Mollie down on the floor, eased her dress over her head and threw it into the far corner of the bathroom. Then she peeled the girl’s vest off and took off her sodden socks, using her thumb and forefinger like pincers. She’d just about finished when Alex appeared at the bathroom door, looking bemused and dishevelled.
‘What now?’ he said, looking hopefully at Jennie.
She gave him a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee kind of look. Like she was supposed to know! Possession of an X chromosome did not give her access to some secret wisdom that could be called upon in toddler-related emergencies. Fashion-related emergencies, yes. But definitely not the kind that involved the stuff that was currently sliding down Mollie’s left leg. Euw.
‘Okay,’ Alex said slowly, clearly getting the point. He looked at the shower cubicle. ‘How about we stand her in there and just, well… hose her down?’
Jennie blinked. As good a plan as any. So they did just that. One problem. As soon as they turned the shower on, the siren started up again. Alex lunged towards the bath and turned on the taps.
Forty minutes later, Mollie was asleep on Alex’s bed and Jennie and Alex were standing facing each other in his en suite bathroom.
‘I think we wore her out,’ Alex said with a smile.
Jennie couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘I think the feeling’s mutual.’
For a brief second all the drama of the last few weeks faded away. Jennie almost didn’t want to blink. This was more like the Alex she remembered: funny, in an understated way. Relaxed. Gorgeous. She sighed, and just that tiny noise was enough to pop the moment. The distinctive smell from Mollie’s discarded dress made sure it stayed that way.
‘Did you get the nappy out of the toilet?’ she asked.
Alex made a face. ‘Eventually.’
‘What do you think she was trying to do?’ Jennie asked as she folded a towel, then did it again, realising it was all lumpy and uneven.
Alex huffed out a breath and leant back against the tiled wall. ‘Well, Toni tells me she thinks Mollie is just about potty trained.’
Jennie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You think?’
There was that smile again. And again without the warning. It really was unfair. ‘Apparently, emotional upset can cause things to go…backwards…in that department,’ he added. ‘So Toni put her in a nappy. I think Mollie just got confused.’
Jennie frowned. ‘So… it’s safe to say that nappies don’t go down the toilet. The question is: what do you do with them?’
He looked heavenwards. ‘I’m thinking a nuclear device of some sort wouldn’t be out of place.’
Jennie laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth, realising the sleeping Mollie was only a few feet from the open bathroom door. Alex’s eyes twinkled. And right then, covered in smears of stuff she’d rather not identify and looking as if she’d wrestled with a tornado, Jennie started to fall in love with her husband all over again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEX didn’t think he’d ever seen Jennie look so beautiful. But, while his hibernating heart had started to beat again, he didn’t need to get ahead of himself. Things had changed. Big things.
He let his smile fade and caught her gaze. ‘We need to talk.’
She nodded, her own smile slipping, and when it was gone he felt awful for putting that look of sadness in her eyes.
They crept past Mollie’s sleeping form, curled into one corner of his bed.
‘Do you think she’s going to be all right like that?’ he whispered to Jennie. ‘What if she fa
lls out?’
Jennie shrugged and motioned for him to come outside. They both stood in the doorway and watched the little lump under the duvet breathe in and out. ‘Where has she been sleeping up until now?’ she said in a hushed voice.
‘At my parents’,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been staying with them for the last couple of weeks. I had things to do. A funeral to arrange. I thought it would be better to let her get to know them and be comfortable with them, and then when I had to shoot off, she wouldn’t feel abandoned.’
Jennie gave a little nod, and he was glad his decision had made sense to her.
‘Toni and her boys have been around a lot over Christmas, so she offered to look after Mollie today while Mum and Dad went to a friend’s birthday dinner, and then bring her home to me this evening.’
Mollie stirred and they both froze. Once they were sure she wasn’t going to wake up and wail, he put a finger to his lips and closed the bedroom door slowly and quietly. Not wanting to go too far, just in case Mollie did fall out of bed, he sat down on the landing with his back against the bedroom wall. Jennie gave a what-the-hell kind of gesture with her hands and followed suit.
She twisted to look at the blank wall behind them. ‘Do you think she’s going to be okay?’
‘I hope so.’
Things had to get better from here on, didn’t they? They had to. Because he had the awful feeling that he was Mollie’s last hope, that it was up to him now to provide what she needed and keep her safe.
Jennie turned back and slumped against the wall. ‘Me, too.’
Unexpected warmth flickered in his chest. It had been easy to think of Jennie as shallow and selfish when he’d been angry with her. Anger that really should have been directed elsewhere. At another wife who’d disappeared and taken his dreams with her. A wife who’d robbed him of the first three years of his daughter’s life. Who’d left him in this hellish limbo.
Jennie’s sudden disappearance had brought that awful sense of dread back, as fresh and new and raw as the day Becky had left. Maybe he’d waited longer than he should have to go and find Jennie. Maybe he’d waited until after Christmas because he’d wanted her to stew, to feel some of what he’d been feeling. He’d reasoned that Mollie was his top priority, that Jennie had made it quite clear she didn’t want to be with him. It struck him now that it was possible that a tiny part of him had wanted to punish her, because having control for once—being able to decide when and where they’d see each other again—had felt good. It had been wrong of him.