Friday's Child

by Clare Revell

  “She’s fine. I’ve seen her. We’ll be with her soon.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s at my parent’s place. I have six agents staking out the house. We’re going there for the night. We have to be at the hospital at four tomorrow afternoon.” He glanced out at the rising sun and smiled. “OK, this afternoon. There’s not much left of tonight.” He stifled a yawn.

  “You should sleep a little.”

  “I’ll spend most of tomorrow and the following day asleep. Elle, you mentioned family in your sleep.”

  A wry smile crossed her face. “Something PJ and that American officer said. About kids and a sister-in-law. It’s possible I have more family out there. That’s if they want anything to do with me.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s see I have a psychopathic brother named PJ and apparently another just as bad named RJ and my father “cooked the books” for drug dealers. How long will it be until RJ comes looking for me to pick up where PJ left off?”

  “You don’t have to worry about RJ. He’s dead.” Then he paused. “Sorry, I guess.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t want to talk about my family anymore.” She raised a hand and ran it slowly down his face. “You’re my hero. My tall, dark, handsome, stubbly hero.”

  Patrick turned into her touch and kissed her fingers. “You leave my stubble out of it.” He hugged her as the car pulled up outside his parent’s house. “Knowing my mum she’ll have made up a bed for you. You should try to get some sleep.”

  “I will, once I know Abbie’s all right.”

  Patrick slid out of the car and ran around to open the door for Elle. He wrapped an arm around her as soon as she got out and then headed into the house with her.

  The door opened as they got there. He smiled at his father. “Dad.”

  Dad smiled. “Come in. Are you both all right?”

  “I will be. Is Abbie OK?” Elle asked.

  “She’s sleeping upstairs in Patrick’s old room. I’ll take you.”

  “Thank you.” Patrick kept an arm around Elle as they followed Dad upstairs to the small back bedroom. He pushed open the door.

  Elle left his side and hurried to the bed, curling up behind her daughter. Tears ran silently down her face as she held her.

  Abbie opened her eyes. “Ellie?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Abbie turned over and clung tightly to Elle, sobbing hard.

  Patrick leaned against the doorframe, longing to hold them both, but having the sense to hold back for a few minutes.

  His mother appeared at his side. “Here,” she said, holding out a glass and two pain meds. “You should take these. Shay said you refused anything at the hospital.”

  “I needed to think. I still do.”

  “Patrick, you’re exhausted and in pain. I can see that just by looking at you. Take them. They’re just aspirin.”

  “Yes, Mum.” He swallowed the pills and then rubbed the back of his neck. “It was close,” he said quietly.

  “But you got her back.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.” Handing the glass back to her, he went into the bedroom and sat on the bed next to the two most important women in his life.

  Abbie looked at him. “Thank you for bringing Ellie back,” she said, hugging him.

  He hugged her back. “I promised, and I keep my promises.”

  “Speaking of promises.” Abbie looked at Elle. “You said we needed to talk?”

  26

  The silence was deafening. It was as if the whole world held its breath waiting for her next move. Elle looked at Patrick, then at Abbie. “I—”

  “Please, Ellie. You said you’d tell me what that man meant.”

  She’d dreaded this moment. Yet, she was partly glad the time for secrecy was over. There would be no more secrets in this family. Lord, give me the right words to explain this to her. “All right.”

  “I’ll leave you to talk.” Patrick started to get up.

  “Stay, please.” She ran her tongue over her lips and took a deep breath. “Yeah, the man in the car was right. I’m your mother and not your sister.”

  Abbie pulled away and sat bolt upright. “What? So you, Mum and Dad all lied to me?”

  She shook her head. “There were a lot of other things going on, things that you were too young to understand. Some things I’ve only just found out about myself.”

  “Don’t give me that ‘you were too young to understand’ codswallop. I am not too young,” Abbie yelled. “I’m almost fourteen. I’m not a kid anymore, Ellie. I have a right to know the truth, don’t I? You’ve just admitted I’ve been lied to all my life. Yet, you all told me never to lie. To always be honest even when telling the truth hurt and got me into trouble. What is this? One rule for me and another for the adults?”

  Elle studied her hands for a moment. “Yes, I did lie. I’m not denying that. I wish I knew how make it better, but I don’t.”

  Abby took a long breath. “You can’t make it better. But you can at least tell me the truth now. All of it.”

  “There were a lot of things going on. Things aren’t always black and white.” She twisted the cross on her chain. “First, you are my daughter. I got pregnant when I was at university. I didn’t intend…it just happened. After you were born, Mum and Dad insisted that they brought you up as their child. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

  Abbie face crumpled, tears fell from her eyes. “So I’m a mistake that wasn’t meant to happen. Oh, this just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”

  Elle shook her head. She reached for Abbie, then dropped her hand as the child pulled away. “That’s not true. You were very much wanted. I wanted you. I loved you from the moment I knew about you. Getting rid of you was never an option. Ever.” She looked at Abbie. “I promise that I would never do that to you or any other child I may have in the future. Life comes from God. From the minute the baby is conceived, it’s alive and needs caring for. I just had no choice in who brought you up.”

  “Course you did.”

