The Other Child

by Lucy Atkins

Lily startles and begins to whimper. Tess pats her back, whispering into her ear, feeling her damp, small face pressing into the crook of her neck, nuzzling. Her love for Lily spreads into a tangible, physical warmth, encircling them both.

  ‘OK, then.’ Greg shrugs on a well-cut grey jacket. ‘I need to get moving. So, do you want to ask Joe about New Hampshire when he wakes up?’

  ‘OK – unless you want to ask him yourself when you get home?’

  ‘No, I’m not sure when I’ll be back – might be after his bedtime. You ask him.’

  He comes over to the bed and presses his mouth onto hers, kisses Lily on the head, tenderly. Then he leaves.

  Her phone is by the bed. She picks it up, idly, and opens her emails. Two leap out at her: one from Sally, one from Alex Kingman. She opens Sally’s first.

  I have had a small stroke can’t sit up too well not so

  good but – your question:

  it was not a pot on the stove

  she thought he was the only one in the house, she

  didn’t know C was there

  he raped her then he took her child away that’s why

  she did it but she didn’t know the others were there

  S

  She rereads it several times. It makes little sense. She has no idea what the ‘pot on the stove’ means, but it is probably a reference to how the fire started. C must be Carlo. But that makes no sense because Carlo wasn’t in the house at the time of the fire. Her instinct is that the ‘she’ is Julianna. But who raped Julianna, and took Carlo away? It is all confused and brutal. A stroke, of course, can damage more than motor skills. Sally’s memory, logic, recall could all be skewed now.

  She needs to find a number and call to see if Sally is all right. But she does not actually know this woman. She can’t just phone. Sally is a semi-famous artist; she’ll have people rallying.

  She replies, though, straight away.

  Dear Sally,

  I am so very sorry to hear about your stroke. Do you have people helping you there? I hope you are OK. Do please let me know if I can do anything at all to help you.

  I am intrigued by your comments – I am not sure I understand about the pot on the stove. I assume you are talking about the house fire? Are you saying that it wasn’t an accident? Is the ‘she’ you refer to Julianna? Are you saying, even, that Julianna burned the Gallos’ house? Or am I misunderstanding your words? I also don’t quite understand your reference to a rape. Was Julianna raped? If you could explain a little bit more, when you’re well enough, that’d be great. But please don’t answer any of this if it is difficult for you; I do understand. The most important thing is that you get better.

  Wishing you all the best – and please don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything at all,

  Tess

  She reads Sally’s email again. She is about to forward it to Nell when she stops. It does not feel right to send this to Nell. This is between her and Sally. She saves it in a separate folder.

  Then she opens the email from Alex.

  Dear Tess,

  I am hoping we can meet. I did leave you a detailed message about this some weeks ago now but you didn’t reply, so I thought I should wait till you’d had your baby. I am sure you must have by now? I have information that you must hear if you are up to it. Please could you call me? Or email me back as I would very much like us to meet? (I have something to show you.)

  Alex Kingman

  She remembers then that the night Lily was born she’d ignored a voicemail from Alex – she’d deleted it. She has been skirting round him in her mind for weeks now. It would surely help him to know that he made a mistake and that there is no chance of bumping into his nemesis on the local beach – that whatever he thinks he has found or knows, he is wrong.

  Perhaps it is the warmth of the bed, the feel of Lily against her chest, or the oxytocin coursing through her system, but she feels a moment of altruism, almost responsibility towards Alex and his troubled circumstances. What she knows will release him too in a way.

  She types a reply with one thumb.

  Hi Alex,

  I did have my baby (Lily, five weeks early). I’d be happy to meet you. I also have information that might be helpful for you.

  When would suit you?

  Tess

  Alex is sitting at a corner table, hunched over a smartphone. He looks up as she walks through the crowded Cambridge café towards his table, and she hesitates, thinking that she has the wrong man. But he sees her and gets up, smiling. He has changed enormously. His cheekbones are gaunt, vanishing into a beard that has grown bushy and unkempt. His eyes are puffy, with livid violet shadows beneath them.

