The Stranger In My Home: I thought she was my daughter. I was wrong.

by Parks, Adele

  ‘The last time I saw Amy was when she came to our house, a couple of weeks ago. I’d sorted out some of my old toys for her to play with. While we were playing Connect 4 I quizzed her about whether they know about me. I guess I could have asked Tom, but it just sort of cropped up when I was with Amy. I mean, I’d been wondering if the London grandpa might, at some point, want to meet me.’ She’s talking to the floor.

  ‘Do you want to tell me more about that?’

  ‘I pretended to concentrate really hard on the game, although I knew I could have already won if I wanted – there were three yellow discs in a diagonal line just waiting for me to pop in the fourth. I was letting her win, even though Mum says that does no one any favours in the long run.’

  ‘What did Amy say?’

  Katherine pauses. ‘She looked nervous, as though she knew I’d be upset. She said, and I quote, “Daddy told us not to talk about you.”’

  ‘Did you ask why?’

  ‘Yes, she said it was to do with the fact I might get ill. Apparently, Tom thinks it’s unfair to introduce me to everyone if I’m going to just die.’

  ‘No, Katherine. I can’t believe Tom said that,’ I leap in.

  ‘Maybe not in so many words. Amy talked about me “getting really sick. Like Mummy did.”’ Katherine is trying to appear unperturbed, brave. I can tell by the way she’s holding her head – neck a little elongated, like a doomed queen going to the execution block – that she’s scared, disappointed. ‘Look, I get it. I understand. That’s why Tom is keeping everyone at arm’s length from me. He doesn’t want his family going through another loss. I’m not simply a surprise sister, I’m a ticking bomb.’

  Jeff coughs. He writes something down in his notebook.

  ‘Oh, Katherine.’ I reach for her hand but she shakes me off.

  ‘I think it’s time I took the test.’ I hear her words but can’t take them in. ‘I need to know. We all do.’

  There’s some paperwork to complete. I am shaking like a leaf and only just manage to sign on the dotted line.

  ‘This is a big step. I’m certain Tom wouldn’t want you to rush into having the test,’ I mumble to Katherine.

  ‘I know, but it’s not his decision, it’s mine. I need some clarity.’

  Betty Lopez takes Jeff and me to one side. She explains that someone will call to make an appointment in the next day or so.

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Well, that’s what you’re paying for,’ she beams, not understanding that I’d pay a king’s ransom for Katherine never to have to have this test, for there to be no need of it. I’d sell everything we own. I’d sell my soul.

  ‘It’s a straightforward blood test. However, I strongly recommend that we continue with our sessions while we wait for the results, and perhaps for a great deal longer. I think we made some marvellous progress here today.’ If by ‘marvellous progress’ she means I’ve listened to my daughter’s heartbreak, then yes, I can agree. ‘There are clearly issues surrounding her desire for a relationship with her siblings that need more attention.’

  Jeff nods but doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t said much throughout. I wish he would, although it’s unreasonable of me to hope he has the words when I haven’t. I suppose it’s that I always think he’s hardier than I am, more finished and competent.

  ‘I also think it might be worthwhile if you both made appointments with my colleague. You also need someone to talk to.’

  ‘We have each other,’ I say, but Jeff takes the card. ‘Why do we need to meet with a colleague, rather than you?’ I demand.

  ‘There would be a conflict of interests if I became your counsellor while counselling Katherine.’

  ‘But we’re on the same side.’

  She throws out another polite, professional smile and the receptionist asks if we’d like to pay now.

  As Jeff hands over his debit card, I turn to Katherine. ‘Would you like to go to that American diner in town? The one that does the curly fries. We could get a knickerbocker glory.’

  She looks at me pityingly. I know. It’s not like ice cream can still solve everything, but what else can I offer?

  ‘It’s OK, Mum, we should get back. I have some homework to do,’ she says, and heads for the door.

  24

  When we get home Jeff offers to make supper but, as Katherine dumps her bag and jacket on the kitchen counter, she says she’s too hungry to wait. She starts to put together a chicken sandwich and gently but firmly pushes me aside when I attempt to help. I know I shouldn’t try to do everything for her, that it is annoying, but I can’t help myself. ‘She’s not an invalid,’ says Jeff, which I think is pretty tactless of him, because it only highlights the fact that maybe she will be and, besides, while he’s trying to pretend to be jovial, I can hear the bite in his voice. I’m frustrating him. He’s frustrating me. Touché. Katherine grabs an apple and a packet of crisps, too, then runs upstairs to eat alone in her room. Undoubtedly, she thinks she’s done enough talking for the day.

