Coincidences (14 page)

‘Through the adoption agency.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’re adopted, aren’t you?’
said Charlotte.

Alice blushed. ‘Er... no.’

‘Oh, sorry. I must be mixing you
up with someone else. But didn’t you tell me once that you’ve never met your
father?’

‘Yes.’ Alice stood up and took
the book from the counter hoping she could get lost between the bookshelves and
not have to talk about this now.

‘Have you ever tried looking for
him?’ asked Charlotte.

‘No.’ Alice forced a smile and
shook her head.

‘You should,’ said Charlotte,
smiling back at her.

‘Well, I have been thinking
about it recently.’ She held the book closer to her as she spoke as if for
reassurance. ‘My mum’s invited me to dinner tonight and I think she might have
some news about my dad, because I mentioned to her that I wanted to look for
him.’

‘Oh, wow! That’s exciting! Your
life is just like a Hollywood movie. Mine’s boring... no divorced parents, no
long lost father. Wow! I envy you, Alice.’

Alice felt the adrenaline course
through her as she noticed the time on the clock. In less than three hours she
would know what her mother wanted to tell her.

***

Stephanie looked at her face in the hallway mirror. Her
eyes were sunken and black around as if she had been crying for ever. She
reached for her handbag that was dangling over her coat on the coat-hanger
behind the front door. She fished around until she found her concealer.
I
really need to clear out the mess in this bag
, she thought, as a stray
receipt fell onto the floor. She absent-mindedly picked it up and looked at it.
The top of the receipt showed that it was from the café across the road from
her salon, where she had taken Alice for lunch on the day they’d bumped into
Rita. She scrunched up the receipt and placed it in the pocket of her cardigan,
thinking she would throw it away when she went into the kitchen.

Placing her bag on the side
table, she took off the lid of her concealer and carefully covered up the signs
of the sleepless night before. She had tossed and turned knowing that she would
be seeing Alice and telling her about Miranda, and about the surrogacy
agreement. As she struggled to get some sleep she couldn’t shift the fears that
were at the forefront of her mind:
If only I’d told Alice all of this when
she was a little girl; when she needed me. She doesn’t need me now. She could
easily walk away and leave me.

It seemed logical that as Alice
was determined to find her father, she would also want to find her real mother
when she knew the truth. The more Stephanie turned things over in her mind the
more she felt that she had been selfish by keeping this secret from Alice. And
lately, it was as though every word she uttered to Alice was a lie. Rita was
right. It was time to reveal all. She would have to live with the consequences.

Telling Alice the truth would,
Stephanie knew, be one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life.
Most of her sleepless night was used up trying to think of the best way to tell
her. She finally decided that she would start from the beginning; explain that
she could not have children, and that Miranda was a last resort. Surely, Alice
would work out that it was Stephanie and not Miranda who had loved her from the
start. Miranda had sold her own child. But then, Stephanie realised that she
had bought her; she was just as much to blame for treating Alice like a
commodity. How would Alice take the news that she was bought and sold? The
night had left Stephanie in a state of exhaustion. By the time the morning sun
had begun to peep through the gaps in the curtains, her head felt like it could
explode. The brightness did nothing to lighten her mood, instead it began to
wind her up even more knowing that not only would she have to reveal a painful
secret, but she would have to do so after a fitful night when she had been
unable to rest.

Her alarm clock sounded at 7
a.m. She had been due to go to the salon, but she did not feel up to it. She
phoned in and left a message on the answer-phone to explain that she would not
be going to work; she felt guilty momentarily, because that meant her clients
would be disappointed having to have their appointments re-scheduled. Sighing,
she turned over in bed pulling the duvet over her head to block out the light,
and tried to get some sleep. It was 8 a.m. when she finally fell asleep.

She awoke at 2 o’clock in the
afternoon, in a cold sweat. She had been screaming in her dream, calling after
Alice who was running away from her. It was becoming darker and darker, until
she couldn’t see her anymore. ‘Come back, Alice! I love you!’ she had screamed,
and then woken up to find herself in bed, as the midday sun battled to get
through her curtains into the room.

