The Accidental Family

by Rowan Coleman

  “So we’ve established I’m your type, and hey—I like an older blonde, especially one with curves,” Seth told her. Sophie was ashamed to feel heat rising in her belly. Standing here with Louis from the past, a past before he’d met Carrie or run off to Peru, was really very confusing. She glanced sheepishly at a very sour-looking Carmen and made an effort to pull herself back together.

  “You are very confident, aren’t you?” Sophie remarked. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty,” Seth told her, tipping his head to one side to appraise her figure. “Too young for you?”

  “No, I mean yes, I mean you really do look like him.” Sophie frowned. “Do you know anyone called Louis Gregory?”

  “Nope,” Seth said. “Should I? Is he likely to want to fight me for you?”

  “I thought you might be related, cousins or something—he doesn’t have much family.”

  “Neither do I,” Seth told her with a shrug. “ It’s just me and Mum; Gran and Granddad live up north. I don’t know about cousins or uncles. Look, if that’s all you’re really interested in, you’re better off talking to Mum when she gets back.”

  “Seth!”

  The young man looked up and sighed. “Here’s the boss now; she’s going to want to know why I’m flirting with the bride again instead of selling her theme hen-night knickers.” He treated Sophie to a slow grin. “The things a student will do for cash. Come back at five and I’ll take you for a drink.”

  “Seth, I thought I told you to get all the stock out; it’s not going to sell if it’s in a box, is it …”

  Sophie turned around at the sound of the oddly familiar voice and came face-to-face with Wendy Churchill.

  “It’s you,” Sophie said bluntly. “You work on the stall?”

  “Seth, go and get the rest of the stock from the van.” She turned to Sophie. “It’s my business—and you are?” Wendy raised an eyebrow, which let Sophie realize that she knew exactly who she was but was choosing to pretend not to.

  “Louis’s fiancée, Sophie Mills,” Sophie told her with her best corporate smile. “We met the other day …I was just chatting to Seth because I wondered if he might be related to Louis in some way. He told me to ask his mum—do you know where she is?”

  There was a beat of silence between the two of them while everything slotted slowly into place and Sophie felt her stomach plummet through her toes.

  Wendy held her gaze for a moment longer, and then the tension in her mouth and eyes relaxed just a fraction, revealing a hint of a smile, and what she told Sophie, Sophie suddenly already knew.

  “I’m his mum,” Wendy said, holding Sophie’s gaze, keeping her voice low so that it couldn’t be heard above the hum of the chatter-filled hall. “I had him when I was fifteen.”

  Sophie looked over to Seth, who was looking at his watch as he was expertly flirting with Carmen over a lacy cream basque. “He works for me part-time while he’s finishing his degree.” Wendy paused and eyed Sophie with her cold gray eyes. “And yes. Yes, Louis is his father. But he doesn’t know that. And Louis has never known anything—he didn’t even know I was pregnant, let alone about Seth. I haven’t seen Louis in over twenty years—until I bumped into him the other day. Look—Sophie, Seth and I are fine. We are happy without him. We are doing really well. And if you and Louis are getting married, then I guess you must be happy too. Nothing has to change, does it?”

  Sophie looked into Wendy’s eyes. About ten thousand thoughts were chasing each other around in her head, each one screaming to be heard, not a single one making sense in the melee. But she knew one thing. Wendy was asking her to keep quiet about Seth.

  “Wendy …you’ve just told me that the man I’m going to marry has a son he knew nothing about. Are you seriously suggesting I shouldn’t tell Louis that he’s got a child—a grown man of a son walking around less than fifty miles from where he lives?”

  “I am,” Wendy said, her eyes glassy and reflective. “What would it hurt?”

  “You must realize that I can’t possibly do that,” Sophie replied. “I can’t keep something that huge from the man I love, the man I’m going to marry. Besides, he has a right to know about his son!” Sophie fought to keep her voice down, reeling from the weight of knowledge that she was suddenly burdened with.

