by Melissa Hill
“No, it’s fine, really. I was just about to start dinner.” Jenny said. She got up from the table and took some carrots from the vegetable trolley beside the sink. “You go on and have your shower.”
“Are you sure?” Mike said gratefully, taking a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and drinking it directly from the carton. “It was a tough day, to be honest. And battling the traffic all the way from the other side of town wasn’t much fun either. I don’t know how people put up with having to do that even one day a week, not to mention every single day.”
Rachel lived in Phibsboro, close to the Mater Hospital where she worked as a nurse. Mike had had to make the trip from his office in Sandyford and through the city centre to collect Holly from Rachel’s flat in Phibsboro, and then back to their house in Blackrock. He had left the office early, but because of the city’s almost guaranteed traffic congestion, the journey had taken him nearly two hours.
“Anyway,” Mike continued, “ tried ringing earlier to see how you were getting on, but you must have been so immersed in your books that you didn’t get up to answer it.”
Jenny thought quickly. She couldn’t tell him she had spent the day at Karen’s.
“I know,” she lied. “I heard it ringing, but by the time I got up to answer, it had rung off. Sorry.” Jenny hated herself for lying to him, hated herself even more for deceiving him. Mike noticed nothing amiss, though. He tickled Holly in her play- chair, and she chuckled happily, enjoying the attention she was getting from her dad.
“Oh,” he said, looking up as if remembering something, “I’ve booked a table for four at that new Oriental restaurant in Killiney for tomorrow night. I asked Rachel and she said she’d be delighted to come over and baby-sit her favourite niece again. Remember I told you this morning that I was planning to bring the new guy, Roan Williams, out to dinner?”
Jenny nodded, wondering why he didn’t ask her what was wrong, certain that he could hear the blood gushing quickly through her veins.
“I think he’s bringing his girlfriend – or is it his wife?” Mike pondered. “I’m not really sure. It should be a good night, Jen. I haven’t really had a chance to get to know him since he started, and I’m anxious for all of us to start off on the right foot. After all, he’ll be the one running the show when I’m on leave for the wedding.”
He grinned. “Anyway, I think the two of us could do with the night out. I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure with the exams, so we should really let our hair down.”
Jenny tried to relax as he came up and put his arms around her, nuzzling her neck.
“You should wear that gorgeous outfit you got for the Christening that time. I’m sure your man would be impressed as hell if he saw you in that.” Mistaking her silence as tiredness from her tough day with the books, Mike gave Jenny a quick kiss on the cheek, and then hummed a little tune on his way upstairs.
She shuddered. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t pretend any longer. She had to tell Mike – tonight.
*****
Jenny swallowed hard, and took both of his hands in hers.
“Firstly, I want you to know that I never planned this … I never planned to lie to you, I never ever planned to deceive you. It was just the way things happened.”
“Deceive me?” Mike laughed nervously, “Jen, what are you talking about? Hey, you’re shaking like a leaf, what’s wrong?”
Later that evening, after they had put Holly to bed, Jenny decided that now would be as good a time as any to tell Mike. The eventual contact with Roan couldn’t be avoided for much longer, and she knew now that she could no longer live with the guilt.
“Mike, what I’m about to tell is going to hurt you terribly, and will probably mean the end of any respect you have for me, but nevertheless it’s something you should know.” Jenny clasped her hands tightly around his, willing herself to tell him, hoping that she would have enough strength to do so, wishing that she hadn’t lied to him in the first place. “The new guy you’ve taken on at InTech – Roan Williams? He was my – my ex , Mike, the one who had moved to America, the one that I was getting over when I met you.” She waited anxiously for Mike’s response.
“OK,” he said cautiously, “and how is that significant? It was such a long time ago, Jen. Surely you’re not still carrying a torch for him?”
She swallowed hard. “There’s more. I told you that we met again last year when Roan turned up unexpectedly at Shane’s funeral. We hadn’t seen one another since … well, since before he left for the States.”
“I remember,” he said, waiting for her to continue.
“As you can imagine, it was difficult seeing him again and it sent me into a tailspin,” she said, watching Mike closely for a reaction. “There had been so much left unsaid since the last time we met.” Again Mike said nothing, and Jenny continued. “I left the pub shortly after Karen went away with the Quinns, because I was exhausted. It had been an emotional time, and I felt as though I hadn’t slept in days. And, I admit that I was hurt by the fact that Roan didn’t seem as disturbed about seeing me again, as I was about seeing him.”
Mike nodded slowly. “Well, I can understand that. It must have been a sort of an anticlimax, meeting him again, and getting little or no reaction when you had spent so much time getting over him. I had thought that myself when you told me he had been there.”
“Exactly,” Jenny said, relieved that at least he could identify with her state of mind at the time. “I don’t quite know what I had expected, but I suppose I thought that he might at least try and speak to me about it, rather than behave as though nothing had ever happened between us. I was angry with him, and even angrier with myself for expecting him to be any different, or at all sorry for what he had done to me. But I had been wrong about that. I didn’t tell you this, but after I left the pub, Roan followed me out to the car.” She told Mike about what had happened afterwards; about Roan’s apologies and explanations and about how upset she had been afterwards.
