by Kate Hardy
‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘I grew up with dogs, so I miss having one around and it’s nice to be able to help Evelyn with him.’
With Georgia working part time, Lorenzo had thought about getting a dog. His family had always had a dog while he was growing up and he had wanted the same opportunities for Florence. Especially as Florence had always made a beeline for Suki, his parents’ golden retriever, whenever they had been at his parents’ house. He’d been about to suggest it when Georgia had dropped the bombshell about Florence not being his, and that she was leaving him to make a new life with Florence’s natural father.
She’d moved away and left him to pick up the pieces of his own life—selling the house, which had taken months and months, and giving Georgia her share through his lawyer; sorting out all the paperwork for the divorce; facing all the pity and the conversations that stopped suddenly when he walked into the staff kitchen at work; and seeing the sorrow in his mother’s eyes every time she looked at him, because she clearly realised how deeply all this had hurt him and hated the fact she couldn’t fix it for him.
Lorenzo had struggled on for more than a year. He’d actually been at the point of asking his parents if they’d look after a dog for him during the day, because going back to that empty house with all the memories had made him so lonely and miserable. And then finally the house had sold and then the job had come up at Muswell Hill Memorial Hospital. The same job he’d always loved, but with new colleagues who didn’t know his past and wouldn’t look at him with pity. He’d jumped at the chance.
He knew he ought to tell Jenna about Florence. He didn’t think she was the pitying sort, but he didn’t want to take the risk that it would change the way she saw him. He liked the fact that she saw him for himself.
‘Let’s play ball with him,’ he said, and held his hand out for the tennis ball.
Once they’d tired Charlie out and had a cup of tea with Evelyn, they spent a lazy day together, enjoying the food stalls and choosing fresh produce for dinner at Borough Market. ‘Would I be right in thinking that you don’t have a griddle pan?’ he asked.
Jenna just laughed. ‘You’re lucky I have even normal pans, let alone fancy ones. Are you quite sure I can’t tempt you to a bowl of hand-poured granola with hand-chopped fruit and hand-spooned Greek yoghurt tonight?’
He laughed back, enjoying her sense of humour. ‘So that’d be a no if I asked if you had specialist pasta cutters, too.’
She gestured to the stalls. ‘That’s what this place is for. So people don’t have to buy flashy gadgets they use once and then the things sit gathering dust in their kitchen cupboards. It’s much, much easier and quicker to buy ready-prepped food from someone who knows what they’re doing with the gadgets.’
‘Remind me not to buy you a spiraliser instead of a bunch of flowers,’ he teased back. ‘I’ll bake the salmon tonight rather than grilling it, then. I could cook it with a pesto crust.’
‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to be an award-winning chef like your cousin?’ she asked.
‘I just like cooking,’ he said. And it was good to cook for someone else, to share the pleasure of food rather than sit at a table with only a medical journal for company.
* * *
Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny.
‘After we’ve walked Charlie,’ Lorenzo said, ‘how do you fancy going to the seaside?’
‘That would be perfect,’ Jenna said. ‘It’s ages since I’ve been for a paddle in the sea.’
Once they’d tired out the energetic cockapoo, he drove them down to Brighton. It was a long while since Lorenzo had been to the seaside, too, and he’d even made excuses to avoid Italy for the last year or so, because being with his big, happy, extended family was too painful a reminder of what he’d lost. But the sunshine, the sound of the waves swishing across the pebbles on the beach, and the scent of salt and vinegar from the fish and chip stands brightened his mood.
Better still, he was with Jenna. Being with her felt like being bathed in sunshine.
‘So are you a funfair person?’ she asked.
He had been. Florence had laughed and clapped her hands as he’d taken her on the carousel, holding her safely in front of him on the painted wooden horse. ‘Dada! Horsey!’ He’d loved taking her to the swings and slides at the park.
‘Lorenzo?’ she asked softly, squeezing his hand.