  As I open the fridge and pull out a chilled bottle of Chardonnay, Jeff comments, ‘Well, that was intense.’ I pour myself a big glass; Jeff looks aggrieved and only then do I think to go back to the cupboard and get out a second glass to pour him one, too. I’m not normally a selfish person – my overwhelming desire to follow etiquette is usually enough for me to think to offer – but nothing is normal at the moment. Over these past few months I’ve barely had room to think about Jeff. He must understand this, as he accepts the belated glass with an appreciative nod.

  ‘Do you think she’s ready to take the test? It seems that the counselling has been all about the swap. Is she prepared?’

  ‘We have to trust her. If she says she’s ready, then she’s ready,’ insists Jeff. I stare at him but don’t know how to say that I’m not ready. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I reply curtly.

  ‘You should eat.’ I walk through to the sitting room, my glass of wine in one hand, the bottle in the other. I can hear Jeff start to open cupboards, checking the contents of the fridge; he’s clearly intent on preparing supper. The telephone rings. I leap up, thinking it’s probably Tom; no one else ever uses the landline. He sometimes rings after Katherine’s counselling sessions, although there’s usually nothing to report. I thought I’d mind but I’ve found I don’t. I like to hear his voice, his concern. Maybe he feels the same about my voice because often a quick enquiry turns into a lengthy chat. Before I know it, I’m walking around the house with the handset tucked between my shoulder and ear. I put away the ironing and unstack the dishwasher while we discuss where we might eat next time we meet up, and I pair socks while we talk about whether he’ll pick Katherine up or whether I should drop her off. It’s a bit peculiar: he is the last person on earth I thought I’d ever consider a friend; when he first dropped this chaos on our doorstep I saw him as the enemy. I needed someone to be angry at. Now, my anger, my fear, is more focused on the situation rather than on an individual. Our conversations have revealed a man struggling with his own sadness.

  Tonight Jeff is faster than I am. He dashes to snatch up the phone. I strain to listen to his voice floating from the hall. It’s just someone trying to sell insurance. We are fully insured: the house, house contents, the car, bikes, jewellery, golf clubs, glasses – still, you can’t insure against this. Health insurance doesn’t actually protect.

  I sit in stricken silence until an hour later when Jeff calls me to come and eat. He sets down a plate of fish stew and rice. It’s doused in fresh herbs and he’s decorated the plate with slivers of transparently thin lime and lemon slices; he’s made quite an effort. I force myself to pick up a fork.

  ‘What will we do if she has the mutated gene?’ I ask.

  Jeff advises, ‘Don’t project. Don’t leap ahead, Alison.’

  I concentrate on the food. One mouthful, then the next. A spin on the metaphorical ‘one foot in front of another’. ‘One day at a time.’ I’ve found
this approach to be the very opposite to what it is supposed to be. Rather than reassuring, it’s daunting. I feel reduced and without control. In an effort not to be overwhelmed by despair, I comment, ‘The fish is good.’

  ‘Thank you. Not too bland?’

  It is, but why would I say such a thing? ‘It’s lovely.’ He looks pleased and lifts another hefty forkful to his mouth, as though I’ve given him permission to relish his meal to the full. With equal vim, he takes a big slurp of wine and then tears at the wholemeal loaf and starts to mop up the fish stock. I begin to wonder whether he heard his daughter sob in the back of the car, whether he actually attended the counselling session with me today, heard her demand the gene test.

  ‘I don’t believe Tom is holding Katherine at arm’s length from his children because he’s concerned about any future heartbreak that might occur if, you know—’ I can’t bring myself to say the words. ‘I think Amy must have misunderstood him.’

  ‘Well, it is true that he hasn’t offered to introduce Katherine to her biological grandparents,’ says Jeff.

  ‘No, but then nor have we offered as much to Olivia. He probably just wants to take things slowly for Katherine’s sake too. It makes no sense to rush into this test.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t make much sense. It’s certainly a teenager’s way of looking at things.’

  ‘If the worst came to the worst, I think Tom would want his children to support her. That was what you used to say, too. That was your argument for letting them into our lives in the first place.’

