Secret Baby, Surprise Parents

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The likeness was striking, but Michael had more of their mother, her brown eyes.

He tossed the photograph on the desk and, turning to the wardrobe, hunted out a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight, a sweatshirt that didn’t betray his adolescent taste in music.

Then he checked his new BlackBerry for messages, replied to a couple that wouldn’t wait. By then it was time to go back upstairs—to Grace, and to the miracle and disaster that was Posie.

Grace took her time putting Posie to bed.

She hadn’t been so close, so intimate with Josh in years and she needed to put a little time and space between them. Get her breathing, her heart rate back under control.

She didn’t hurry over changing her, washing her hands and face, feeding her little arms and legs into a clean sleep suit, all the time talking to her, tickling her tummy, kissing her toes. Telling her that she was the most beautiful baby in the world, just as Phoebe would have done.

Using the sweet little smiles to distract herself from vivid memories of Josh, naked in the shadowy light from a single lamp. His grey eyes turning molten as that first kiss had turned into hot, feverish, desperate need.

He’d been so beautiful. So perfect…

Posie waved a foot at her and she caught it, kissed it, peered into her eyes. Did all babies really have blue eyes? People said that, but was it true? Weren’t Posie’s a little bit grey? Then she saw the tiny flecks of brown and smiled.

‘You’re a beautiful, clever girl,’ she said, doing up the poppers, then picking her up and nuzzling her tummy before putting her in the cot, ‘and you’re going to be just like your daddy.’

She carried on talking to her as she wound up the musical mobile, teasing, laughing and, once she’d set it gently turning, singing to her, very softly.

Upstairs, Josh stopped at the open door to his brother’s small study. As always, it was immaculately tidy, with only his address book and an antique silver photograph frame on the desk.

He picked it up, stared at the picture of Phoebe cradling her new baby daughter. It looked perfect, but it was all wrong. A lie.

Even his perfect brother, who everyone had loved and thought could do no wrong, had one, unexpectedly human, frailty.

He carefully replaced the picture and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Later. He’d go through his papers later. Not that it would take long. He knew that all bills would be paid, life insurance up to date, will filed with the family lawyer.

Then he frowned. Had he changed it since Posie had been born? There hadn’t been much time but Michael had never, in the normal way of things, believed in leaving a mess for other people to clear up. But playing fast and loose with life, keeping secrets, even with the best of intentions, had a way of coming back to bite you. And that tended to make things very messy indeed.

Whatever he’d done, it seemed likely that Grace would be the person most affected.

He wondered if she had the least idea how her life was about to change. How, on top of the loss of her closest family, she might also lose the home she loved. The baby who she’d so selflessly surrendered and yet hadn’t totally surrendered, knowing that she would always be close to her. That she would still be hers to comfort. To hold.

He wiped those thoughts from his mind, took a breath, pushed open the kitchen door.

‘Sorry,’ he began. ‘I had to make…’

He stopped. Looked around. He could have sworn he’d heard her talking to Posie but the kitchen was empty.

He shrugged, crossed to the cutlery drawer, planning to lay the table. He’d barely opened it when he heard her again. ‘Night-night, Rosie Posie…’ she said, laughing softly. ‘Daddy’s gorgeous little girl.’

He spun around, then saw the baby monitor on the dresser. Was it two-way? Could she hear him? No, of course not. But even so he stepped away from the drawer, planning to escape before she came down and found him eavesdropping on her private conversation with her baby.

There was the sound of something being wound up, the gentle tinkling of a lullaby.

‘Night-night, sweetheart. Sleep tight…’

His imagination supplied the vivid image of her bending over to kiss this very precious baby.

And then she began to sing and nothing could have torn him away.

CHAPTER THREE

GRACE came to an abrupt halt at the kitchen door. The table was laid. A bottle of red wine had been uncorked. A jug of water beside it on the table. Everything ready for them to eat.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said. ‘Have you been waiting long?’

‘I guessed you were still busy and made a start, that’s all’ he said, pulling out a chair. ‘Sit down. I’ll get the casserole.’

‘No, I’ll do that…’

‘I’m here to help, not add to your burdens, Grace.’ He picked up a cloth, took the casserole out of the slow oven and placed it on the heatproof mat. ‘Did Posie go off to sleep?’ he asked, looking up.

‘Like a lamb. Until her next feed.’

‘And when is that?’

‘Whoa… Enough,’ she said as he heaped the meat and vegetables on her plate. Then, answering his question, ‘Around ten. There are jacket potatoes in the top oven.’ She leapt up to get them, but he reached out and, with a hand on her shoulder, said, ‘Stay. I’ll get them.’

