by Emma Jackson
‘No. That’s it. Her name is Lila. She must be about…twenty-five now?’
‘And you left them when?’
‘When she was six.’ He gave a humourless smile. ‘I managed three more years that time.’
My heart was beating a frenzy where my chest pressed against my arm. ‘You are unbelievable.’ I took my napkin from my lap, dumping it in a heap on the table, and grabbed my wallet, throwing down enough money to cover the meal. ‘I need to go.’
He stood up slowly as I did. ‘I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment to you. This is why I stayed away—’
I held up my hand. ‘No. I don’t want to hear any more from you.’
‘Will you still help my wife?’ he called after me as I started for the door, walking around the tables, people looking up from their meals furtively and whispering.
I reached the door and threw him one last look before I yanked it open. ‘Yes.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Oh my God, Stephen, what’s going on? Are you all right?’ Noelle’s hands went straight to my face when she opened the door, her palms warm and soft against my damp cheeks. ‘You’re hot and shivering and wet? Are you ill? Is it raining? What’s happened?’
‘Which question do you want me to answer first?’ I said through my chattering teeth.
She tugged me inside and pushed me down onto her sofa. ‘Whatever one you can.’ She pulled her desk chair over to sit in front of me, scooping her hair off her face. Her cheek was mottled with little lines like she’d fallen asleep on one of her sequinned cushions.
‘Is it late? I’m sorry. I didn’t look at the time.’
She glanced behind her at her laptop, swiped at the mouse pad so it woke up. ‘Just after eleven.’ She didn’t say anything else, though I was sure she desperately wanted to. She leaned forward and wiped at my cheeks again, slowly, soothingly, ran her fingers through my hair, rubbing the moisture away. I put my arms around her waist and laid my head in her lap, feeling myself becoming steadier with every second. ‘Stephen, you’re scaring me a little. What happened?’
‘My biological father is an incurable arsehole.’
‘This is news?’
I huffed a laugh against her and pressed my face into her thigh. ‘It’s not news,’ I mumbled against her.
‘So, dinner did not go well. You’re done with him?’ She smoothed her hands down my back and I wanted to laugh again. One month ago, I could not have imagined we’d be like this now. I would’ve thought it more likely that Noelle would be stabbing me in the back than tenderly caressing me there, while I clung to her like a little boy.
‘Yes. For a moment, I thought we could do it amicably, but then…’ I shook my head. ‘I have a sister. He did it all over again. Got that Lorna woman pregnant and left them.’
‘Whoa.’ Her hands stilled. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Have a shower and go to bed,’ I replied, deliberately misunderstanding her. I knew what she was referring to. What did I do now? Did I try to contact my sister? Was it worth the hassle? Maybe blood wasn’t such a big deal after all. Trevor wasn’t worth knowing. Lorna seemed like a cow – although I could understand her anger when faced with the image of the man who’d abandoned her and her child. She would hardly welcome my presence in her life. That was probably another reason she’d wanted to move us along so fast. I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘I think I need to eat something. If you have anything? I left before I finished my dinner and then I walked all the way here.’
‘From where?’
‘Brooklyn.’
‘You walked from Brooklyn? Across the bridge?’
‘Is there another way?’
‘It didn’t freak you out?’
‘Yeah. It did. It was a really bad idea.’
She bent her head to mine, pressing a kiss by my ear. ‘You don’t say.’
‘I had a head full of steam and I just started walking. He knew about my fear of heights. From when I was a kid. The git used to put me up on the monkey bars even though I was scared. Who does that to a child? A useless father, that’s who,’ I answered my own question. ‘And I thought, “fuck you”. You know that about me, so I’m going to change it. But I couldn’t change it…I got halfway and those fences, even with all the cabling up the sides, they weren’t enough to make me feel safe. The cars were rushing by either side, and the water was just black beyond that and the pedestrian bit rises higher and higher doesn’t it? I was terrified so I just put my head down and followed that white line in the centre of the boards. Why are they still old wooden boards; surely they could update that to something that feels safer now?’
