The Accidental Mother

by Rowan Coleman

  “I decided to call Carrie. I wanted to tell her I was coming home and that whatever happened between us, I’d be there for my child. I had just enough left on my card to make the call and for a return flight.” Louis’s face darkened. “Only Carrie didn’t answer the phone. Tony answered. I should have asked to speak to Carrie, but I still loved her then. Hearing his voice was like twisting the knife in my gut, so I just hung up.”

  He sighed. “Again I reacted like a spoiled child. I should just have got that flight home anyway, worked things out with Carrie for Bella’s sake. But the thought of doing that hurt too much. Of being near her but not being with her. I decided it would be better to let Carrie build her life with her new family. I told myself that Bella would forget me soon enough and that would be for the best.” He shook his head bitterly. “What bollocks. What a fucking idiot.”

  Sophie watched his profile as he looked out the window trying to find the words to continue his story. It was as if everything he had told her was about a different man entirely from the one sitting opposite her now. Could anyone have changed that much in the space of three years? From someone as impulsive and rash as the man Louis had been talking about to someone capable of bringing up a family on his own. Someone solid and reliable. Could a person change so completely just by growing up? Something tightened in Sophie’s chest as she watched him, and sensing her looking at him, he turned toward her and smiled. “Shall I go on?” he said.

  Sophie nodded, not quite able to return his smile, which faded when she did not respond.

  He took a deep breath and began again. “So anyway, I got a flight to Brazil instead. I decided I was never going home. I decided I was going to travel around South and Central America. But when I got to Peru, I stayed there. It’s such a beautiful place, and so different from, well, here—” Louis gestured around him. “It felt like I was finally far enough away for it to stop hurting. I had been in Lima for about six months volunteering for the kids’ charity by the time I realized that Carrie would have had her baby. I’d never had myself down as the worthy charity type, but it was good working there. Like being part of a big family. They helped me get a visa, gave me a place to live and food.” Louis smiled. “I worked with street children, incredibly brave and resourceful children. The foundation gave them a place to come where they could feel safe for a night, eat a meal, and learn something if they wanted. Play if they wanted.”

  “And in the evenings and on weekends, I worked in a tourist bar in town, so I was never still. I never had time to think. And then one day it hit me. The baby would have been born.

  “It took me a long time to get up the courage to make the phone call, but I did. This time I was prepared for Tony to answer, but I knew I had to talk to Carrie to find out how she was, how Bella was. And the baby.”

  Sophie realized she was sitting on the edge of her seat.

  “But Tony didn’t answer the phone. Carrie did, and she seemed really pleased to hear from me. She told me she had had a beautiful little girl and that they were doing fine. I said I was glad things were working out for her, and then she seemed to think for a moment before telling me Tony had left. But the three of them were happy.”

  Sophie could picture Carrie saying those words exactly. She always believed in living with the consequences of her choices, no matter what they were. Mrs. Stiles had said once that Carrie wore her mistakes like badges of honor, and Carrie had said that was the nicest thing her mother had ever said about her. But that was the difference between Sophie and Carrie. Carrie made choices decisively and rode them out no matter what happened. Sophie never chose what happened in her life—she let fate choose for her and never questioned how different things could be.

  “Instantly I offered to come back on the next flight,” Louis said. “I told her that she’d hurt me badly but I still loved her. I’d come back and we’d work things out. There was this long silence, and I could almost taste the hope in my mouth.”

  “‘I don’t want you back, Louis,’ she said. ‘What happened with Tony is over, but I still don’t love you anymore. I know I should, and I did once—so much. But I don’t now. It’s just gone. There’s no point in you coming back for me, I want you to know that. But if you want to see the girls, I’ll never stand in your way.’

  “We said good-bye, and then she added one more thing. ‘There’s something else you should know,’ she said. ‘Your daughter’s name is Izzy.’” Louis stopped talking. He rubbed his thumb over his eyes.

  Sophie chewed her lip, tasting her hastily applied lipstick. She didn’t know what to think about everything Louis had told her. She felt an urge to defend Carrie, but how could she when she had known nothing about any of this? Sophie closed her eyes for a moment and thought about the last time she had seen Carrie, playing the scene back in her head. There had been a moment after the christening when Sophie had thought that Carrie wanted to talk about something else. But she had hesitated and then changed the subject. Maybe she’d been going to tell Sophie all this then. But if she had and decided not to, it meant that even though Carrie had asked her best friend to be the girls’ godmother and guardian she had not felt able to tell the truth about what had happened. She must have felt very lonely, Sophie realized.

  “Why didn’t you come back for Bella and Izzy? Carrie wouldn’t have stopped you seeing them.”

  Louis was silent for a long moment, before taking a deep breath. “At first it was because I still loved Carrie so much. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back there and not being with her. It was selfish and stupid and immature. But the grief sort of swamped me. The only way I could get through it was to not think about it. I had to make myself not feel it. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do,” Sophie said so emphatically that Louis paused and raised an eyebrow.