  “No he doesn’t.” Wendy’s face was dark with fury. “I didn’t tell him then for a good reason and I’m not going to tell him now. Seth is my son, I’ve brought him up alone for all of these years, and I have done bloody well for myself by working my guts out. He has nothing to do with Louis.”

  “But why?” Sophie asked her. “Why didn’t you tell Louis about him, if not back then, then at some point in the last twenty years?”

  Wendy shook her head bitterly. “I had my reasons,” she warned. “And they are none of your business.”

  “Mum, I’ve got that gig,” Seth said, coming over again and grinning at Sophie with that same easy smile his father had. “If I don’t go now, I’ll miss the sound check and I’ll get fired. Again.”

  “Go on then.” Wendy smiled indulgently, taking some money out of her back pocket and pressing it into his palm. “See you tomorrow, same time, okay? Don’t drink too much and don’t—”

  “Mother, I am a grown man,” Seth said, winking at Sophie and stooping to kiss his mother on the cheek. “It’s the ladies who have to watch out.”

  The two women watched him leave and Sophie’s heart was in her mouth as she watched his familiar gait and the Louis-like flick of his hair as he left the room.

  “Look,” Wendy said, her face softening a little, which for some reason Sophie found even more intimidating. “All I’m saying is that nothing has to change. And if you give yourself a second to think about it, you’ll realize that is the best option. You can go your way, have your wedding and your life, and I’ll go mine. No one will ever know.”

  Sophie shook her head. In the space of twenty minutes, everything she thought she knew had changed, and there was no way to put things back where they had been before she knew what she did now.

  “Wendy, I’m sorry, but I love him, we’ve gone through a lot to be together, what kind of person, what kind of wife, would I be if I kept this from him?” she said.

  “You’ll regret it,” Wendy told her quietly. “I can promise you that. This cozy little life you think you’ve got for yourself will be over for good.”

  Seven

  Sophie stood in the playground waiting for Louis and Izzy to arrive to pick up Bella. She and Carmen were supposed to have been gone for the whole day, so Louis had made sure he had the afternoon free to collect Izzy at one and Bella at three fifteen. She knew he’d be here soon, and she knew she had to see him as soon as possible so she could tell him about Wendy and Seth. So she could tell him about his son. She had no idea how she was going to tell him, how the necessary words would form a coherent sentence and emerge from her mouth, but she knew she had to tell him at the first opportunity or otherwise lose her nerve, and the consequences of that happening were unimaginable. For whatever reason, Wendy had tried to intimidate her and warn her off telling Louis the truth. But really, there was no alternative—she had to tell him no matter what happened next—even though it seemed certain that whatever it was, it was going to change everything.

  She had been driving back with Carmen toward St. Ives when she came to the realization that her knowledge of Seth and Wendy was simply not something she could keep to herself. No matter how much she might want to.

  “Who was she?” Carmen had asked her as soon as they were out of the car park. “You looked like you wanted to deck her, and I’ve never seen you want to get out of a place so quickly.”

  Sophie thought for a moment. It wouldn’t be right to tell Carmen about Seth before she told Louis, but she knew if she told her one piece of information about Wendy and Seth, then Carmen’s busy female brain would have assimilated the rest in a nanosecond and worked it all out herself.

  “That woman was Loui
s’s ex-girlfriend,” Sophie told Carmen. “I met her when we bumped into her a few days ago. They went out together one summer, back when they were teenagers. She was his first big love, his first …everything.”

  “Was she really? So what’s she got to do with …oh my god! Louis is Seth’s dad, isn’t he?” Carmen asked, taking her eyes off the road for a second to stare at Sophie.

  “And he doesn’t know a thing about it,” Sophie said.

  “And now you’ve got to tell him?” Carmen asked.

  “Yes I do, don’t I?” Sophie glanced at Carmen, whose eyes were fixed firmly on the road ahead, a frown slotted between her brows. Fear clutched Sophie’s stomach and her conviction wavered. “I mean, I do, don’t I? Have to tell him.”

  After a second Carmen pulled the car over and turned off the engine. She twisted in her seat to look at Sophie.