‘Stephen. There are some phobias you can probably get over with sheer bloody-mindedness, but I think heights requires professional help.’ She pushed at my shoulders, making me sit up and look in her face. ‘I’m worried about you. You’re rambling. I think you’re in shock from it all, so yes, you need tea and food and sleep.’
‘I didn’t say sleep, I said bed.’
‘I’m saying sleep. All this is taking its toll. Rest here, I’m going to put my kettle on, make you tea and then head out to get you some food.’
‘You don’t have anything in?’
‘No. I brought in a salad with me earlier. Your good habits are rubbing off on me. I’ll get you some soup.’
She stood up and I grabbed her hand. ‘Don’t go out. It’s late, I don’t want you walking around the city at this time.’
‘You just walked here from Brooklyn, and for the record, I’ve lived here all my life; I’ll survive popping to the restaurant downstairs.’
‘Okay.’ I collapsed back against the sofa. She brought me a cup of tea and then grabbed her purse and headed downstairs. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t feel up to the fight.
I frowned up at her ceiling. We did do a fair bit of fighting. The whole of our courtship to this point could have been described as fiery – just like my mum and Trevor if I was to believe what he said. Were we doomed to burn out like them? I didn’t want that to be the case.
What did I mean, I didn’t want that to be the case? Of course it was going to end. It was inevitable – just like Trevor’s inability to be a responsible, dependable parent. I was acting out some other life with her that I hadn’t admitted I wanted, even to myself, but I couldn’t let myself have it. I knew I couldn’t give Noelle what she wanted in a partner even if every day that passed, I felt myself wanting to…and wanting to have it for myself too. But how could I risk damaging her career by walking out on her if we had a child together at some point down the line? How could I risk hurting someone that profoundly? How could I live with having someone hate me, have her hate me, the way I hated him?
I rubbed my eyes. I needed my brain to stop, just for five minutes. You’d have thought walking for over an hour across the city would have given me plenty of time to sort out the mess in my head, but now I was exhausted on top of screwed up.
Maybe Noelle was right. I did need sleep.
Her notebooks and papers were strewn all over the sofa as usual. If she had dozed off here, she’d done it on top of all her work, curled up like a cat.
I lifted my heavy arms and started gathering her things together. The woman did love a list and her different colour pens. How different we were; her head was so organised while her habitat was always cluttered, and I was the opposite. Everything looked neat and efficient on the surface, while my thoughts were a raging whirlpool.
My father’s name on one of the worksheets caught my eye and I read it, grimly fascinated by the observations she’d put together from the sketchy details we’d gathered together. There was another underneath it and as I read it too, all my thoughts went still.
This one was all about me.
All her first impressions, the way she figured I just wanted a warm body in my bed, that I didn’t care whose it was, the way I constantly moved on, never committing and… Ultimately, no matter what promises he makes, he can’t escape the fact that he only
cares about himself and all he’ll ever be able to offer someone is a pretence.
The pho I’d bought downstairs was hot enough it was burning my hands through the polystyrene cup, but I knew if anything was going to sort Stephen out, it would be this. It was wellness in a takeaway container.
I so wanted to help him. I knew I shouldn’t be thinking this way, but the fact he’d come straight to me to talk…well, it could have been because I was the only person he truly knew in the city, but it could also be because he was letting me in. The search for his father was over and this visit wasn’t about sex, so perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking we were edging another step closer to something…more?
He was sitting on my sofa, one elbow resting on the arm, his hand covering his mouth. The other was holding on to a sheaf of papers on his knee. He was still. So still, just staring at an indiscriminate area on my skirting board. At least he’d stopped shivering like he had a fever but now he looked like he’d been switched off or gone numb or something again. My heart throbbed for him and everything he was going through.