‘I...’ He took a deep breath. This would be good for him. It might exorcise a ghost, maybe. ‘Let’s give it a go.’
As if she’d guessed that he was finding this hard, she held his hand without comment, not pushing him to talk but making it clear she was there for him. They started at one end of the pier and did every single thrill ride until they were out at the other end.
‘Better?’ she asked softly.
‘Better,’ he confirmed, and kissed her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time.’ But that wasn’t pity in her eyes. It was sympathy. And he liked the fact that she hadn’t pushed him and asked: that she was waiting until he was ready to explain. ‘Fish and chips are on me.’
‘I’ll take you up on that.’ He stole another kiss.
They were halfway to the nearest fish and chip shop when they heard a scream and saw a small child sprawled on the pavement next to a lamp-post. The mum looked worried and the baby in the pram started wailing.
‘I’m a doctor. Can I do anything to help?’ Jenna asked, going over to them.
‘I...’ The woman raked a hand through her hair.
‘Cuddle the baby,’ Jenna said, ‘and we’ll look after your little girl—we’re both doctors. I’m Jenna and this is Lorenzo.’
‘I’m Sally. And my daughter’s Daisy.’ Gratefully, Sally scooped up the baby and began rocking him against her shoulder.
‘Daisy.’ Jenna gently picked up the little girl. ‘Where does it hurt, sweetheart?’ she asked.
‘I bumped my head,’ the little girl sobbed. ‘And my knee. I want Mummy.’
‘Mummy’s here,’ Sally said. ‘The nice lady’s a doctor and she’ll make you better.’
‘Can I have a look at your bumped head?’ Jenna asked.
The little girl gave a shy nod.
‘You’ll definitely have a bit of a bump there tomorrow,’ Jenna said, and took a small first-aid kit from her bag. ‘I’m going to wipe your knee and put a plaster on it. While I’m doing that, can you sing me a song?’
In response, Daisy sobbed.
‘You can help me sing a song, if you like,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Do you know “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”?’
‘Ye-es,’ she said, sounding slightly doubtful.
‘Let’s sing it together, and you can choose what animals we sing about,’ Lorenzo said.
Jenna gave him a grateful smile. While Lorenzo distracted the little girl with ‘Old MacDonald’—getting her to do the animal noises and a very loud ‘ee-I-ee-I-oh’—she cleaned up the cut and put a sticking plaster on it.
‘It’s a non-allergenic plaster,’ she told Sally. ‘As she had a bump on her head, I just want to check her pupils, if that’s OK with you?’
At Sally’s nod, she took a penlight from her bag. ‘Daisy, your singing is beautiful. Can you keep singing with Lorenzo while I shine a little light in your eyes?’
‘Yes,’ Daisy said, this time sounding less unsure.
‘Equal and reactive,’ Jenna said when she’d checked Daisy’s pupils. ‘Which is a very good thing.’
‘What’s happened?’ A man carrying wrapped parcels from the fish and chip shop came hurrying over.
‘Daddy!’ Daisy said, and burst into tears.
‘Daisy fell and bumped her head. These nice people are doctors—they’re helping,’ Sally said.
‘Thank you,’ he said. But then he looked worried as Sally’s words sank in. ‘Bumped her head? Do we need to take her to ho
spital?’
Jenna shook her head. ‘Just keep an eye on her for now. Children often go to sleep after a bump on the head, but keep a check on her and make sure you can wake her. If you can’t wake her, or say by the end of the afternoon she tells you she has a headache, she feels sick or she’s still sleepy, take her straight in to the emergency department and tell them when she bumped her head and what her symptoms are.’
‘Thank you,’ Sally said, still rocking the baby, whose wailing had turned to soft, huffing sobs. ‘Both of you. That was so kind of you to help.’
‘It’s what anyone would do,’ Jenna said with a smile. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You’re really good with children,’ Lorenzo said as they walked on.
Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘I hope so, or I’d be a bit rubbish at my job.’
‘No, I mean you have that warmth about you. Kids respond to you.’
