by Fran Louise
Jay was inside somewhere, working. I peered at the impassive brick facade of the house with shuttered eyes. Could he see us from a window? My stomach folded in on itself. This morning, in the arrivals lounge, when I’d first seen him … I blew out a breath. I’d nearly walked into a wall.
I was biased, but to me, under normal circumstances, he was an easy ten. Standing a few inches taller than the crowd milling around, he’d been charmingly unaware of the general curiosity and interest surrounding him. He hadn’t, however, been aware of anyone else except me, and for some reason that had thrown me into a tailspin.
This didn’t feel like sexual attraction. Not the kind of obvious sexual attraction I’d always felt for him. I felt like I was tottering over the edge of a precipice. My stomach cramped just at the mere thought of him. I felt nauseous and anxious and worried about seeing him again, and worried about not seeing him again.
A crush?
Why was this happening now? He was married. He was married. If that wasn’t enough, the last couple of times we’d seen each other hadn’t exactly been touching moments.
His expression had been tepid as he’d approached us in the arrivals lounge. Then he’d astonished me by lifting Nina from her pram and holding her before him. A ray of heavenly light had appeared out of nowhere and bathed both of them in an ethereal glow. Okay, okay ... I knew that wasn’t possible, but damned if I hadn’t seen it anyway.
He’d been relaxed on the journey home. I, however, had spent a half hour trying not to stare at the way his hair brushed against the nape of his neck. The straight line of his back. His capable hands at the wheel, and trying not to remember them slipping under my panties ... I sat up abruptly at the mere recollection of that. The careful consideration in his eyes as he checked on Nina in the rear view mirror. Staring at the hesitant dimples at each side of his firm mouth before realising he’d actually been speaking to me.
He’d even tried to feed Nina some puree over lunch, and made an endearing mess of things. An endearing mess! When was a mess ever anything other than a goddamn mess? In addition to which, Nina was, and obviously had been for some time even if I’d been blind to it, a mini Jay. Now that I knew, I couldn’t help but catalogue every gesture and expression. It was like a new game—the Nina and Jay Game! It was the most fascination show I’d ever seen and I wanted to sit down and watch it forever.
“Everything okay?”
I flinched, making Nina howl as she woke up with a start.
Jay was standing to my side. Continuing with this morning’s general theme, he was reflecting the sun with benevolent grace, and being Nina’s father with extraordinary ease. I sat up, trying not to see these things, trying to pull myself together as he made his way towards us. Hands in his pockets, his eyes narrowed against the sun, he watched Nina for a second. The breeze played with the sunburned edges of his hair.
“Sorry,” he said, his smile rueful as he allowed my daughter’s chubby, outstretched hand to clasp at his fingers. “I woke her.”
I shook my head in wordless forgiveness.
“Is she tired from the journey?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said, my voice straining with effort as I lifted her. I gave her the plastic teething ring, and she clasped it like a koala on a tree. “She was a little uneasy on the plane.”
He nodded as though this were a problem he had to learn how to fix. “What time does she go to bed at night?”
“Around seven.”
He shifted the fabric at the knee of his suit pants – static prickling in the air – and took a seat on the lounger across from us in the shade. Nina reached out her hand to him again. His fingers were gentle on hers, both of them tentative. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning as he watched her.
Letting his hand drop, he turned to me. “Did you speak to the surfer?”
A reluctant smile gripped me. “I sent him a text. I figured it was appropriate.”
Jay surprised me by laughing. After a few moments he frowned at me again. “Did he reply?”
I shook my head. A pang gripped my chest, preventing me from sharing in the humour properly, but I thrust it aside. What was done was done; I was here to move on from that.
“It must be a big change,” Jay said, falling serious. “I know Nina’s too little to know any difference, but it must be an adjustment for you.”
The considerate words surprised me. It was a base response but I was suspicious for a moment, nervous about being drawn into the topic again. “I’ve dealt with it.” I exhaled firmly. “I genuinely didn’t believe she was yours.”