  “Let’s think about this,” Carmen said, tapping the leather-covered steering wheel with one long, enameled nail. “Do you have to tell him? Because, after all, if you hadn’t bumped into Wendy or if she hadn’t happened to have a wedding-lingerie business that her son was helping out with, then you would never have known any of this. You’d have gone and ordered your dream dress instead of running out, and we’d have come home tonight none the wiser.”

  “I know, but I did bump into Wendy and I did see Seth and I do know,” Sophie said, twisting her fingers in knots. “I do know, and how can I know something as profound about Louis as the existence of his own flesh and blood when he doesn’t? How can I possibly?”

  “I don’t know.” Carmen shrugged. “Does he know everything about you? Do you know everything about him? Look, that Wendy woman and her kid must have been living around here for months at least, only a few miles from where Louis lives, and nothing has happened. Maybe nothing needs to happen now. Maybe you don’t have to do this.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Would you tell James if another woman had had his child and he didn’t know about it?”

  Carmen’s face dropped and she dipped her head. “No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’d be too afraid of losing him.”

  “Really? You really think there’s the risk that I’ll lose Louis if he finds out about Seth? But how, why?”

  “Children change things,” Carmen said. “Kids—big ones, little ones—they change things, especially if they belong to someone else. I mean, it wouldn’t be just you and Louis and the girls anymore. It wouldn’t be just you and Louis and the girls and Seth. There’d be that Wendy woman, she’d be in your life for the rest of it too. Think about that.”

  “Bella and Izzy haven’t come between us, so why would Seth?” Sophie asked her.

  “I don’t know …I don’t know anything about him or his mother, I just know that this is a massive thing, Sophie. You have to think about this before you go through with it.”

  Sophie stared out at the road ahead as she tried to imagine having a conversation with Louis about his unknown son.

  “The thing is,” she said slowly, “I can’t marry a man I’m keeping such a huge secret from. I might want to, I might want to carry on and pretend I didn’t see Wendy or Seth, but I can’t. Because what if Louis finds out about Seth another way, maybe even bumps into him and Wendy the way I did? Cornwall is not a huge place and they both work in the wedding industry—it’s only a matter of time. What if he finds out that I knew and I didn’t tell him? No one can get married on that big a lie, Carmen, it just wouldn’t be right. So I’ve got to tell him—haven’t I?”

  Slowly Carmen nodded once, gently placing her palms on either side of Sophie’s head and turning her face to look at her.

  “Mate, you’re right—you’ve got to,” Carmen said. “There’s no way out of this one.”

  Izzy spotted Sophie first. The little girl was still in her uniform from morning nursery school, only now it was bejeweled with splotches of paint, and possibly jam, and what Sophie hoped was chocolate spread.

  “Aunty Sophie!” she cried out happily, running up to Sophie who picked her up and hugged the child’s sticky cheek against her own, noting Louis caught at the gate by one of the mothers who was no doubt arranging a play date. Louis was very popular with the mothers, a lone father carrying on with his children. They all loved him. Oddly, they hardly ever spoke more than two words to Sophie, but she supposed it was because she wasn’t a proper mother, not officially in the club, as she hadn’t ever given birth. She could be wrong, of course, but sometimes, standing on the playground waiting for the girls to either go in or leave school, it was far more intimidating and clique-ridden than being at school had ever been before.

  “Hello, poppet. How was school today?” Sophie asked her, careful to keep her voice cheerful. Woe betide anyone who referred to Izzy’s half day at nursery school as anything less than school. The four-year-old took it very seriously and considered herself to be just as much a schoolgirl as her big sister.

  “We learned letters and did role playing,” Izzy told her. “And for show and tell I did ‘I am going to be a bridesmaid with wings and a big skirt.’ But mostly I had to tell as I didn’t have anything to show.” She tipped her head to one side, her cascade of curls tumbling across her face. “When exactly can we get my wings and how often can I wear them? Do you remember my fairy dress, Aunty Sophie? I miss my fairy dress. What happened to it?”

