A Traitor to Memory

His shoulders shook and his fist grabbed onto the card like he wanted to strangle it and he said again, “Virginia. Virginia. God damn him. He lied to me.” And he began to cry. Not tears but sobs, heaves of his body like everything was trying to come up and out of him: the contents of his stomach, the thoughts in his mind, and the feelings of his heart.

Tentatively, Libby reached for the card. He let her take it from him and she ran her gaze over it, looking for what had caused Gideon's reaction. It said:

Dear Richard:



Thank you for the flowers. They were much appreciated. The ceremony was a brief one, but I tried to make it something Virginia herself would have liked. So I filled the chapel with her finger paintings and put her favourite toys round her coffin before the cremation.



Our daughter was a miracle child in many ways. Not only because she defied medical probability and lived thirty-two years but also because she managed to teach so much to anyone who came into contact with her. I think you would have been proud to be her father, Richard. Despite her problems, she had your tenacity and your fighting spirit, no poor gifts to pass on to a child.



Fondly,



Lynn



Libby re-read the message and understood. She had your tenacity and your fighting spirit, no poor gifts to pass on to a child. Virginia, she thought. Another kid. Gideon had another sister and she was dead, too.

She looked at Gideon, at a loss for what to say. He'd been taking so many body blows in the past few days that she couldn't even begin to think where to start with the psychic salve that might soothe him.

She said hesitantly, “You didn't know about her, Gid?” And then, “Gideon?” again when he didn't reply. She reached out and touched his shoulder. He sat unmoving except for the fact that his whole frame was trembling. It was vibrating, almost, beneath his clothes.

He said, “Dead.”

She said, “Yeah. I read that in the note. Lynn must've been … Well, obviously, she says ‘our daughter,’ so she was her mom. Which means your dad was married before and you had a half sister as well. You didn't know?”

He took the card back from her. He heaved himself off the chair and clumsily shoved the card back into its envelope, stuffing this into the back pocket of his trousers. He said in a voice that was low, like someone talking while hypnotised, “He lies to me about everything. He always has. And he's lying now.”

He walked through the litter he'd left on the floor, like a man without vision. Libby trailed him, saying, “Maybe he didn't lie at all,” not so much because she wanted to defend Richard Davies—who probably would have lied about the second coming of Christ if that was the way to get what he wanted—but because she couldn't stand the thought of Gideon having to deal with anything else. “I mean, if he never told you about Virginia, it wouldn't have necessarily been a lie. It might've just been one of those things that never came up. Like, maybe he never had the opportunity to talk about her or something. Maybe your mom didn't want her discussed. Too painful? All's I'm saying is that it doesn't have to mean—”

“I knew,” he said. “I've always known.”

He went into the kitchen with Libby on his heels, chewing on this one. If Gideon knew about Virginia, then what was with him? Freaked out because she'd died, too? Distraught because no one had told him she'd died? Outraged because he'd been kept from the funeral? Except it looked like Richard himself didn't go, if the note was an indication of anything. So what was the lie?

She said, “Gid—” but stopped herself when he began punching numbers into the phone. Although he stood with one hand pressed to his stomach and one foot tapping against the floor, his expression was grim, the way a man looks when he's made up his mind about something.

He said into the phone, “Jill? Gideon. I want to speak with Dad … No? Then where …? I'm at the flat. No, he's not here … I checked there. Did he give you any idea …?” A rather long pause while Richard's lover either wracked her brains or recited a list of possibilities, at the end of which Gideon said, “Right. MotherCare. Fine … Thanks, Jill,” and listened some more. He ended with, “No. No message. No message at all. If he rings you, in fact, don't tell him I phoned. I wouldn't want to … Right. Let's not worry him. He's got enough on his mind.” Then he rang off. “She thinks he's gone off to Oxford Street. Supplies, she says. He wants an intercom for the baby's room. She hadn't yet got one because she intended the baby to sleep with them. Or with her. Or with him. Or with someone. But she didn't intend her to be alone. Because if a baby gets left alone, Libby, if a child goes un-tended for a while, if the parents aren't vigilant, if there's a distraction when they don't expect one, if there's a window open, if someone leaves a candle lit, if anything at all, then the worst can happen. The worst will happen. And who knows that better than Dad?”

“Let's go,” Libby said. “Let's get out of here, Gideon. Come on. I'll buy you a latte, okay? There's got to be a Starbucks nearby.”

He shook his head. “You go. Take the car. Go home.”

“I'm not going to leave you here. Besides, how would you get—”