Alice had been a child in
Stephanie’s dream, about eight years old. The child-Alice had shouted at her:
‘You’re not my real mum!’ Roger had also been in the dream. Alice had said to
her: ‘I don’t love you anymore. You lied to me. I’m going to live with my
daddy.’

Roger had taken Alice by the
hand and said: ‘Miranda is her real mother, not you.’

When Stephanie opened her eyes,
at first she had felt relieved that it had been a dream, but then she worried
in case it was some kind of warning against telling Alice. But she put that to
the back of her mind. She would have to tell her. There was no alternative.

***

Stephanie took the home-made Lasagne out of the oven;
Alice’s favourite meal. She sighed deeply. She had prepared the dish in the
hope of putting Alice in a good mood, but deep down, she knew that food would
be the last thing on Alice’s mind when she heard the truth.

She almost dropped the hot dish
on the kitchen floor when she heard a key turn in the front door.

‘Hi, Mum! It’s me!’

Stephanie’s heart jumped. She
carefully placed the Lasagne on the kitchen bench and turned around to greet
Alice.

‘Darling, so good to see you,’
she said, her voice sounding very high pitched. She coughed, hardly able to
meet Alice’s eye.

‘Mmm, dinner smells good.’
Alice’s lips curved into a smile.

‘I made it specially,’ said
Stephanie, busying herself by reaching into the cupboard for plates. ‘Er...
would you like anything to drink?’

‘What have you got?’

‘I have some wine; it’s white.
Or, you could have fruit juice; I have orange or cranberry.’ Stephanie had
walked over to the fridge and although she had the door open, she was not
really looking inside.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
She
could hardly bear to look at Alice, for fear that her guilt would show on her
face.

‘I’ll have some wine,’ said
Alice.

Alice sat at the kitchen table.
‘How was your day, Mum?’

‘I didn’t go to work today,’ she
replied, taking two wine glasses out of the cupboard and placing them on the
kitchen table.

‘Oh?’

‘Took the day off.’ She brushed
it aside, with a wave of her hand.

‘Lucky for some,’ said Alice. ‘I
was at the bookstore today.’

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Stephanie
replied, absent-mindedly, not really having heard what Alice said. She finally
took the oven dish to the table and began to serve the food, feeling oddly as
if she were in the company of a stranger.

Alice began eating as soon as
the food was put in her plate. ‘Mmm, this is delicious.’

Stephanie sat down opposite her,
frowning, but trying to smile. She took a sip of wine, hoping that the alcohol
would steady her nerves.

‘So, what did you want to talk
to me about?’

Stephanie almost choked on the
mouthful of food she had just taken. She had wanted to wait for the right
moment to discuss everything. Washing down the food in her mouth with some
wine, she looked at Alice with a concerned frown.

‘It’s about my dad isn’t it?’
Alice mirrored her frown.

Stephanie nodded.

‘I was thinking about this all
day,’ said Alice, now fingering the table cloth.

Stephanie feared she might make
a hole in the delicate lace, because of the way she was holding the fabric
between her fingers. The tablecloth had been a gift from Rita when Stephanie
and Roger had married. She only brought it out on special occasions. She had
put it on the table today, without thinking; wanting the place to look nice.
Now, she regretted using this tablecloth; it held so many memories.

Thankfully, Alice stopped
touching the tablecloth and picked up her wine glass. ‘I think I know what you’re
going to tell me. I think I’ve worked out why you were so against me trying to
find him. You kept saying I’d get hurt.’ She sipped her wine and then placed
the glass on the table.

Stephanie’s cheeks reddened. Had
Rita said something to her? Had Alice heard more than she let on the last time
she was here when Rita was visiting?

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ said
Alice, quite unexpectedly.

Stephanie shook her head and
stood up. ‘No. He’s not dead. Well... not as far as I know.’ She could not bear
to be sitting at that table. Suddenly the room seemed to have no air. She
walked over to the window, opened it slightly and stood staring out at the
dwindling sunshine over the backs of houses and small square gardens that made
up the terraced row where her flat was situated.