  “And then one morning I was working in the vegetable garden with some of the children, and they were slinging mud around and laughing and I laughed too and it was the first time I had really laughed and meant it in nearly two years. It was like I suddenly dropped all of this weight that had been dragging me down. All of that pain and hurt that had been crowding out every other feeling finally dissolved. For the first time I could see things clearly. I could see what I had done.” Louis shook his head as if he were still perplexed by his own behavior.

  “From then on I planned to come back. I knew I wanted to see my own children laughing like that. But it wasn’t as simple as hopping on a plane again. I had to get together money for a flight home, which took a long time—almost a year. And during that time I was training new volunteers to replace me. I didn’t want to leave the children in the lurch. They were like a second family to me. I wanted to come back to England and I knew I had to come back but it was still hard to leave. People had been really good to me there, and I was waiting until I didn’t love Carrie anymore, because I thought it would be easier to be around her if I didn’t love her.” Louis leveled his gaze at Sophie. “I’d been ready to come back for months, but when you called I hadn’t quite got the money for the flight together.”

  It took a moment for Sophie to let that last piece of information sink in. “Did you still want to get back with Carrie?” she asked him, careful not to let any emotion color her voice.

  Louis shook his head. “I wanted to see her, I wanted to apologize to her for behaving the way that I did. I wanted to mend bridges and make things right. I had no idea how I would feel when I saw her. Now I’ll never know. I left it too late.” He swallowed. “It makes me very sad that I can’t do that, and I wish she were still here, I really do. But I didn’t love her anymore—not like that. All of those feelings had been gone for a long time.”

  Sophie nodded and let out a long breath. “Did you have a lover in Lima?”

  The look of surprise on his face matched her own surprise at having asked the question, which was, after all, none of her business. But instead of being offended, Louis shrugged. “I had a couple of girlfriends,” he said. “Not at
the same time!” he added hastily. “But it was never anything…special.” Amazingly, Louis didn’t seem to have a problem with explaining himself to Sophie, so she decided to ask him just one more impertinent question that had been in the back of her mind before shutting up.

  “When I called you that night, you thought I was someone else. You called me babe. Who did you think I was? One of you girlfriends?”

  Louis furrowed his brow as if genuinely confused. “No, I hadn’t been seeing anyone for ages and…” Then he laughed. “Maureen!” he said. “It was Maureen.”

  “Maureen?” Sophie asked.

  “She was my U.K. contact at the charity. Lovely woman, but always getting the time difference wrong. She was going to help me find a job and a flat to rent back in St. Ives. When they told me an Englishwoman was calling at that time of the morning, I thought it had to be Maureen. I’ve never met her. I’ll be seeing her next week, but she’s got two children older than us, so I don’t think she’ll be my type. She’s lined me up with a local charity for inner-city kids who need a break from city life.”

  Louis leaned back in his chair and regarded Sophie for a long moment, the promise of a smile hiding somewhere around his lips. “So after all that, do you think I’m a bastard?” he asked her quietly.

  Sophie considered the question carefully. All of this was too much for her to take in. Cal always said she had intimacy issues, and now she realized she had emotional issues too. She could not feel one more thing without imploding. She was feeling pain, loss, guilt, and something else, something hopeful and yearning, all flowing recklessly over a strong undercurrent of attraction to the last man in the world she should feel that way about—her dead best friend’s husband.

  She realized Louis was waiting for an answer. She struggled to find some words that would sound normal.

  “I think you were hurting, and when people hurt they don’t always do everything right,” she said.

  Louis bit his lip and nodded. “I was hoping for a simple no,” he said wryly.

  “But it isn’t simple, is it?” Sophie replied, not exactly sure what she was talking about anymore. “It’s really seriously complicated.”

  They watched each other across the table in silence for a beat.

  “Yes,” Louis said, without taking his eyes off her. “It is.”

  “Anyway,” Sophie added hesitantly. “It’s just a matter of time before Tess calls and tells you the children are yours. It doesn’t matter what I think of you.”

  Slowly Louis leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he closed the distance between them by a few inches. “It does matter,” he said, his voice low. “It matters to me.”

  Sophie found that her mouth was dry and that it was difficult to swallow. She took a sip of her drink and moistened her lips.

  “For what it’s worth, Louis,” she said, still desperately trying to prize another meaning into this conversation, and yet terrified of what it might really mean, “I think you’ll be a great father. I think the three of you will be really happy. I’ve already told Tess that too.”

  Louis shook his head. “Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot—but that’s not what I meant.”

  Sophie felt as if each muscle in her body was rigid. She felt that it was entirely possible that she might fossilize right there in the pub. They’d be able to slice her up and sell her in a local gift shop: “Genuine Petrified Woman.”

  “I didn’t really remember you,” Louis said. “Before I came back I mean. Carrie talked about you a lot, and there was a photo in a frame. But I never really looked at it.” He paused and bit his lip. “So it came as a total shock to me to find out that you’re so beautiful.” Sophie did not move. “That first night I came to your flat and we were talking in the hallway and you took off your coat and—Well, does it sound corny to say you took my breath away?” Sophie did not know what to say, but luckily Louis didn’t wait for an answer. “It does, doesn’t it?” he said. “It sounds like a line. But believe me, at that moment I might have thought you were seriously hot, but I never dreamt I’d start to think about you the way I am now. I was so angry when I left that night, with myself and with you. So I thought, I’ll just put the fact that you are so beautiful to one side. It was easy at first. I was there for my children and nothing else. You hated me, and to top it off you were my dead, estranged wife’s best friend. Not exactly the perfect girl to fancy.” Louis smiled. “Actually, I thought you were one of those women who care more about not chipping her nail polish than anything else. And you were a bit of a bitch.”