  Sophie did indeed remember the garment that the then three-year-old Izzy had been wearing when she’d arrived at Sophie’s flat more than a year ago to stay with the guardian aunt she barely knew. It was an item of clothing she refused to take off. At one point Sophie had even resorted to bathing her in the outfit in a bid to get it clean. Izzy had clung to the dress with the determination and willfulness that only a small child can have, and it took Sophie a long time to realize that it was her comfort blanket, her familiar thing in a world full of strange faces and places. In a world where one moment she had been sitting in her mummy’s car singing along to the radio and in the next her mother was dead and she was all alone. When the dress could take no more abuse, Sophie had replaced it, but since they had come back to St. Ives, she’d thought Izzy had grown out of her obsession with it. Should she worry that the little girl mentioned it now? Could it be a sign that she wasn’t as happy and secure as Sophie hoped?

  “It’s in your wardrobe, sweetie,” Sophie told her. “Do you want to put it on when we get home?”

  “I was just thinking that I could use the wings to practice with,” Izzy said. “Until you get me my real wings. Will I be able to fly …?”

  “Hello?” Louis caught up and kissed Sophie on the cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Wedding fair a washout?”

  “It was …” Sophie hesitated. “It was unexpected. It made me think that we have a lot of things to talk about, Louis.” Which was true, but the knowledge of Seth must have given her voice a heavier edge because Louis’s face dropped.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. “I don’t like the whole ‘we have a lot of things to talk about’ line. What does that mean?”

  Sophie bit her bottom lip as she looked at him, unable to find the right words to reassure him.

  “Soph!” Louis’s laugh was uncertain. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” he asked her anxiously.

  “No …no, not at all. But you and I do need to talk.” Sophie looked into Louis’s eyes and decided that now was not the moment to bring up Seth. So she released her other concerns, which had been building before Seth eclipsed them all. “Especially before my mother gets involved and Cal sticks his oar in, otherwise we’ll end up having a three-ring circus instead of a wedding, and that’s not what I want. Besides, I’ve got this idea for a business that I think could really take off, and the best thing is that it will help your business too. The wedding fair gave me so much to think about, and not just our wedding, but all the money that’s to be made out there. Louis, I want to marry you on New Year’s Eve, but it’s so near and we’ll never find a nice place—”
>
  “Ah, but I have found a nice place.” Louis cut her off with a grin that reminded her of standing opposite Seth less than two hours ago, and made her feel guilty for changing the subject as if nothing at all had changed.

  “Really?” Sophie asked him, hopeful that this was a sign that everything was going to be okay.

  “Yes, subject to your approval of course,” Louis said. “Fineston Manor, up on the moor. It was where I was doing the magazine shoot, believe it or not. Homemade mince-filled pastries on a big, dark oak sixteenth-century trestle table—all very historical, you know. Anyway, it’s an amazing place. They have just got licensed to hold weddings, because the upkeep of the place is so expensive, and ours would be the first.”

  “That’s fantastic, it sounds perfect—exactly what I’m looking for for my business.”

  “Your business?” Louis was momentarily thrown. “Anyway, they said that in the winter there would be log fires and little candles everywhere. It could be really magical. I was talking to the owner while the food was getting fluffed. I’ve done some sums in my head and I think we can do it as long as we keep the guest list down …I’ll show you photos when we get back—”

  “Louis, that’s brilliant news,” Sophie said, hugging him so hard she winded him. “You don’t know how brilliant!”

  “Blimey, I was wrong about the cold feet, wasn’t I?” Louis said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m glad you’re pleased—you see? It’s a sign. It’s a sign that everything is going to be brilliant. I promise you.”

  “I know …” Sophie thought of those words rattling around in her head that she’d have to spit out sometime. “I know. Whatever happens, everything between you and me will be fine. Nothing can come between us.”

  Louis’s smile faded into a frown, but before he could press her further, Bella arrived carrying her book bag and a rather elaborate cardboard hat, with feathers and sequins glued onto it. She examined Sophie closely. “Why is everyone here? It is very unusual. Are we going to Ye Olde Tea Shoppe for tea? Is that why everyone is here? That would be acceptable.”