  ‘Tess. Hey!’ He leans over Lily in the sling, kissing her on both cheeks as if they are old friends. ‘You look terrific.’ He nods. ‘Really terrific.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she unwinds her scarf, pulling off her hat, ‘but I doubt it.’

  He peers into the sling at Lily, curled against her chest. ‘And this beautiful baby …’

  ‘This is Lily. I’m hoping she’s going to stay asleep while we talk, but she might not. She’s been quite colicky.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I did twins, remember? No single infant could possibly rival that. So what can I get you, Tess?’ He hangs a smile on his thin face. ‘Coffee? English breakfast tea? Cake? Cookies?’

  ‘An Earl Grey would be lovely if they have it – any tea if not.’

  Alex walks over to the counter. His clothes drape from his shoulders. He looks diminished in all dimensions. Perhaps he is ill. She pushes this thought aside and sits down, sliding off Lily’s woolly hat and easing herself out of her coat sleeves, one by one, keeping her movements smooth. Lily shifts, but doesn’t wake. At six o’clock it is dark outside and the street is busy with people going home from shopping or meeting for early drinks.

  The café is packed with Harvard students, many sitting alone with headphones, staring at their MacBooks. She pulls her phone out. There are still no messages. She spoke to Greg and Joe after they arrived last night. Joe sounded breathless and hyper, telling her about the hot tub on a deck, and all the snow – how the house was high up in the mountains, down a long, long road. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere! There’s nobody here at all! It’s like Narnia!’ She heard the anxiety as well as the excitement in his voice.

  ‘Greg will look after you,’ she said. ‘And you’re going to have such a good time tomorrow – are you going tubing first, or skiing?’

  ‘We bought a snowsuit – it’s red and black. And then tomorrow we have to get ski boots and skis fitted,’ he said. ‘We’re not buying those, we’re renting them. Then Greg’s going to take me up really high in a ski lift.’

  She’d googled Greg’s colleague’s house. It looks extremely remote. It is down a mile-long track high in the White Mountains, and the nearest town is four miles away. There are hardly any other houses nearby. But it is five miles from a ski area, and on an autumnal Street View the colours looked stunning. It must be magical up there in the snow. She can see why Joe felt he’d arrived in Narnia.

  She called them again this morning at breakfast but there was no reply. Greg said they were going to head out early and there is, she assumes, no mobile reception on the ski slopes.

  They will be fine. This will be good for the two of them. She has to get out of their way and allow them to bond. Nothing bad is going to happen.

  Alex comes back with a pot of Earl Grey, a chocolate brownie and a slice of carrot cake.

  ‘They do great cakes here,’ he says. ‘My wife and I lived in Vienna for a year when we were first married and we became pastry aficionados. When we moved back to Boston we lived right here in Cambridge – she was doing her Masters in education at Harvard – and this was the only place that could equal the Viennese …’ He tails off. His mouth sags as he pours the tea.

  ‘How are things … with your wife?’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you know, hell. We’re in a custody battle right n
ow. I’ve – well, I’ve taken a … well … I’ve taken a leave of absence from the firm to deal with it. I may have to sell my place in Marblehead to cover legal costs – thankfully it’s in my name, I inherited it from my mother – but, well, hey, we really don’t need to talk about all that, do we?’ He glances at the sling. ‘Six weeks already! Wow.’

  ‘Yes, she was born five weeks early though, that’s why she’s still so small.’

  ‘Sure, and you have a son too, right? How’s he taking to his little sister?’

  ‘Actually, Joe’s been really good about her so far, fingers crossed. I was expecting jealousy, but I suppose with her being so much younger than him she’s not so much of a direct threat. But it’s early days.’

  She realizes that Alex’s hand, holding the teapot, is trembling. She straightens; there is no point in small talk when they are only here to discuss one thing. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘So, I wanted to let you know that I spoke to Greg and he told me everything. Carlo Novak is Greg’s cousin. I thought you’d want to know …’

  Alex listens, intently, not touching his tea or cake, as she tells him the whole story. When she has finished, she waits for him to express surprise, perhaps throw back his head and laugh and tell her how relieved he is to have it all cleared up, but he does not. He picks up his cup and takes a sip, his eyes fixed on nothing.