  Sophie had thought she had been genuinely afraid for the first time in her life earlier that day, when she had been up to her waist in seawater. But no, actually that had been a walk in the park compared with the pure fear and adrenaline that were coursing through her veins at this moment. What exactly was Louis saying?

  “I’m seriously attracted to you, Sophie,” he said. “Every sensible part of my body is screaming at me to shut up. But there’s something there, isn’t there? Between us. I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling here, and I know it’s insane for me to be saying all this to you, but I think I’ll go insane if I don’t.”

  He picked up Sophie’s hand and held her fingers lightly. “Look, I know, if there was ever a wrong time, a wrong place, or a wrong person to say this to, then it’s now, it’s here, and you’re that person. But I have to say it, Sophie. For a while now, every time I look at you I want to touch you. Every time I touch you, I want to kiss you, and if I could kiss you, I don’t think I’d be able to stop.” He waited for a moment, and when Sophie did not move he let go of her hand. “In my head that last part sounded much less cheesy. Look, I’m sorry. I just thought that maybe—I just couldn’t let us go back to our lives without saying out loud how much I’m drawn to you, that’s all. Call me impulsive, but life’s too short.” Louis tried and failed to gauge Sophie’s expression. He smiled weakly. “You can slap me now, if you like.”

  Sophie stood up so abruptly that her chair scraped along the stone floor. She willed herself outside, dimly aware of people lifting their heads to watch her race past them. At last she was bathed in the cold night air, and she felt her skin begin to cool. She crossed the street to the harbor front, leaned against the railing, and watched the foam-topped waves shining in the moonlight as they raced inland. From the moment they had stepped into Carrie’s house that morning, the whole day had seemed like a dream. It seemed as if she had experienced more emotion and turmoil in the space of the last few hours than she had since, well, since the day her father died. She heard the rush of the sea more clearly, smelled the chill in the air more sharply, and saw each tiny reflection of light in the dark water perfectly. And she sensed Louis at her side a second before he reached her.

  “I didn’t know if you wanted me to follow you or not,” he said. “So I thought I’d follow you on the off chance.”

  She turned to face him. “I’m glad you did.” Louis opened his mouth to speak, but Sophie stopped him. “Look, if you want me to talk about other people’s feelings, then I can. I can do that all night. I am a very good advice giver. But I am not the sort of person who finds it easy to talk about myself. I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now or what it means. I don’t even understand it. But all of the things you said in there about me, I could say them back to you,” she finished awkwardly.

  “You mean you feel it too?” Louis asked uncertainly.

  “I do,” Sophie said with difficulty. Louis smiled, but before he could say or do anything, Sophie put the flat of her hand on his chest and halted him. “But this isn’t right, Louis. For us to do anything about it would be wrong. I think it might be really wrong—”

  He nodded, his smile fading slightly. “You’re probably right,” he said. “But, well, would it matter…if we had just one night without thinking about anyone or anything else except for this ‘thing’ that’s going on between us?”

  Sophie studied him in the moonlight. Tha
t was all he was talking about. A one-night stand, a sort of therapeutic session to clear away the sexual tension. She felt simultaneously relieved, sad, and excited, because if that was all it would be, then it didn’t really count and there would be no consequences. It could be like stepping off the planet for a few hours and leaving it all behind. And for once Sophie wanted to do something completely foreign to her nature. Tonight she wanted to know what it felt like to be reckless and not care about tomorrow.

  “I want to know,” she said. “Which probably makes me an idiot.”

  “That makes two of us,” Louis said.

  “Do you think so, because…” Sophie began again, earnestly trying to rationalize what she was saying.

  “Let’s stop talking now,” Louis said, laying the tips of his fingers gently over her mouth. He watched her in the moonlight, tracing the curves of her lips, and then at last he kissed her so that all she could feel for a wondrous few moments was the heat of his mouth warming every fiber of her being. Sophie broke off the kiss and found she was giggling.

  “Not the response I was expecting,” Louis said, smiling as she buried her face in his jacket.

  She caught her breath and looked up. “I must be drunk,” she said. “This isn’t normal.”

  “Well, don’t back out on me now. Remember what I said about thinking I might not be able to stop kissing you once I started? I was right.” Louis rested his hand on her shoulders, his fingers entwined in her hair. “Sophie, stay with me tonight? Just tonight, please?” he asked her, touchingly nervous.

  Sophie looked into his eyes and felt a heady rush of intoxication that she was sure had nothing to do with brandy. “I guess we’re going to find out how we both fit in that single bed after all,” she said, and she took a step into thin air and kept on walking.

  Twenty-six