“Neither of us did,” he said gruffly. “Not really.”
“How are you dealing with it?”
“I haven’t worked that out yet,” he said. While my heart did a little tap dance in my chest at his offbeat smile, he added, “I’ll be honest: I don’t know a lot about babies.” He looked back at Nina with a circumspect expression.
There was a muffled ring from the kitchen; my phone. It would be Monica, checking in. “Neither did I six months ago. Here,” I said, handing Nina’s sturdy body over to him. “No time like the present to remedy that. I have to take this call.”
He took her. He was still holding her at arm’s length as I went inside. Nina was drooling at him, like a madwoman, with an absorbed frown exactly mirroring his.
The phone stopped ringing before I reached it. Glad for the respite, I paused for a moment inside the threshold to get my errant thoughts in order. I looked around the elegant townhouse, the furniture gleaming from generations of dusting. Generations that Nina now belonged to. The life I’d been imagining for her over the last six months or so was gradually disintegrating and becoming something else entirely.
I thought honestly about what he’d asked. It was a big change, knowing that Jay was Nina’s father. I was still shocked. The fact of it was one thing—the implications another thing entirely. Above it all, I still couldn’t quite grasp the notion that Jay may well be permanently in our lives. I had no idea who he really was. On some level I knew this odd sensation of puppy love was part of that. Like I was meeting him all over again for the first time, he was mysterious and intimidating. Only this time I didn’t have the luxury of holding him at arm’s length – not emotionally, at any rate.
Nonetheless, I had to keep that distance. On some level, I suppose I’d always known that it would be easy to write Aaron off. He was as reliable as shifting sands. On that same level, Jay, I’d always held at arm’s length because he was exactly the opposite. Assured; confident; capable; he was not the kind of man who did anything in half measures. He was the type of man you could easily depend on, and eventually start to need.
That was good news for Nina. I couldn’t ask for anything more for her. I wouldn’t permit anything less. If Jay was truly invested in his daughter, he wouldn’t permit anything less, either.
The notion sparked a flurry of anxiety in my stomach for a reason I couldn’t quite isolate.
#
“It’s a nightmare,” Elizabeth Fitzsimmons said.
The next morning, after a restless night during which Nina had woken several times, I descended the stairs in a fog of ill-will. I just wanted coffee. Nina had been fed, bathed, washed, played with, and now I wanted coffee. I did not want to deal with Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, and yet the woman was sitting slap bang in the middle of Jay’s kitchen. I recognised her immediately from the night at the fashion show. Only this time, instead of looking down on me with haughty confusion, she was seated at the island in the kitchen, looking up at Jay.
What the hell is she doing here?
Then she sobbed, or rather, panted. I froze on the last step, holding my breath. I instinctively gathered Nina closer to my neck. When she spoke, Elizabeth’s voice carried a thread of what sounded like genuine fear. It snaked through me.
“... an absolute waking nightmare,” she was saying. “I knew he could go to jail, I just never really believed it would happen. Things like this don’t
happen to us,” she said, and removed her hands from her face for a moment to beseech Jay. “We’re the Bensons. My great grandfather was Hoover’s best friend. How could they turn on us like this?”
My eyes fled to where Jay was standing by the sink. He was leaning back against it, arms folded across his chest. Dressed in sweats, he looked like he’d been out running. His expression was inscrutable. Both he and Elizabeth were oblivious to my presence at the foot of the stairs in the dark hallway.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, helplessly.
My chest contracted in sharp alarm at his cutting frown. The usually unfathomable depths of his eyes were liquid with emotion. It looked raw. I took a step back, an intruder on a private moment between a man and woman. Their history palpated between them, heavy in the quiet morning air.
Jay inhaled. “He can appeal,” he said. “I’m sure his lawyers have already started the appeal process.”