“But I already know most of this,” Mike said. “I mean, I knew you had spoken to him, and you told me you’d laid the ghost to rest, as it were. I admit that I hadn’t realised how affected you had been by it all, and you hadn’t told me that you had given him a lift back to Dublin, but what does it matter now? I’m not the kind of guy that would hold a grudge against Roan, if that’s what you’re thinking. OK, I’ll admit that it might be a little awkward from a social point of view, but we can get over that surely?” When Jenny wouldn’t meet his eyes, he realised that there was more to the story. “What? Oh, please don’t tell me that you’re still in love with him, Jenny. Is that what all this is about?”
Still she said nothing, unable to come up with the right words.
Mike looked totally bewildered. “Jesus, Jenny. We’re getting married soon – we have a daughter, we’re happy, aren’t we? Aren’t we?”
Jenny watched his expression change from initial concern, to confusion, bewilderment and finally, pure hurt. She ached to touch him but was afraid to in case she would lose her nerve.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mike continued hoarsely. “I had no idea that you still loved him.” He shook his head to try and stop his eyes filling with tears. “If he was the one you always wanted, if you had never got over him, why on earth did you agree to marry me? Say something, for God’s sake!”
Jenny’s voice shook as she spoke. She tried to battle with her tears as they spilled out a lot faster than the words, but at the same time resigned herself to the fact that there would be more tears, many more after tonight.
“No, Mike, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t … I’m not in love with him. It’s you that I love, more than anything else, and you have to believe that. It’s just … I should never …oh Mike, I’ve ruined everything!” Jenny put her head in her hands and sobbed, afraid to continue, afraid to tell him the rest, knowing that the truth would destroy them both.
“What? What have you ruined? Please, Jenny, tell me.” Mike sounde
d panicked, wanting to know, but at the same time not.
Jenny couldn’t look at his face, knowing that his eyes would reflect her own pain.
“Mike, I’m so, so sorry,” she said softly. “I made a terrible mistake, and I should have never have done this to you – to us. But by the time I found out, by the time I even suspected anything, it was much too late. Anyway, I never thought that I’d see him again. But now that he’s back, and part of our lives again, you have to know the truth – you deserve to know the truth.”
Mike entwined her fingers in his. “Jen, whatever it is, we’ll work through it. We’ve been through a lot together already, haven’t we? Maybe it’s just cold feet, after all the wedding is not that far away and – ”
“Stop it, you don’t understand!” Jenny’s voice raised an octave as she became frustrated. She was desperate to get it all out now, as if saying it out loud would unburden the guilt of knowing the truth. “I’m sorry, Mike.” Jenny met his eyes for the very first time since the beginning of the conversation. “I wanted to tell you this before, and you don’t know how many times I tried to tell you beforehand but …oh God.” Jenny paused and took a deep breath. Her voice quivered as she said the words. “Holly ... she isn’t your daughter, Mike … she’s Roan’s.”
Chapter 44
Holly sat contentedly in her play-chair, while her mother made her favourite breakfast of Rice Crispies with hot milk.
Thankfully, Jenny thought, watching her daughter gurgle merrily to herself, Holly seemed unaware of the controversy surrounding her, unaware that Mike, the man she had called Daddy for the duration of her short life, had days before packed his bags and walked out of the house and out of their lives.
“If it wasn’t for the love I have for our daughter, I mean your daughter,” he had said, his eyes brimming with hurt as he corrected himself, “it would be you packing your bags tonight. You can stay here until you find somewhere else, somewhere decent for you and Holly to live. It’s the very least you can do for the child after lying to her since the day she was born.”
“Mike, please,” she had said, panic consuming her as she realised that he wasn’t going to give her a chance to explain, “you can’t just leave like this.”
“And why not? It seems to me that I can do what I damn well like in this relationship. God knows you did.” he said, eyes flashing angrily.
Jenny hung her head. “We have to talk about it, you need to know that what I did that night was nothing to do with you and me, nothing to do with my love for you – it just was something I needed to get out of my system.”
Mike looked at her, outraged by this. “Well, good for you, Jenny. I’m so glad you got it out of your system. Maybe the next time you have something to get out of your system, we’ll end up with a little boy!”
The comment stung and Jenny felt ashamed of herself. She had been so consumed with her own guilt, and so anxious to unburden the truth, that she hadn’t thought properly about how Mike would react and what would happen next.
“Mike, please try and understand – ”
“Understand!” he almost shouted, and then remembered that Holly was sleeping in the room across the hallway. “Understand?” he said again, his voice dropping to a whisper, “what I don’t understand is why, after all this time, you decided to tell me the truth?”
“I had to,” she said simply. “The guilt has been eating me up inside, ever since I first realised she wasn’t yours. I love you too much to lie to you any longer.”
Mike winced as he heard this. He looked old and weary as he sat down onto the bed, keeping his back to Jenny, unable to look at her.
