I have imagined this moment a hundred times, in various incarnations. Now that it’s real, and this is the one that’s actually going to happen, a strange acceptance coolly floods my body, like an injection of saline. I know better than to fight it. My mind is clear and calm. I only want to make this experience survivable for Ben.
‘Hello,’ he manages, in barely a whisper. ‘Just tell me it’s not true?’
I’ve not seen my ex-husband – the first boy I slept with – for so long that we ought to be strangers now. He’s had a whole other life since me, just as I have had him, and yet I have no hesitation in stepping forward and taking his hands in mine, just as I did all those years ago in the hospital room, seconds before he made that cry I will never forget – the sound of a heart breaking.
He jumps at my touch, and he’s right – I have no right to assume this level of intimacy, it’s just an instinctive action. He is still desperately clutching his piece of paper – and briefly glancing down at it, I see it’s a screenshot that he’s even gone to the trouble of colour printing out. The familiar blue branding of Facebook is unmistakable, and it appears to be a message conversation. ‘Who was it who contacted you?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s an empty profile. Someone who opened a fake account just to send it to me.’ He moves the hand holding the paper lightly, as I still have hold of him – then meets my gaze full on. ‘Is it true? Beth was never mine?’
‘I slept with someone else around the time I fell pregnant with Beth, yes.’
‘That teacher, the one who took her to the hospital the day she died?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh my God.’ He breathes in deeply, and looks up at the dark, moonless sky. ‘So she’s his daughter – and you knew that, all along?’
‘No,’ I say truthfully. ‘I don’t know for certain which of you is her biological father.’
Ben pulls free and steps back – away from me. ‘But given all the time we spent trying for a second baby, and it didn’t happen, it’s pretty likely it’s him and not me, isn’t it?’
I shake my head. ‘Not at all. Second time round infertility is a very common problem. I honestly don’t know who Beth’s biological father was, and I never will, but I can tell you exactly who her dad was – you.’
He’s clutching the paper more tightly now. ‘Don’t, Jess. Don’t do that bit. Try and imagine how it felt to be just lying in bed reading last night, only for my phone to buzz with a message from a complete stranger telling me that I should know the truth, and I’ve been lied to for twenty-two years. I’ve known you the best part of my life. I know we were kids, but I loved you, and you loved me. I know that was true. So how could you do this? When the three of us were together were some of the happiest times of my life. And now, all I can see when I think about them, is you wondering how I could be so STUPID…’ He looks at me with tears forming in his eyes. ‘Every anniversary I’ve sent you a rose, knowing that you would be out there somewhere and wanting you to know you weren’t alone – that I was missing our daughter with my whole heart too; my whole heart, Jess.’ He is openly crying now, and I am too. ‘Only it wasn’t real. None of it was real.’
‘Yes, it was!’ I step towards him again and desperately grab his arm. ‘Of course it was! Everything we experienced; those were beautiful, real days. We loved her and she loved us. I wouldn’t have denied her – or us – any of that by telling you something I didn’t even know for certain was true. And I gave everything to try and protect you from this after she died.’
‘“Protect me”?’ he says in disbelief.
‘Yes!’ I exclaim. ‘From how you’re feeling now! It was my burden to live with – my guilt, not yours. You were, and are, her dad, Ben. And you were amazing. I loved you so much for how good a father you were. You have no idea.’
‘Is that why you left when she died then?’ He can’t help himself from asking. ‘I’d fulfilled the role you needed – one he presumably turned down?’
‘Of course not,’ I whisper. ‘He never even knew I was pregnant. His wife found out about the,’ I swallow, struggling for the right word, ‘fling and came to our house after the funeral. She threatened that unless I moved away, she would tell you that you weren’t Beth’s father. I couldn’t bear for that to happen, Ben. I left the next day.’
‘It wasn’t just an excuse to go?’
I shake my head. ‘Beth dying broke me. You know that. I didn’t know where to put myself. I thought I was doing the right thing. Like you said, we were so young, Ben, but I did love you – and I was desperate for you not to be hurt any more than you already had been. I was trying to shield you.’
‘I still love you.’ He wipes his eyes with his free hand. ‘I always will. Not like I did back then, in that doomed, obsessive way; I mean in that I’ve shared so much with you… but to now find that it was him that you were really sharing it with?’ He closes his eyes as if he’s in physical pain.
‘But I didn’t share anything with him at all,’ I insist. ‘He didn’t know Beth existed until she started at that school. It was only ever you.’
‘Except when she had her accident – he was with her then. Not me, and I hate him for that.’
‘You know she died instantly, Ben. But yes, I wish that you or I had been there with her. She’s your daughter in every way that matters. She loved you so much.’
He stares down at the ground and I know he’s rerunning scenes, seeing her face, hearing her voice, her laugh… trying to remember. I hold my breath, suddenly conscious of now not wanting to say the wrong thing.
‘You saw my mother today,’ he says suddenly. ‘She phoned me to say she’d seen you at the grave, and that she was worried about you; you looked too thin, and as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. Do you know what it would do to her, to find this out?’
‘I’m so sorry.’ There is nothing else I can say.
‘You’re “sorry”,’ he repeats slowly. He exhales deeply, his breath clouding around him, then he shakes off my hand.
‘Please, can you forgive me?’
He loosens the fingers of his other hand, and the paper falls to the ground. He turns quickly and begins to walk away.
‘Ben?’ I call desperately after him, wrapping my arms around my body at the chill of the early evening darkness creeping through my clothes, but he doesn’t turn, even though I know he hears me. He keeps walking – his straight, upright back, clad in a waxed Barbour, briefly illuminated under the street light – before he disappears round the corner and is gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘You didn’t need to ask for his forgiveness,’ Ed says quietly, as we drive to his parents’.
‘Shhhh.’ I look out of my window, drying my eyes and rubbing my cheeks clear of tearstains, certainly not wanting to discuss this in front of Sandrine, who is in the back with James, holding his hand and singing lively songs in French to keep him awake.
‘You made a mistake. You are not a bad person.’
‘Please, Ed.’ I don’t add that, of course, Ed would say that right now.
‘And just because there was last night’s date on that printout conversation doesn’t mean it all happened as he said it did,’ Ed continues, ignoring me. ‘He could have doctored it. The whole thing could be faked.’
I close my eyes briefly. ‘He’s just as much a victim in this as we are. Can we please leave it now?’
‘I suppose at least we know who it was that the neighbours saw hanging around the house earlier. He was obviously waiting for you to come back.’ Ed glances sideways at me. ‘You look knackered. At least you might get some sleep at Mum and Dad’s tonight. Listen, when we get there, I’m going to get you all settled, and then I actually do need to pop back out.’
I lift my head quickly and look at him. ‘To where?’
He hesitates. ‘I’m going to go and see Daniel.’