  “Abbie, you know what Mum was like. It’s ironic. Neither of us were hers and she loved us so much. I just never knew she had secrets, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dad had an affair. I was the result of that relationship. Mum adopted me when my birth mother was killed. I found the papers in her things the other night.”

  Abbie pushed up off the bed and crossed the room. “But why did you do it? Why lie to me?”

  “I didn’t think I had a choice.” Tears filled her eyes. “I was young and couldn’t see any other way. It was either give you up, which I wasn’t prepared to do under any circumstance, or agree to their plan.”

  Abbie scowled. “So you agreed?”

  “I worked every hour I could for you, held down two, sometimes three jobs at once. I gave up university, my degree and hope of a high powered career. Nothing mattered except you. Everything you have, every trip you went on, I paid for. It was all I could do, all I had to give. It hurt so much watching you grow up, hearing you call her Mum and knowing you had no idea who I was.”

  Abbie folded her arms tightly. Her eyes narrowed and she looked so much like her father that Elle’s heart broke. What have I done? I just made things ten times worse.

  “Were you all ashamed of me? Is that why we kept moving?”

  “No, Abbie, I could never be ashamed of you. Dad was an accountant for a drug dealer.” Tears fell slowly down Elle’s face. “Mum tried to protect us.” Until she knew the truth about her mother’s involvement she wasn’t going to say anymore.

  “Why didn’t he marry you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The deadbeat who knocked you up. Or didn’t he want anything to do with you after you did it with him?” Abbie glared at her, using language designed to shock. “Did he leave you like Cori’s father did? Decided he didn’t want the responsibilities of being a father, so he left when things got tough?”

/>   “Abbie.” This wasn’t how she’d imagined the conversation going. “Your father is a good man. I left him, OK? I didn’t see him again or contact him. I wasn’t allowed to. It’s something I have regretted every day since.”

  “So who is he? Or don’t you know?”

  “You shouldn’t speak to Elle like that,” Patrick said.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Patrick.”

  Elle sucked in what should be a deep calming breath, but wasn’t. “It has everything to do with him,” she sighed. “Abbie, this isn’t the way I wanted to do it, but Patrick is your dad.”

  Abbie’s face became a snarl. She pushed to her feet, putting her good hand on her hip. “So where were you all my life, then?”

  “I didn’t know about you.” Patrick’s face dropped. “If I had, I would have been there every step of the way.”

  “Is that the reason you agreed to the transplant? To try to make up for not being there all my life?”

  He shook his head. “No, far from it.”

  Abbie took two steps backwards away from both of them.

  Patrick held up his good hand. “It’s all right to feel the way you do now.”

  Abbie glowered at him. “And how do I feel?” she spat. “You have no idea what I’m feeling, so don’t you start to patronize me.”

  “I don’t intend to. Right now, you’re mad and that’s a perfectly natural reaction. You should be upset and angry.”

  “I just found out my entire life is a lie. I’m an illegitimate waste of space neither of you wanted in the first place.”

  “You are wanted. Very much so, which is why your mother had you. Just don’t let your anger blind you to that fact, and above all don’t let your pride get in the way here.”

  Abbie rolled her eyes. “Get in the way of what?” she muttered.

  Elle sagged onto the bed. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. Abbie’s anger was just escalating and there was nothing she could do. Perhaps Patrick could calm her—he did this for a living after all. Well, not deal with angry kids, but stand offs and negotiations.

  “Your family.” Patrick looked at Elle and then back at their very angry daughter. “We all make mistakes and…”

  Abbie exhaled sharply. “What family?” she interrupted. “I have a liar for a mother, who didn’t even want kids and a father who was never around and pretended I didn’t exist. I must be the biggest mistake you two ever made. You wouldn’t even acknowledge me. And to top it off the man who I thought was my father was a criminal—” She paused. “Is that why someone’s been trying to kill us?”

  Patrick shook his head. “We are still working on the why someone tried to kill you. But I need you to listen to me very carefully for a couple of minutes now. OK?”

  Abbie shrugged. “Why?”

  “Because you’ve had your say and so’s Elle. And now it’s my turn. Some of what you said true, but not all. You are not a mistake. No child is a mistake. Children are important. Not only are they a gift from God, they are the legacy of the love between two people. Your mum and I were very much in love and you are the proof of that love.” He paused. “We aren’t perfect; no one is. Even though most people like to think they are.”

  “She lied to me,” Abbie insisted. “She tells me never to lie no matter what and in the same breath lies to me. When did she tell you about me?”

  Patrick’s face creased in pain and exhaustion. He rubbed the sling across his chest. “I didn’t know about you until you needed the transplant and Elle wasn’t a match. If I had known about you, things would have been different, I promise you that. I would have married her and fought tooth and nail for you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “And don’t you give me the ‘she hurt you so you are gonna hurt her back’ line either, because that doesn’t work. It just makes things so much worse for everyone involved. Including you.”

  Abbie glanced sideways at him and then looked back at the wall. “And how would you know?”

  “Abbie, the last few days have turned everything we thought we knew on its head. Elle found out she was adopted and her father, birth mother, and brothers were all involved in the drug trade. Cut her some slack, will you? She’s a victim, too.”