She froze and he quickly removed his hand. It made no difference. She was certain that when she took off her shirt, she would see the imprint of his fingers burned into her skin.

He turned away, took the potatoes from the oven, placed one on each of their plates.

‘No—’

‘You have to eat,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, but…’

But not this much.

She let it go as, ignoring her, he fetched butter from the fridge, then picked up the bottle of wine, offering it to her. She shook her head and he beat her to the water, filling her glass.

‘Michael told me that Posie was sleeping through the night,’ he said when, all done, he sat down, picked up a fork.

‘She was, but she’s started waking up again. Missing her mother.’ Then, not wanting to think about that, she said, ‘Michael told you?’

‘He e-mailed me daily bulletins. Sent photographs.’ Why was she surprised? That was Michael. Josh might have walked away, but they were brothers and he would never let go.

‘He wanted you to share his happiness, Josh.’

‘It was a little more complicated than that.’

‘Your understanding, then,’ she said, when he didn’t elaborate.

‘I understood.’

‘You just didn’t approve.’

‘No.’

‘Why? What was your problem?’ She hadn’t understood it then and didn’t now. ‘He didn’t pressure me. Neither of them did. It was my idea. I wanted to do it.’

For a moment she thought he was going to explain but, after a moment, he shook his head, said, ‘When did you have your hair cut?’

Her hair? Well, maybe that was better than a rerun of a pointless argument. Although, if the general male reaction to her cutting her waist- length hair was anything to go by, maybe this was less a change of subject than a change of argument.

‘About six months ago,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive. Every man she knew seemed to have taken it as a personal affront. She, on the other hand, had found it liberating. ‘When did you grow the beard?’ she retaliated.

‘About six months ago.’

‘Oh, right. It’s one of those clever/dumb things, then.’

He thought about it, then shook his head. ‘No. Sorry. You’re going to have to explain that one.’

‘Whenever someone does something clever, in another part of the world another person does something stupid to balance it out,’ she said, as if everyone knew that. She shook her head and then, unable to help herself, grinned. ‘Sorry. It’s just a ridiculous advert on the television that drove Phoebe…’ She stopped.

‘Say it, Grace. Talking about her, about Michael keeps them with us.’

‘That drove Phoebe nuts,’ she said slowly, testing her sister’s name on her tongue. How it felt. It brought tears to her eyes, she discovered, but not bad tears. Thinking about her sister being driven mad by Michael, them both laughing, was a good memory. She blinked back the tears, smiled. ‘Michael used to tease her with versions he made up.’

‘Like you’re teasing me?’

‘Oh, I’m not teasing, Josh. I’m telling it the way I see it.’

‘Is that right? Well, you’re going to have to live with it. But while I’m not prepared to admit that the beard is dumb, I have to agree that your new style is clever. It suits you, Grace.’

‘Oh…’

She picked up her fork, took a mouthful of casserole. Touching her hair would have been such a giveaway gesture—

‘I really, really hate it,’ he added, ‘but there’s no doubt that it suits you.’

—and much too soon.

‘Pretty much like the beard, then,’ she said. And, since the food hadn’t actually choked her, she took another mouthful.

‘Grow your hair again and I’ll shave it off.’

It was an update of the arguments they’d used to have about the clothes she’d worn. The girls he’d dated. The music she’d listened to.

‘If you hold shares in a razor-blade company, sell them now,’ she advised.

Perhaps recognising that step back to a happier time in their relationship, he looked up, smiled.

And it was as if he’d never been gone.

For a moment they allowed the comfortable silence to continue, but finally Josh shifted, said, ‘Do you want to tell me about the funeral?’

She sketched a shrug. ‘Michael and Phoebe had left instructions…’ She swallowed. ‘How could they do that? They were much too young to be thinking about things like that.’

‘I imagine they did it for one another. So that whoever went first wouldn’t be faced with making decisions. What did they want?’

‘A simple funeral service in the local church, then a woodland burial with just a tree as a marker for their grave. I imagine that was Phoebe’s choice. Your father wasn’t impressed, but there was nothing he or your mother could do.’

‘One more reason for Michael to lay it all out in words of one syllable.’

‘Josh… He was their son,’ she said helplessly.

‘Not in any way that matters. His mother is living in Japan with someone she isn’t married to. His father is in Strasbourg, raising his second family. He hadn’t spoken to either of them in years.’

‘You’re their son, too. Have you spoken to them?’

‘We have nothing to talk about.’

She said nothing. What could she say? That they had both been dealt rubbish hands when it came to parents?