“But he has to stay in jail while they do,” she said, breathless now as sobs threatened to return. She shook her head and covered her face with her hands again. Yellow hair scattered across her shoulders, her voice muffled as she said, “I can’t stand it … the thought of him alone in that awful place. He must be terrified, Jay. I can’t stand it!”
He moved quickly and pulled her into his embrace. She remained seated, but her arms snapped around his waist like a frightened animal seeking safety. She was still speaking but the wailing had stopped; I couldn’t hear her muffled words over the soothing noises Jay was making. I took another step back into the safety of the shadows in the den.
It had to be her father, Harry Benson ... had they finally charged him? Damn it, why hadn’t I charged my phone last night? I needed to check the news.
Nina shifted her head quickly, perhaps reacting to the outbreak of anxiety coursing through me. Realising she was on the verge of making some noise, I darted up a couple of stairs and out of sight. This was not the time to introduce Elizabeth Benson to my daughter.
The introduction was not yet to happen. Instead, Nina and I endured close on to an hour of wailing; it settled for ten minutes or so after we’d returned to the sanctity of our bedroom, before building back up to epic proportions. There was an argument—heated and scathing on Elizabeth’s part—which I completely missed because Nina got upset by proxy and cried through most of it. I paced the bedroom like a caged animal. For the first time in my life I started to understand what it meant for ears to bleed. Considering I’d recently emerged from the first six months of child-rearing, that was no mean feat. I had to congratulate Elizabeth on her stamina.
I’d just about reached screaming point myself when the door opened and Jay slipped in.
He was pale, a white line drawn around his tense lips. “Are you okay?” he asked. He surprised me by approaching and touching Nina’s head. Some of the tension eased from his face.
I resisted the urge to snap her away, reminding myself that he was her father. “What’s going on?” My tone was singed with frustration.
He exhaled. His eyes rested on me, assessing. “My ex-wife is here.”
“She seems upset.”
“She is.”
She’s also not your ex yet.
My brow lifted. Rocking Nina, I waited for him to continue, not trusting myself to speak. His bones seemed unusually prominent. I had no idea how he reacted to tension. He seemed calm.
“Her father was sentenced to a hundred and fifty years in jail yesterday,” he said, finally.
My jaw slackened. Jay paced away from me. He peered out of the window and turned back. His expression had hardened into an opaque mask.
“That’s more than they were predicting,” I said. My heart was slamming against my chest. “What the hell did he do to deserve a sentence like that? I thought it was just a Ponzi scheme.”
“Securities fraud,” he said with a sigh, “wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering ... if there’s something illegal you can do with money, he did it.” He approached us again and smoothed a big, gentle hand across Nina’s cheek. “Is she okay?”
I looked at Nina. She’d stopped crying almost the second Jay had walked into the room. I absorbed this realisation, frowning. She might be pleased to see him, but I was still seething for some reason I couldn’t quite isolate. I knew my reaction was inappropriate given the situation. It wasn’t just caffeine withdrawal, either; I’d developed an emotional twitch somewhere deep inside that might erupt any second.
“I have to take her out somewhere,” he said now.
“Nina?” I clutched her closer to me.
“Elizabeth,” Jay said. There was an attempt at a smile but it didn’t take. “She doesn’t know—about Nina.” He blew out a breath. “She’s not ready to meet you yet.”
I wasn’t ready to meet her, either, not by a long shot. I wanted to tell him that but salvaged enough decency to keep my mouth shut. “Okay,” I said.
“Call a car if you want to go out for a while,” he said, taking a step back. “Just press nine on the phone in the hallway, and they’ll send someone within ten minutes. They’ll take you anywhere you want to go, and pick you up when you want to come back.”
“Should we just make plans for the whole day?” I asked, “Or will you be back?”
“I’ll call you,” he said, his tone non-committal.