  ‘It’s all there,’ she says, as if it is up to her to provide Alex with evidence. ‘I’ve even exchanged letters with a woman who knew Greg’s Aunt Julianna, Carlo’s mother. That’s a very sad story. But really, that’s all I wanted to tell you: it all checks out.’

  ‘I know it does.’

  ‘Oh?’ She puts down her cup. ‘You do? Right. OK. Well – sorry, are you saying you know everything I’ve just told you already?’ It is not clear why he didn’t interrupt her. ‘Did you know about the Philadelphia trial?’

  He nods.

  The straps of the Baby Bjorn are digging into her shoulders but she can’t undo them because she can’t risk Lily waking up and yelling or needing to be fed. She suddenly feels sweaty, with Lily pressed against her like a hot water bottle and the overheated, noisy café closing in.

  ‘After we met, I did some research,’ Alex says. ‘A lot of research. I tried to contact you. I left you a voicemail but you didn’t call back so I figured you didn’t want to hear from me and I left you alone.’

  ‘Yes, well, now I know everything too.’ She bites into the carrot cake. The icing is sharp and gritty and the cake tastes overwhelmingly of cinnamon. It forms a sticky, sweet lump in her throat. She takes a gulp of her tea, leaning forwards and sideways so that she is not holding hot liquid over Lily’s head.

  ‘Tess,’ he says, ‘you aren’t going to want to hear what I have to say.’

  She swallows hard but the fistula of cake will not shift. She feels her breasts begin to tighten. The burning patch on one of them is a warning – she needs to latch Lily on really properly to head off a bout of mastitis and she does not want to have to do that here, in front of Alex – all the grappling and manoeuvring. Suddenly she regrets coming here to meet this man. She should have refused his invitation. They could just as easily have done this on email. The urge she briefly felt to get out of the house and do something different was a mistake.

  ‘After we met, I remembered something very important.’ Alex’s eyes are fixed on her face, his cheekbones sucked into the vortex of his waxy, overgrown beard. ‘The memory came at me out of the blue late one night when I was going through legal stuff – out of my subconscious, I guess. I met Chuck – Carlo – once, before the Florida spring break. Just one time, but I remember it quite clearly now.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘It was at a college party, in a student house – it would be thirty years ago, but it’s clear in my mind now. My brother and his friends were drunk and they were kidding around about seeing double because Carlo had showed up with this guy who looked almost identical, only younger than Carlo, still at high school. Of course, now I know exactly who it was.’

  ‘Greg! You met Greg. Well, there you go, how funny.’ She feels relief, and then surprise at the relief. She had no idea that she felt any residual doubts about Greg’s story.

  But Alex isn’t smiling back.

  ‘So you believe me now that Greg is Carlo’s cousin,’ she says. ‘That’s good.’

  Alex presses a hand flat on the table top and shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, Tess, but I don’t.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘The cousin Carlo brought to the party was not the man you’re married to.’

  She is exhausted, lactating, hormonal, mildly feverish, and suddenly she feels an intense, almost physical irritation sweep across her skin. She is not going to be led to yet another crossroad in Alex’s meandering mind. ‘Why are you saying this?’

  ‘Carlo’s identikit cousin was gay, Tess. He was definitely gay. I remembered that because there was some trouble about it that night. Someone knew someone else from their hometown. He told everyone about this incident where Carlo’s cousin and another local boy were caught together by a waterfall. It was a small-town scandal. There was hostility from some of the guys at the party after that. They were a bunch of unreconstructed Midwesterners, you know, and there was some nasty talk about AIDs and faggots, and it spilled quickly into physical aggression. I remember Carlo got very angry, very fast. I don’t really remember what happened in the end but the one thing I do recall, quite clearly, is that Carlo’s cousin was gay.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ She hears herself give a brittle, high laugh. ‘Are you trying to tell me that Greg is gay now, Alex? Because he really isn’t. Carlo must have brought another cousin, or maybe not a cousin at all, a friend, an acquaintance. You said yourself it was thirty years ago. This is completely ridiculous.’ But as she says this she remembers Sally’s first email, her surprise that Greg had married.