‘They respond to you, too,’ she said. ‘And it’s not just your packs of cards and terrible jokes.’
Tell her.
She hadn’t been judgemental when he’d told her the bare bones about Georgia. And that definitely hadn’t been pity in her eyes.
Could he tell her?
If he opened up to her, would it change things?
Stupid question. Of course it would change things. But maybe she could help him move on. It still wouldn’t be closure, but Jenna would have a different perspective on the situation, not having been involved. She might help him see a way through.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he said.
‘Sure.’ As if she guessed that he wanted to tell her something monumental, she didn’t try to chatter; she simply held his hand and waited while he found a relatively quiet spot on the beach.
Tell her.
He took a deep breath. The words felt as if they would stick in his throat, but he forced them out. ‘I used to be a dad.’
She didn’t leap in with questions. But she held his hand very tightly, just letting him know that she was there.
He braved a glance. There was only concern for him in her face. Gentleness, warmth, kindness.
He stared at the sea. Now he’d made up his mind to talk, why wouldn’t the words come?
‘You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,’ she said. ‘But, if it helps, I’m not going to judge you—and everything that you say to me will be strictly in confidence.’
Funny, he hadn’t even considered that. He already knew that that Jenna wasn’t a gossip. ‘Thank you.’ He was silent for what felt like minutes, though it was probably only a few seconds. And then he swallowed hard. ‘I met Georgia at a party—she was a nurse in the emergency department at the London Victoria, where we both worked. We started dating, and I fell for her. She was funny and sweet and smart. We’d been together for about six months when she told me she was pregnant.’ He continued staring out to sea. ‘The baby wasn’t planned, but it didn’t matter. We were going to be a family. I loved her and thought that she loved me. I asked her to marry me and she said yes.’
Now he’d actually started talking, the words spilled out in a rush. ‘What I didn’t know was that Georgia had an on-again, off-again relationship with a guy she’d gone to school with. Scott had fallen in with a bad crowd in his teens and started taking cars for joyriding. He’d been in court for it a couple of times; but it went from there to petty theft and then burglary. He was caught and sent to prison for a few months. Georgia broke up with him because he broke his promise to her to go straight, and that was the night she met me. When he was released from prison, he asked to see her. She told him it was over, but I guess they had a moment for old times’ sake. Because he thought it was over between them for good, in his eyes there wasn’t any point in trying to go straight, so he ended up back with his old crowd. He was arrested for burglary and sent back to prison—this time for two years. And I suppose Georgia panicked when she realised she was pregnant.’
‘Because she looked at the timing and couldn’t be sure if the baby was yours or his, and he would still be in prison when the baby was born?’ Jenna guessed.
Lorenzo nodded. ‘She talked it over with her family. They all liked me and they persuaded her I’d be a much better dad to the baby and a better partner for her than Scott would.’ He grimaced. ‘I should’ve seen all the clues and worked it out for myself, but I didn’t. I just took everything she said at face value. She said she didn’t want to get married until after the baby was born, because she didn’t want to be pregnant in her wedding dress. I know it’s sexist of me, but I put it down to pregnancy hormones.’
‘It was a reasonable guess,’ Jenna said.
He sighed. ‘I didn’t push her because I didn’t want to pressurise her. I tried to be understanding. But, because we weren’t married when she had Florence, she didn’t put my name on Florence’s birth certificate. She said it didn’t feel right to do that when we weren’t married, and she’d get it changed as soon as we got married—but then she just didn’t get round to it. Again maybe I was sexist, but I assumed some of it was post-pregnancy hormones and some of it was because it just isn’t that easy to adjust to having a baby. I talked to a colleague to see how I could make things better, in case she had post-natal depression.’
Jenna squeezed his hand. ‘That’s not sexist, it’s thoughtful. Putting yourself in her shoes and actually considering that things might not be OK for her.’