#
Jay didn’t call. I hardly expected him to. Nina and I took a stroll in the park. I browsed some of the nearby stores, but she quickly grew frustrated being in the pushchair. So we went back to the park. I lay a blanket on the grass and fed her again, and then walked her up and down for a while until she eventually fell asleep. I sat with her in my arms and watched her, quite content until hunger made me get up and head towards a stand by the monument. I ate a passable hot dog, read a free newspaper, called Monica, checked my email, and watched the joggers jealously for a while, vowing—as soon as my finances were healthy again—to buy one of those jogging strollers. I might have lost weight since Nina had been born but I still didn’t feel in control of my own body yet.
By early afternoon, both of us were ready to head home. Nina was fractious; so was I. I called the driver and he confirmed that Jay was not at home, so I asked him to come pick us up straight away. Jay might want Nina out of sight for the moment, but he should have thought about that before he’d invited us to stay in his home. I marched the pram back up the quaint driveway with tense determination.
The house was quiet when I let us back in. Relieved despite my bravado, I took care of Nina upstairs, changed her, fed her again, rocked her and then put her down for another nap. I picked up my laptop and the baby monitor. Then, kicking off my sandals, a sigh of gratitude for the temporary silence, I headed downstairs to get some prep work done in the garden.
When Jay came home tonight, we had to have the talk. I’d be at Vanguard tomorrow to start the week’s investigation, and I’d be distracted. The scene in the kitchen this morning had unnerved me, to say the least. He’d promised me his wife wouldn’t be here. Not that I cared if she was—
Damn, who am I kidding?
Of course, I cared. I stopped by the foot of the stairs, staring at my feet and taking a few deep breaths. How did I get into these situations? How did this jealous feeling have anything to do with Nina’s well-being? I stared ahead blindly for a moment, trying to gauge how I should feel, how I should react to everything that was going on, how to make the right decision.
I noticed the designer handbag on the table only after I’d been staring at it for ten seconds or so.
#
The discreet designer logo glinted in the shade. My stomach flipped; I listened to the silence again. Elizabeth wouldn’t have left her handbag. No matter how upset she was, no woman just walked off and left her handbag lying around. There would be things in it she would need: her ID; her purse; her phone.
Which meant that Elizabeth was still in the house somewhere.
A rash of violent goose bumps erupted over my s
kin. Was she asleep somewhere upstairs, sedated?
Nina was upstairs!
The woman had to be upset; who knew how she’d react to the news that her soon-to-be ex-husband had fathered a child. I certainly didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her, especially not with Nina close by.
I was just about to turn back up the stairs when a long shadow cast across the kitchen. I froze, ice shooting up my spine. In the doorway to the garden, Elizabeth was standing watching me. It was as if she’d been there the whole time. My hand fluttered to my mouth to muffle a choked gasp. She didn’t look off-balance. She looked oddly calm, given how upset she’d been this morning.
Straightening, I swallowed and forced a polite smile. She probably had no idea who I was. What would I say? I was the cleaner? A long-lost relative? A friend of the family?
“You’re Stella, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice low but clear.
Reaction tumbled over reaction until I was rendered useless. Jay must have told her after all! Why would he do that without letting me know?
“I’m Elizabeth Benson-Fitzsimmons,” she said. “Jay’s wife.”
The qualification was not lost on me. I cleared my throat. “Hello.”
Her gaze dropped to my bare feet and then slowly back up the now creased summer dress. Her pale blue eyes were cold enough to leave a shiver in their wake. It spread across me like ripples on a pond. I stayed very still, watching her carefully.
What the hell’s going on here?
Whatever it was, I was not in control of the situation. She had me exactly where she wanted me.
“You’re not his type, you know,” she said with a curious tone.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I glanced out into the garden. “Is Jay here?”
“No, he’s lunching. With friends of ours.”
Friends of hers? Damn him... why the hell had he left her here alone?
“You really aren’t his type,” she reiterated, and her tone was bordering on appalled. “Where did you two meet?”