I went over and ran my hand down the back of his head, letting my fingers rest along his collar, the silky brush of his hair against my palm, and the heat of his skin just a thin sliver between it and the material. ‘Hey. You hanging in there?’
He jerked his head away and stood up sharply. I narrowly avoided tipping his soup all down my front in shock. ‘I have to leave.’
‘But you haven’t eaten. Why do you want to leave all of a sudden?’
He set his jaw. ‘Because this is pointless.’
‘Just give it a chance to help you feel better. My mom always says that’s it’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do for you too. Admittedly, that was mostly because she needed a good night’s sleep after being kept awake by the little ones when we were younger.’ I put the soup down on my desk next to his untouched tea and went to hug him but he moved away again. Alarm bells were ringing. But he’d been like this a little the other day when he got upset about his mom and the envelope with the cards in it, so perhaps this was just another sign of his inner turmoil and I needed to let him have his space.
He was turned towards me, but his eyes were averted still. He put the papers he was holding down on the arm of the sofa and shook his head.
‘I’m not talking about the soup being pointless. I’m talking about us.’ His tone was low and flat.
‘Say what now?’ I breathed, like his words had sucker-punched me in the stomach.
‘This dating arrangement between us. It’s time to call it a day.’
‘That’s…not what I was expecting to hear considering…’ I swallowed, trying to keep it together for the sake of my own dignity. ‘Considering how I left you. What…what changed between me leaving for soup and coming back?’ I attempted a faint laugh. ‘I was only gone fifteen minutes.’
‘I just had time to think.’ He retreated further towards the door and I fought off the urge to leap in front of it. He couldn’t just drop that on me and walk. Could he? The Stephen I knew wouldn’t be that cold. Not to me. I’d seen him be this hard, frosty version with other people – his father, the boys at the bar who threatened us – but they had deserved it. I deserved more respect than this.
‘No. That’s not enough of an explanation. You’ve woken me up, got me to run around after you and now you’re going to dump me, with no more explanation than “I’ve been thinking.”’
‘Okay. If you insist, I’ll elaborate.’
‘Don’t take that patronising tone with me, Stephen,’ I warned him.
‘I wouldn’t dare.’ He stood up straight and looked me dead in the eye. ‘I was thinking about my father, how he tried to make it work all over again with another woman, another child, and he still couldn’t stick it. He didn’t learn from his mistakes. But I’m going to. This thing with us, I’ve been trying but what’s the point when we both know how it’s going to finish.’
‘What do you mean, you’ve been trying? What have you been trying to do?’ My heart was simultaneously leaping and stalling. Had he been having the same thoughts going through his head? That I hadn’t been imagining this growing connection between us unleashed a desperate hope in me, even as he was saying he wanted to leave.
‘To…’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just to stick it out.’
‘Stick it out?’ Any light of hope I had went dim. Something cold was crawling around my ribs, looking to gain access to my heart. ‘Until when?’
‘Probably until I went to England. But I can’t.’
‘So…you can’t “stick it out” with me? Like I’m some kind of chore? I never asked you to “stick it out” with me.’ My throat hurt. I remembered how I’d been practically begging him to kiss me on Independence Day, how weirded out he’d been in the morning, so concerned that he wasn’t going to hurt me. Had this whole thing been out of pity?
‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘You didn’t. And this is entirely what you expected from me, anyway isn’t it? You figured me out back in the lobby of Beth’s hotel at Christmas, just like you figure everyone out. Surely, this isn’t a surprise?’ He lifted an eyebrow at me.
Ice. His voice, his manner, were all ice and they skewered me. It was like the Stephen I’d grown to care for and believed in had never existed.
Of course he hadn’t. He’d been acting hadn’t he? Just like he acted it up with everyone. Mr Charming, pretending to like my family, pretending to be interested in his colleagues and my books and that he was bothered, in the slightest, about hurting me. The throbbing in my chest intensified. Was this his revenge for New Year’s? The final score on the board between us. He waited to see just how much I would give myself over to him before he pulled the rug?