‘It didn’t ever occur to me that there was someone else. That she snapped at me all the time because I wasn’t the one she wanted around, and that made her feel guilty and snap at me even more. I tried to be a decent, supportive husband and a good father.’ And that was the rub. Maybe he hadn’t been a great husband, but he knew he’d been a good dad. ‘I fell in love with Florence, the moment I first held her,’ Lorenzo said softly. ‘She was my little girl.’ He looked away again. ‘And then, when Florence was eighteen months old, Scott was released from prison. He came round, saying that his mum had told him about the baby and he’d worked out the dates and knew Florence was his. This time, he really would go straight, for his daughter’s sake. He wanted to be a family with them.’ He blew out a breath.
‘Scott was the love of Georgia’s life, and he told her what she wanted to hear. To be honest, once I’d seen his picture, it was pretty obvious that Florence was Scott’s daughter. They both had the same red hair and grey eyes—and you and I both know that dark hair and dark eyes are dominant, genetically speaking. I assumed that maybe red hair ran in Georgia’s family, plus Georgia had grey eyes. But, the second I saw Scott, I could see that Florence was his.’ His face tightened. ‘Georgia did a DNA test without telling me, and the results proved beyond all doubt that Scott was Florence’s father.’
‘That’s...’ Jenna shook her head, as if unable to find the right words. ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that.’
‘Me, too,’ he said softly. ‘I couldn’t contest Georgia for custody, because my name had never been on Florence’s birth certificate and she had absolute proof that Florence wasn’t my child. Bringing her up as my daughter for eighteen months counted for nothing. Georgia and Scott moved away, and she said it would’ve been too confusing to keep me in Florence’s life.’
‘But so many blended families manage to deal with having more than one mother or father. Surely it wouldn’t have been that difficult?’ Jenna asked.
‘That wasn’t the way Georgia saw it.’
‘Does Georgia at least let you know that Florence is OK?’ Jenna asked. ‘Does she send you photos, so you can see Florence growing up?’
‘No. She insisted on a clean break as part of the divorce settlement.’ And that was the bit that hurt the most. He could just about handle the fact that he hadn’t been Mr Right for Georgia, that she’d cheated on him with the man she really loved, but losing his daughter felt like being flayed alive. ‘I hope for Florence’s sake that Scott
really has turned his life around and he’s a good father to her.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I did go to see her parents, but they said Georgia was their daughter so they had to stand by her wishes and support her. Obviously that didn’t help me, but I understand where they were coming from.’ He grimaced. ‘Short of hiring a private detective, I have no way of knowing how Florence is getting on.’ And how he hated that. ‘She’ll be three in a few weeks’ time. And I won’t even be able to wish her a happy birthday.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘That’s hard. I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t want pity, Jenna.’
‘I’m not offering pity,’ she said. ‘I’m sad that you’ve been so hurt, and to be honest I’m pretty angry on your behalf that Georgia didn’t try to find a better compromise. Why didn’t she tell you when she did the pregnancy test that she’d met up with Scott again and she wasn’t sure if the baby was his or yours?’
‘Maybe she was scared that I’d walk away as soon as she told me she’d cheated on me, so she’d end up being alone and would find it hard to cope with the baby,’ Lorenzo said with a sigh. ‘When she realised she was pregnant, Scott had already been taken into custody and the evidence against him was watertight. And she didn’t actually know whether the baby was mine.’
‘It was a difficult situation for both of you.’
‘I wouldn’t have walked away from her. Yes, of course it hurt that she slept with her ex, but we could’ve got past that. I would’ve supported her. I’m not...’
‘Not like my ex,’ she supplied. ‘You’re one of the good guys. And I’m sorry you got hurt like that.’
He shrugged. ‘I guess at least she didn’t lie on the birth certificate.’ But that was a very small consolation.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said. ‘There isn’t anything I can do to make it better. But thank you for trusting me.’
‘Thank you for listening.’
This time she wrapped her arms round him. ‘This isn’t out of pity. It’s a hug, because sometimes that’s better than words.’