  Jeff shakes his head regretfully. ‘I don’t know for certain. Who knows what lengths anyone might go to in order to protect their children? Maybe he does think they’ve been through enough. Whatever his motivation, no doubt he thinks he’s doing the right thing.’ Jeff sounds as though he very much doubts that Tom is doing the right thing. He pauses and then adds, ‘I mean, it would be an explanation. He’s always making excuses as to why they can’t make the meet-ups. Turning up here on his own like a lost puppy.’

  I can’t ignore the dig. Sometimes Jeff isn’t as sympathetic to Tom as I think he ought to be; he says it doesn’t matter anyway because I am sympathetic enough for the two of us. It’s not a sentiment that’s delivered as a compliment. He says Tom isn’t our concern; if we are to have a relationship with a Truby, it ought to be Olivia. But it’s not as cut and dried as that. Like Katherine, he wishes that more opportunities presented themselves for a relationship to blossom. The Trubys came into our lives uninvited but now we’ve been left in the difficult and embarrassing position that at least two thirds of our family want them more than three quarters of their family want us. It’s a question of mathematics. Their reluctance has placed Katherine in a similar position to the rejected partner who desperately drunk-texts an ex.

  ‘The excuses he makes are nothing to do with whether Katherine might get ill,’ I reiterate firmly. ‘The truth is, the children aren’t interested in us. They don’t want to be involved with us.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just after Bonfire Night. The kids were all at the display, they just didn’t want to be there with us.’

  Jeff looks wounded. ‘You never said.’

  ‘No.’ I haven’t mentioned the lunch Tom and I shared to Jeff. I meant to, but that night he locked himself in his office, writing, writing. I suppose he deserves to know that Tom thinks Annabel swapped the babies, how it occurred, but he’s never asked. So I didn’t get round to telling him. I did at least tell him that Callum and Amy have taken the test and are not carriers. He nodded, looked relieved. We’re not doing much talking recently. I don’t know a way of explaining all that now, so I stay on track. ‘The endless excuses Tom invents to explain the children’s whereabouts are to protect Katherine’s feelings, not to push her into taking the test.’

  ‘Even Amy?’

  ‘Even Amy what?’

  ‘Even Amy is uninterested in having a relationship with Katherine? I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘I don’t know about Amy specifically. She probably just goes along with what her older siblings say. I tell you, he’s just trying to protect Katherine’s feelings.’

  Irritation corrodes Jeff’s face. ‘Well, his lies haven’t helped, have they?’

  ‘Not lies. Excuses.’

  ‘Since when have you accepted the distinction?’

  I don’t reply, because I’m not sure of the answer. Around the time we told Katherine we needed to take a swab of her cheek cells because we were going to appear on a TV show, I suppose.

  Jeff continues, ‘Our darling girl. I imagine she’s hoping that the best-case scenario is that not only will she get a clean bill of health but unfettered access to her new brother and sisters.’

  I put down my knife and fork. My heart slows. My poor baby. Has she thought of the worst-case scenario?

  ‘I wish we’d had more children,’ I mumble. Jeff doesn’t comment. It’s not a new lament. It hasn’t been aired for about nine years, but it used to be a regular chant. No matter how many times either of us wished it, it didn’t happen. One of those medical mysteries. I conceived within five months of trying for Katherine but was never so lucky again. Jeff continues to eat his supper but I think I detect a slight lessening in his enthusiasm for it. I feel for him. We’ve both cooked a number of meals recently that have gone uneaten or been consumed with a distinct lack of appreciation.

  ‘She’d choose us, right?’ I ask. He doesn’t reply. Perhaps he’s thinking about all the rowing and snarling that has gone on recently. We have done our best to behave reasonably in front of Katherine but sometimes our exasperation – our terror – bubbles over. We spit out words that blister and scald. We seem to take it in turns to wind each other up. It’s the stress. It’s hard to remember, to believe, that before all this we were yin and yang to each other. Perhaps he’s thinking that she seems much happier, more relaxed, when she’s with Tom. And she does; Tom never asks more from her than whether she’ll walk Mozart. We’re her parents, so we are the ones who have to nag her about tidying her room, putting her clothes in the wash basket, packing her school bag, attending training, giving a lacrosse game all her focus, eating sensibly, dressing suitably, the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The list of tedious rules is endless. I bore me.

  ‘There’s no question of anyone choosing anything,’ he declares.