‘No.’ My voice was hollow. ‘No. This isn’t a surprise. This is precisely what I expected from a man like you.’
I must have imagined the way he flinched; my vision was wobbling with unshed tears. I wasn’t going to show him my tears.
‘You can go now,’ I said, copying his coolness as much as I could.
‘I’ll pay you for the soup.’ He put his hand in his pocket and I knew, I just knew, that if he stayed a moment longer, I was going to lose it. I couldn’t let him see that. I couldn’t let him see he’d won.
‘Forget about the goddamn soup.’ I moved past him, my shoulder brushing the wall to avoid any risk of touching him. I yanked the door open. ‘Just leave.’
He walked out, back straight, eyes forward but he paused at the top of the shadowy stairs. The florescent bulb down the hall left a sickly yellow pallor across his face. He caught me watching him. ‘It must be wonderful to be right all the time.’
I slammed the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Despite having only drunk one beer at dinner with Trevor the night before, I woke with a hangover. A splitting head and aversion to the mere idea of food. I guessed it wasn’t from alcohol, but from drama. I’d let myself get embroiled in all kinds of soap opera antics this summer. Things had gone from being completely under control to volatile and emotional pretty much from the point that I bumped into Noelle again.
I didn’t need that in my life, and she didn’t need someone like me in her life either. So now things were over between us and I’d got the answers I wanted from Trevor, everything could just go back to normal.
There was the issue of now knowing I had a sister, but she was a grown woman. We’d survived this long without any contact; surely trying to forge a relationship now would just mess up both our lives.
I took some aspirin, drank some coffee, showered and went into work. I was sitting at my desk at 7.30, ready to catch up on world events. I threw myself into my research and analytics, reading and reading and letting my mind sift through patterns and predictions, to try and find the biggest return for my portfolio of clients. Today, I wasn’t going to be satisfied with a moderate venture, I wanted to find something unexpected, root out an opportunity that was being overlooked, and the only way I
could do that was to immerse myself completely. I tuned everyone and everything out, other than my screens.
If my phone rang again, I didn’t notice, if Georgina came into the office, I didn’t notice, if my father contacted me about his wife’s treatment needs, I didn’t notice. I could deal with all that later.
I emerged from a successful day in the markets. I’d made a lot of money for two of the biggest clients I’d taken over for. My headache wasn’t gone, but that was to be expected after squinting at my screens and lines of numbers all day. I walked back to my apartment, with my phone heavy in my pocket.
When I got home I threw it in a drawer and left it there. I knew she wouldn’t have tried to call me, and I couldn’t risk calling her. I was going to let it go dead tonight.
Like my cold, cold heart.
My intercom buzzed, as I was making myself tea. I froze. That couldn’t be her. She would never come here, unless it was to punch me in the kidneys or throw me in the East River. If I saw her again, I was going to lose all the ground I’d made up today, getting myself back to normality – to sanity.
The intercom blared at me again.
But I couldn’t leave her standing out there on the street. Dread and an unwanted buzz of anticipation hovered over me as I answered.
‘Stephen.’ My brother’s voice came through the speaker and with it a war of disappointment and relief raged within me. ‘For a minute I thought you weren’t home. Can you buzz me in?’
‘Christ, Nick. Sorry. I totally forgot. Come up, come up.’
How had I forgotten that Nick was flying over? I’d probably missed his texts telling me he was on his way. I rubbed my forehead and paced, waiting for him to appear at my door. Everything was jangling inside me again.
He walked in, still in his navy pilot’s uniform, looking crumpled and exhausted, blond curls a mess as always and his blue eyes tired. He was so like Mum, with that easy way he had of looking at me and seeing too much. I’d thought at Noelle’s parents’ barbecue that I’d lost that feeling of home, but I’d forgotten about Nick. I still had him.