Alice stood up. The meal at the
table was forgotten it seemed, as both women stood, almost lifeless, like
mannequins, not knowing what to say next.

‘You said you had something to
tell me that you couldn’t tell me on the phone.’ Alice broke the silence.

Stephanie twirled around towards
her. Her face was still flushed despite the cool air that was now circulating
in the kitchen. ‘Let’s finish our meal. Then we can talk.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘But it’s Lasagne; your
favourite.’

‘I’ll eat it after. I need to
know what you were going to say.’ Alice gestured for her mother to sit at the
table, and sat back down. She stared at the food now going cold in her plate.

Stephanie took a tissue from the
box on the kitchen bench, preparing herself for the tears that she knew would
come. She sat opposite Alice and cleared her throat. ‘There’s something you
should know. Maybe I should have told you years ago, but you must understand I
was trying to do what was best.’ Her eyes began to fill with tears.

‘Okay, what is it?’ Alice
shrugged.

‘You know I love you, don’t you,
Alice?’

Alice felt embarrassed. She
wasn’t used to seeing her mother like this, and although she loved her dearly,
it wasn’t something that she ever really said out loud. It was just something
that was understood between them. She looked at the small roses on the
tablecloth that brought back memories of her youth, when her mother would
entertain guests and always insist on using the lace tablecloth. ‘Of course,’
she replied, feeling herself blush.

Stephanie wiped her eyes with
the tissue.

‘Why are you crying, Mum?’

Stephanie stood up again and
walked back to the kitchen window.
What shall I say?
Her mind was
whirring.

‘Look, whatever you tell me, it
won’t make a difference, okay? You’re the one who brought me up, I know that.
I’m not suddenly going to leave you for my dad if that’s what you’re worried
about.’

Stephanie turned to face her,
leaning on the kitchen bench for support. ‘I always wanted to have children. I
wanted lots of children. Three or four would have been ideal,’ she began. ‘Your
father and I tried to have children for so long. Nothing worked. I went for
years hoping and praying for a child, and as I got older it seemed that my
dream would pass me by. Alice, please don’t h... hate me,’ her voice broke and
she began to cry. She walked over to the kitchen table, taking a few more
tissues from the box on the way. When she sat down, she took a deep breath and
tried to compose herself.

‘What are you trying to tell
me?’ Alice stood up, her brow furrowed. She shrugged her shoulders, shaking her
head. ‘Why are you crying? What could be so bad? And... And... why would I hate
you? You’re not making any sense.’

‘Okay,’ Stephanie began. ‘Look,
sit down, please, and I’ll tell you.’ She closed her eyes.

Alice sat down hesitantly,
unsure if she really wanted to hear what she was about to be told.

‘I’m not your mother.’

‘What?’ Alice frowned. Then she
smiled. ‘This is a joke, right?’ But, looking at Stephanie’s face she knew it
was not a joke.

‘I’m so sorry, darling. I had to
tell you in case you found your father and he might have—’

Alice stood up, and then felt
light-headed. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I know. I wanted to tell you
when you were younger, but your father had left, and there never seemed to be
the right moment.’

‘You’re not my mum?’

Stephanie stood up. ‘Well, not
biologically. But I brought you up. I was the one who—’

‘Who’s my mum?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘Huh!’ Alice’s face became red.
‘Not important?’

‘You don’t have to know—’

‘I want to know!’ shouted Alice.

‘Please calm down, darling. Oh,
I knew this would happen. This is why I never told you before.’

‘You don’t think I have a right
to know who my own mum is? Who do you think you are to decide that?’

Stephanie’s mouth fell open.

‘You’ve lied to me for so many
years, making me think you’re my mum.’ Confusion swarmed Alice’s brain; it was
a surreal conversation, one she’d never have imagined she would ever have.
Is
this really happening?
She held her forehead, and tried to calm down.

‘It wasn’t like that, Alice. The
woman who gave birth to you didn’t want you. It was a surrogacy agreement. I
paid her to have a baby for me because I couldn’t have a baby. Do you
understand that? I was the one who wanted you. It was only because I wanted a
child that you came into the world.’