  ‘But if it went to court?’ I ask fearfully.

  ‘Why are you doing this to yourself? It’s not going to court. No one has suggested such a thing.’

  ‘But if it did?’

  Jeff puts down his utensils too now and sighs. ‘Well, if it did, we’d have a far better chance. Mother and father. As pitiful as it is, no court is going to think a teenage girl should be moved into a home where the father is widowed. Besides, I don’t want to be crass about it, but we have a far better standard of living. She doesn’t want for anything.’

  ‘Except siblings.’ I don’t know why I insist on playing devil’s advocate and explicitly articulating the worst-case scenarios; I suppose so Jeff can reassure me that they will never happen. Only he doesn’t reassure me. His words, as sensible and reasonable as they are, don’t seem to tackle the essence of the problem.

  She might just prefer them.

  And then my world would end.

  ‘The siblings aren’t necessarily an advantage; they might very well be a problem. Especially since, according to you, none of them is keen to have a relationship with her anyway. No one can expect just to slot a fifteen-year-old girl into a family and not imagine there’d be some issues. Besides, the siblings are grieving. They have enough problems of their own.’

  ‘We’re not married.’ I throw down the gauntlet.

  Jeff is dismissive. ‘Tom Truby doesn’t know that.’ Then he sees something in my face. ‘You didn’t tell him.’ He is suddenly irritated. ‘Bloody hell, Alison! Tell me it’s not so.’

  ‘If
it went to court, if there were lawyers, they’d have found out anyway,’ I mumble defensively.

  ‘Except that if Tom had thought they had a hopeless case, it would have been less likely that he’d ever think of going to court. Now he knows we’re not married, we’re at a disadvantage. He might want to pursue it.’

  I’m surprised Jeff is so dismayed. I can’t explain to Jeff that the conversation only came up because I was trying to impress Tom. How mortifying! How foolish! ‘You’ve always maintained that not being married is no disadvantage at all. You’ve always said that it’s romantic that we choose each other every day.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s my view, but it might not be the view of some starchy family-law judge. Who knows?’

  ‘You said this would never go to court!’ He’s come full circle: he’s now arguing that the very thing he suggested was preposterous is possible. It seems I’m not the only one losing my ability to be logical.

  ‘And you say it might,’ he says coolly. ‘I suppose it comes down to what Tom wants.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  Petulance mixes with fury: a toxic cocktail. ‘Tom has a way about him. He always seems to get what he wants. You wanted nothing to do with him; now he’s your best friend. Katherine wanted nothing to do with him; now she wants to spend every spare minute with him.’

  ‘His wife died – how can you say he always gets what he wants?’

  ‘I know, and that’s terrifically sad, but at least his kids definitely do not have the defective gene.’

  ‘She might!’

  Jeff stares at me, uncomprehending, then stung. It takes me a moment to understand what I’ve said. He meant Callum, Olivia and Amy. Of course he did. They are Tom’s children. I want to swallow back the words, but I can’t. I can’t think of any defence beyond: ‘I trust Tom.’

  Jeff’s ferocity dissipates. He has the look of a deflated balloon well after the party is over. ‘We can’t take the risk. We should get married.’

  We’ve known one another twenty-two years, been a couple for eighteen of those. I have imagined his proposal countless times. When I was much younger I thought he might propose after one of our lusty love-making sessions. We’d be naked and wrapped in one another’s arms; he’d murmur the suggestion into my ear. Or maybe he’d propose during one of our many indulgent weekend breaks or exotic holidays. I thought it might be romantic as defined by big-budget Hollywood romcoms: nothing less than endless tickertape celebrations and soft-focus moments. When he didn’t propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower I told myself the crowds would have been distracting. The absence of the down-on-one-knee gesture in Venice was a relief; I mean, it’s so hectic there, with pigeon poop everywhere. When we visited Barbados, just after I found out I was pregnant, I did briefly imagine that our peaceful dawdles along the sandy beaches might present an opportunity. They didn’t. Over the years, my romantic aspirations have dwindled. I’ve told myself that he isn’t the type to succumb to all that mediaimposed nonsense. Writers resist cliché and convention. It didn’t have to be somewhere exotic. It just had to be heartfelt and meaningful. I would be just as happy if he asked me while I was doing the washing-up. Sincerity was all that counted. I imagined the proposal in many ways.