  Alex leans closer, shaking his head. She can smell tannin on his breath.

  ‘You aren’t hearing me, Tess. That’s not what I’m saying.’ He lays his fingers on her forearm and presses, as if trying to push his message into her skin.

  She whisks her arm away. ‘Then what are you saying?’ It is possible that Alex is actually having a breakdown. She feels sorry for him, but clearly she should never have agreed to meet. This is the last thing she needs right now.

  ‘Carlo Novak vanished, Tess. There’s no trace of him after he left Penn Med.’

  ‘I know that. Greg thinks he committed suicide.’

  ‘His body was never found.’

  ‘Yes, we know that.’

  ‘Do you also know about the fire? And about Carlo’s mother Julianna – who drank herself to death?’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I told you, I’ve done a lot of research lately. What do you think that kind of trauma would do to boys at that age? They both would have been pretty unstable by the time the trial was over, don’t you think? When Greg was starting Harvard, what kind of a state would he have been in?’

  ‘This isn’t any of your business, Alex. I don’t know what you’re implying, but this is Greg’s past, his private stuff, and I really don’t think we should be talking about it.’

  She reaches round for her coat from the back of the chair. Lily wakes, turns her face up, her cheek flushed, nose poking up like a tiny button mushroom. The noises of the café, the folksy music, the voices all around them seem to intensify, as if someone has cranked up the volume.

  ‘Wait – don’t go, Tess, please. I checked the facts. Grzegor Gallo started Harvard at almost the exact time Carlo Novak dropped out of medical school.’

  ‘I know that! I just told you all this, and before you say anything, I’ve seen pictures of Greg at Harvard, I’ve seen his notes, his files, his certificates, so if you’re about to try to tell me he wasn’t there—’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But I don’t think Carlo killed
himself—’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Are you trying to suggest that Greg killed his cousin? If you are, then this is beyond ridiculous. Greg’s not a killer.’ Lily jerks and her little body stiffens. ‘He loved his cousin!’ She tries to stand up but the table is pinning her in.

  ‘Your husband is lying to you, Tess.’ Alex pushes his hair back. For a second she is transfixed by the wasted architecture of his face – the deep eye sockets, the sunken cheekbones. Lily writhes against the sling, opening her eyes wide.

  He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a file, shuffling papers, laying them on the table. She looks at them. They are photocopies of old newspaper articles.

  ‘You need to read these.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘I had them sent to me from a local historical archive in Pennsylvania.’

  She is about to walk away but a masthead leaps out: The Robesville Eagle. It is a black-and-white pixelated scan of the front page of the morning edition of the local paper, dominated by the image of a blazing building; there are fire trucks in the background, in the foreground a soot-streaked firefighter, pushing back his helmet.

  She squints at the blurry print, speed-reading as she jiggles Lily.

  Tragedy struck a Robesville family last night when a blaze broke out at the three-story home of local businessman Mr Giovanni Gallo, 48, a highly respected member of our Robesville School Board. Randolph A. Smith, Jr, Assistant Chief for the Robesville Fire Department, said someone ran to the station at 3.45 p.m. shouting that the house at 2201 Pleasant St was burning. ‘I went out to take a look and saw flames lighting up the sky,’ said Assistant Chief Smith. ‘The house was fully engulfed by the time we got there.’

  When firefighters arrived, the fire had entered every room and wall space of 2201 Pleasant St and smoke was pouring from all the windows. Intense heat made it impossible for anyone to enter the building. Firefighters from as far as Marion Township and West River battled the flames, preventing them from spreading to neighboring houses.

  She pushes the paper back to Alex. ‘I don’t want to talk about this with you, Alex.’

  ‘Just read the whole thing.’ Alex pushes it back to her. ‘Please, Tess. Read it.’