  He took a step closer and Abbie didn’t move this time. “I found out I had a daughter I didn’t know about. You found out your parents weren’t who you thought they were.” He knelt in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “You’ve been shot at, kidnapped, lost your grandmother. We are all hurting right now, but what you don’t want to do is throw away your family, because in the end they are all you have.”

  Her face softened, then the hard mask came down again. “Whatever. Just go back wherever you came from. I managed almost fourteen years without you. I don’t need you now.” Abbie pushed past him, running to the stairs.

  Elle stood. “Patricia Abigail Harrison, you get back here now.”

  “Get stuffed,” came the angry reply. “And my name is Abbie.” Her footsteps thudded down the stairs and away from them.

  “I’m sorry,” Patrick said, leaning heavily against the wall. “I thought I’d gotten somewhere.”

  “So did I.” Elle moved after her daughter.

  Patrick’s father appeared as if from nowhere and caught hold of her arm. “Let her go,” he said. “She can’t get out the front door and the garden is enclosed.”

  “I can’t just let her go,” Elle said, looking at Patrick and back to his father.

  Mr. Page nodded. “That’s exactly what you have to do. I know from bitter experience that the last people she is going to want to see or talk to right now are you two. Just give her time to think all this through. She’s just had a huge bombshell dropped on her.” He looked at Patrick. “You both know exactly how she feels at this precise moment.”

  “That is why I should go after her, Dad.”

  “No. Give her some space. Otherwise it will turn into a fight with both of you saying something you end up regretting for the next twenty years.”

  Elle looked at Patrick for a long moment and nodded.

  Mr. Page nodded. “Now, the two of you need to eat some breakfast. That should give Abbie enough time to calm down.”

  “Thanks Dad. We’ll be down in a few.”

  Elle studied her hands, tears sliding unbidden down her face. “Made a mess of that, didn’t I?”

  Patrick wrapped his arm around her. “We both did. I guess she’s just got to work through this for herself.”

  “She was right. I used double standards on her. The old ‘do what I say not do what I do’ routine.” She leaned into him heavily. “What have I done?”

  “You did what you had to,” he told her. “But it’s where we go from here that matters.”

  “Guess only God knows that,” she managed, trying to swallow the huge choking sobs.

  Patrick nodded. He held her close, starting to pray.

  ****

  Patrick opened his eyes. He had dozed on the couch, Elle resting against his good shoulder. Pain and a cramped arm woke him, but he didn’t move. He flicked his gaze first to the clock and then to the patio window. Abbie was still on the swing where she’d been when his eyes closed on him.

  Liam smiled at him. “How are you doing?”

  “Not great. Sorry, I hadn’t intended to sleep for three hours.”

  “It’s fine, bro. You needed it.”

  “I guess. So tell me, why is it I can talk down terrorists and gunmen holding women hostage, but can’t cope with a thirteen year old?”

  “Kids are a minefield. Take that from one who works with them on a daily basis. Abbie’s a good kid. I’ve sat with her, talked with her a little.”

  “And?” Patrick allowed a spark of hope to burn.

  “She’s still pretty upset, hence being out there and not in here. She’s reached the ‘I’m worthless’ stage. Give her another hour or so and she’ll be ready to listen to you.”

  “Maybe.”

  Elle shifted
and sat up slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

  “It’s fine, love. I did too.”

  “Where’s Abbie?” Elle got up and turned around wildly.

  “She’s in the garden,” Liam said. “Three of Patrick’s team are with her.”

  Elle moved stiffly over to the window. She stretched slowly and leaned against the glass.

  Patrick rose and joined her. “If she went any higher on that swing, she’d end up flying.”

  “Like someone else I know,” Liam said from behind him. “Every time Patrick got into a strop over something, he’d be out there on that swing as hard, fast and high as he could. He even broke it once, do you remember?”

  “Yeah. The swing went one way and I went the other. I landed in the roses and the swing ended up on Dad’s runner beans.”

  Patrick wrapped his arm around Elle, pulling her tight against his chest. He leaned his head against hers. The scent of shampoo and perfume filled his senses. How could things have gone so wrong? A simple case had become a nightmare.

  He watched Abbie as she moved back and forth on the swing, holding tightly to the rope with one hand. She kicked fast, going higher and higher until she was flying. Tears streamed down her face, visible even from here. She glanced over at them, then looked away, kicking harder. Liam was right, she was like him in that respect. He’d spent hours doing just what she was doing now. The others would storm off to the bedroom and slam doors. He’d run to the swing and go as high and fast as he could.

  He remembered the freedom he’d felt in that—

  Abbie’s head lolled back and her hands fell to her sides. Her thin body flew through the air before landing hard on the ground.

  “Abbie…”

  Patrick ran down the path, Elle at his side, Liam behind them.

  She lay motionless, a trickle of blood coming from her mouth.

  “Abbie…” Elle screamed. “Abbie, open your eyes.”

  Patrick felt for a pulse, raw terror twisting within him. “Liam, call an ambulance,” he yelled. “Elle, don’t move her.”

  “Abbie…”

  He stilled her hands. “Don’t move her, love.”