“Where is Zoe now?” he demanded.
“It’s none of your business,” Alice panted.
“I’m her father.”
“Like hell you are!” Alice opened the door a little and slammed it again, hard, against his foot. He barely flinched.
“Alice, can we just talk for a minute? Like adults?”
“No.” Her stomach was full of knives. “We can’t.”
“I know you’re ill,” he said. His voice was quiet, but somehow it carried strength.
“It’s none of your business,” she repeated. “Get your foot out of my door.”
“I want to know what you’ve put in your will. For guardianship of Zoe!”
Alice shoved again on the door, but it was useless. “Hey! What’s going on here?”
Paul stood behind George in the hallway. He looked at George, then at Alice, in confusion. But it only took a moment before understanding came to his face. “This is the guy?”
Alice had barely nodded before Paul grabbed him by the back of the shirt. He spun him around and punched him, clean, in the jaw. Sonja cried out. Despite herself, Alice felt a tingle of satisfaction. She yanked Paul by the wrist into the apartment, locking the door. “What was that?” she cried.
Paul shrugged. “I told you I was going to step up and be a good brother.”
In other circumstances, Alice might have been touched. Unfortunately these weren’t other circumstances. And Alice couldn’t hold it any longer, she doubled over and vomited.
70
“He can’t do this,” Paul said, pacing. Alice lay on the sofa. She felt hot in the face, and her stomach radiated pain. She’d vomited another two times, mostly bile—a strange greenish color.
“He might be able to,” Alice said. “I’ll have to get a lawyer.”
“But he’s a rapist!” Paul said.
“I never filed a report. As far as the law is concerned, he’s an upstanding citizen.”
Alice felt weak. The pain in her abdomen was getting worse—little twisting blades in her gut.
“He won’t get her, Alice.”
Alice thought about Sonja. Alice couldn’t believe she’d found herself becoming fond of the woman who had been plotting to take her daughter away. All this time she’d thought Sonja was concerned about her when actually she’d been George’s wife! But it wasn’t just the betrayal that worried Alice. Frustrating as it was, Sonja lent a certain legitimacy to George. A judge might not give a child to her biological father if he was an alleged rapist. But if he was happily married to a social worker who could vouch for the fact that he was a good man? What happened then?
“Where’s my phone?” she asked Paul.
Paul had no idea. Eventually Alice located it, charging, by her bedside. She called Kate.
“Hello?”
“It’s Alice.”
There was just something about her voice that undid Alice.
She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a giant sob.
“Alice?” Kate said. “What’s the matter?”
In that moment the pain in Alice’s belly was so sharp that it stole her breath.
“Kate,” she said, when she recovered. “Can you come over here?”
“Are you all right, Alice? Tell me.”
“Just … come over,” she said, and then felt her stomach seize.
“All right,” Kate said. “I’m on my way.”
It was a good thing, because after that Alice couldn’t talk any more.
71
As soon as Kate got off the phone with Alice, she grabbed her keys and drove to Alice’s. A familiar-looking man answered the door.
“You’re Kate?” he said.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Paul,” he reminded her. “Alice’s brother. Come in, quick.”
Kate strode into the apartment. Alice was bent over the couch.
“What happened?” she asked Paul.
“Zoe’s father turned up.”
“Zoe’s father? But … I thought he wasn’t involved.”
“He’s not. At least he shouldn’t be. But now he’s saying he wants Zoe.”
“He’s saying…” Kate’s fingers found her temples. “No!”
“We won’t let him,” Paul said. “We’ll fight it. But—”
But Kate wasn’t listening; she was looking at Alice, half kneeling, half lying on the couch. Her face had a faint sheen to it. She kept moving around, agitated. “Alice? Are you all right?”
Alice muttered something about stomach pain, then turned her head and vomited onto a towel.
“I’ll get another towel,” Paul said, but Kate was staring at this one. Her vomit was green.
Kate yanked up Alice’s top. Her belly was distended and stretched taut. Kate launched to her feet, snatched up the phone, and dialed 911.
“What is it?” Paul said, returning with a fresh towel.
“Yes, I’m a nurse,” she said into the phone. “I have a woman in her home with acute abdominal pain and vomiting. I need an ambulance right away.” She looked at Paul. “Where’s Zoe?”
“I … I think Alice said she’s at her boyfriend’s place.”
“Do you know the address?” Kate said.
“It’s written down in the kitchen.”
“Fine. Do you want to get Zoe or should—”
Alice responded to the sound of Zoe’s name. It was, perhaps, the first time she’d even noticed that Kate was there. But as she caught Kate’s gaze she looked surprisingly cognizant.
“You get Zoe,” she said, and she didn’t break her gaze until Kate promised she would.
72
“George! George, wait!”
He was striding into the house. Sonja had to run to keep up with him. They’d returned from Alice’s in separate cars, so she had no idea what was going on his head. Certainly he’d seemed calm when he was speaking to Alice, reasonable even, but that was because he wanted something. It was no indication of how he would behave in the privacy of his own home.
Sonja closed the front door but she had barely turned around when she was suddenly slammed against it. The air rushed from her lungs. His face was right up close, so close she could feel his breath on her face.
“What the hell were you doing there, Sonja?”
“What do you mean?” she choked out. “Alice is my client.”
His hands teetered just below her throat, around her collarbones, like a threat. He pressed harder. “You said you wanted to talk about me. Why?”
Sonja struggled to catch her breath. Why had she gone there? Ostensibly it had been to find out what had happened between George and Alice the night Zoe was conceived. But she needn’t have bothered. Even before she’d heard Alice say it, she’d known the truth.
“You raped her,” she said to George.
George released his grip on her. All of a sudden he seemed almost … bored.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said.
George rolled his eyes and turned away. As if he were admitting to a speeding ticket that he’d tucked away, hoping she wouldn’t find it, rather than a heinous crime. “It was … just a moment,” he said. “I lost it.”