“How could you have done it? How could you have lied like that, pretending you were happy, pretending you were as delighted as I was when Holly was born? How could you have done that, when you knew all along that we were living a lie.”
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know – the thought had never even crossed my mind at the beginning. I did think she was yours but by the time I realised, it was too late.
We were both in the surgery when Dr Clohessy told me I was pregnant, remember?” she said, trying to make him understand, to let him know that she had never planned to deceive him, that there hadn’t been any alternative to doing what she did.
Mike nodded slowly. He had been ecstatic that day. Her own reaction had been a little less assured. How could she be pregnant? Jenny had asked her doctor upon discovering the news, just a few weeks after she and Mike announced their engagement. She’d been taking the Pill religiously every day since she and Mike had begun sleeping together. The doctor began to trot out statistics about the Pill’s effectiveness, before a beaming Mike reminded Jenny that she’d had a stomach bug that time shortly before Shane’s accident. Dr Clohessy confirmed that the illness was likely to have interfered with her contraception, especially if she had been vomiting.
It was only at that moment, sitting in the doctor’s surgery alongside Mike, that the realisation dawned on Jenny that there was a very real possibility Mike might not be the father of her baby. Panic enveloped her, and Jenny remembered that she had never felt so petrified as she had at that moment.
“I promise you, Mike, I promise you that it had never crossed my mind before then that the baby might not be yours. Remember you mentioned how quiet I was being afterwards, and I told you that I was just letting it all sink in? That was true. I was letting it all sink in, and trying to come to terms with it. But what could I do? I had never seen you so excited about anything in all my life. There was no way I could tell you then.”
“You could have said something,” Mike said gruffly.
“Mike, I didn’t have a chance. And before long, they all knew, your mother, my parents – everyone. You told them all before I had a chance to think. How could I have said anything then?” Her own parents had been thrilled; Mike’s mother had been shocked at first to hear that her son was to be a father so soon after getting engaged, but then equally as thrilled. “I promise you that I had no idea, I had absolutely no idea. It was a shock, hearing I was pregnant when it had been the very last thing on my mind. OK, I hadn’t been well, but I didn’t even consider the possibility. And with my period being so irregular, I just didn’t realise.”
She should have realised though, of course she should have known. But there was so much happening in her life back then. She and Mike had just begun planning the wedding, and she had got her promotion and was working flat out to prove she deserved it. Jenny had thought then that if anything she was simply run-down. Mike had been worried about her frequent headaches, pallid complexion and continual lack of energy, having seen similar symptoms in his father, who had died of brain cancer years before. He had insisted she ‘get herself checked out’ and one day the two of them went to see Dr Clohessy.
Had she discovered the news by herself, Jenny told herself that she would have undoubtedly admitted her infidelity to Mike, and made him aware of the possibility that he wasn’t the father. Ironically enough, she had never been a good liar, had never been able to sit comfortably with deception. Without doubt, Jenny thought, she would have told Mike the truth and faced the accusations and admonitions. The very least she could have done was let him be the one to decide whether or not he wished to continue with their relationship. And if he had left her then, she would have brought up Holly on her own.
It would have broken her heart to do it, but afterwards, Jenny convinced herself time and time again, that she would have just that, had she had the chance.
“Anyway,” she said to Mike, “it was very possible that you were the father. I had slept with Roan once, just once, whereas you and I had been sleeping together all along.” She spoke softly, aware of the effect her words must be having on him. “Mike, it was highly unlikely that that one night with someone else had resulted my becoming pregnant. What were the odds on that?” Although she couldn’t see his face, Jenny heard him sob quietly. She moved to sit beside him on the bed. “I’m so sorry, Mike. I mad
e some stupid decisions – decisions that I can’t go back on, and you don’t know how much I wish that I could. But, believe me when I tell you that none of this was intentional. Try and put yourself in my shoes back then. There was nothing else I could have done. I never, ever meant to hurt you or intended to deceive you about Holly. You have to believe me.”
Mike said nothing; he just kept both eyes fixed on the carpet. “I was so happy,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know, Jenny. You don’t know anything.” He raised his voice and his entire body shook as he spoke. “You’ve made me look like a dumb fool, and all you can say is that you never meant to. Tell me this – why now, after all this time, did you decide to tell me? Why decide to turn what I thought was our happy little world upside down? Why rock the boat?”
Jenny looked away. “Because he’s come back,” she replied eventually, “and I think that I had always known, deep down, that the truth would come out. When you told me this morning that he would be working with you, it made me realise that there was no hiding from it any more. It was too much of a coincidence. Think about it – it must be some kind of sick fate or something. It’s my punishment, Mike. Somebody somewhere is making me pay for what I did to you – and to Holly.”
Mike wiped his eyes. “So I suppose now the plan is to go off and play happy families with him, is it?”
“It’s not like that. I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll tell him.”
“Oh I see,” he said, his knuckles white as he clenched both hands into fists. “Somehow, you felt obliged to tell me the truth, and turn my life upside down, but you’re going to go easy on him, is it? Well, fuck that, Jenny.”