The Accidental Mother (13 page)

“Nothing!” Sophie exclaimed in wonder.

“Yep,” Jake said, raising both his brows and crossing his arms. “That’s what I thought.”

Carefully Sophie eased into the room, sat down on the edge of the sofa, and watched the tableau of cat and girl, a tiny smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “She likes you,” Sophie said.

“Cats do like me,” Bella answered, still looking at Artemis. “We…Well, when we were at home, we had a giant cat called Tango because he was orange, but…but when we had to go and live with Grandma, he had to go into a home, because Grandma is allergic to cats, and now I don’t know who he lives with.” Bella turned her profile a little farther away from Sophie. “So I know that cats like me.”

Sophie slipped off the edge of the sofa and knelt on the floor in front of the chair. “But Artemis doesn’t even like
me,
Bella,” she said without jealousy. “I’m just her landlady. For her to let you stroke her like that after only knowing you for a few days must mean that you are a very, very special person.”

“Really?” Bella said, looking at Sophie.

“Really,” Sophie said. And because she felt suddenly so grateful to Bella, and because she sensed that she needed her too, Sophie put one arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a little hug.

“Thank you,” she said. “For making Artemis feel safe and happy.” She covered Bella’s free hand with her own and squeezed it gently. Artemis shot out a paw and scratched the back of Sophie’s hand in one fluid movement, giving her a most irritated look before hopping off the chair and running past Jake and into the hallway.

“Ouch,” Sophie said, looking at the four red welts that had begun to rise on the back of her hand.

“Sorry,” Bella said, looking worried. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

Sophie laughed. “Oh, she meant it. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad she’s found a friend. She really needed one.”

Bella and Sophie smiled at each other, and Sophie realized it was the first time they had truly connected since Bella had arrived in her life. It was as if she had caught a fleeting glance of the little girl who was in there somewhere, hiding behind the protective outer layer. Sophie felt a curious jump in her abdomen as she watched Bella retreat again; it had felt just for a moment as if she had been talking to Carrie. But Bella glanced at Jake, still standing in the door way and any trace of Carrie was gone in an instant.

“If Artemis liking me after just a bit means I’m a special person…” Bella began slowly.

“Yes?” Sophie said with a smile, hoping to coax that other Bella out again.

“Does that mean that her not liking you after three years means that you are a rubbish one?”

Sophie thought for a moment. “Probably,” she conceded. She was getting used to Bella’s blunt observations, and beside, she didn’t have the energy to be offended by a six-year-old.

“Well, I love Artemis, Aunty Sophie, but I think she’s wrong. I don’t think you’re rubbish. I think you’re not bad, really. Actually, I like you—you
are
funny.” Bella patted Sophie’s knee in commiseration. “It’s been an awfully long day. Can I go to bed?”

“Absolutely,” Sophie said hastily, sounding possibly a bit too pleased.

“Should I brush my teeth?” Bella asked her.

“You’d better,” Sophie replied. “At least once every other day is the recommended minimum.”

“Is he going home now?” Bella nodded at Jake, who had come into the room and sat on the arm of the sofa.

“In a little bit,” Sophie said.

“He’ll probably want to kiss you. Bleugh,” Bella said, wrinkling up her nose.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sophie said. “I’ll come and brush my teeth with you.”

Well, there was no harm in being prepared.

Half an hour later, Sophie offered Jake a glass of warm Baileys.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s all I’ve got, unless you want another ‘cuppa’?”

Jake smiled and took the glass from her hand, so that the tips of his fingers brushed hers. “No, I think I need something a little stronger.”

Sophie took a bigger gulp of her Baileys than was probably ladylike.

“You know,” she said reflectively. “I work sometimes from eight in the morning to ten at night—later than that if we’ve got an event on. I don’t take a break or stop for lunch, I keep going, and at the end of the day I’m tired, but not this tired. I’ve
never
been this tired before in my life and…” She demonstrated her exhaustion quite eloquently by drifting off into silence.

Jake watched her for a second or two before putting his glass down, taking hers out of her hands, and setting it beside his. “You are doing amazingly well,” he said.

Sophie looked rather longingly at her glass. “Thank you,” she said.

“I mean, from the moment I met you, I got all the obvious things about you right away,” he told her. “I got that you are beautiful and clever and formidable.”

“Formidable?”
Sophie repeated the word uncertainly.

“I like a challenge,” Jake said with a grin. “What I’m trying to say, Sophie, is I like and admire you. I’m really attracted to you. But all this? Seeing you handle it all with such grace and goodwill…”

“Well…” Sophie wasn’t sure about that last part.

“You’ve blown me away,” Jake said. “I think I could really fall for you, Sophie Mills.”

Sophie froze. “Oh,” she said. And then, “Um, how nice.”

“I’m going too fast, aren’t I?” Jake asked her.

Sophie shook her head. “No, no—I mean—Look, Jake, it’s just there’s so much going on in my life right now. So much I’ve got to keep on top of. There’s work and that’s so important and the girls of course I’ve got to get their dad back otherwise they’ll go into foster care and that would be wrong. I don’t think that now is the right time to start anything…” Sophie was almost unable to believe what she was saying. For the last few weeks, whenever she had thought about Jake, she had imagined what it would be like to hear him saying these words or something very like them to her. Now that he was, she felt like leaping up and opening all the windows and washing the kitchen floor. Maybe Cal was right about her. Maybe she
did
have intimacy issues, whatever intimacy issues might be. Maybe she did like the idea of Jake falling for her much more than she liked the reality.

“I understand that,” Jake said gently. “But can I ask you, Sophie—is it just that? If it’s just that, I can wait until you’re ready. But if you don’t think you’re attracted to me at all, then you’ll tell me, won’t you?” He laughed. “Usually I can tell what a woman is thinking just by looking at her. You’re not at all like that. You’re a genuine enigma. I can’t figure you out at all.”

Join the club, thought Sophie as she looked at Jake’s lightly tanned face, his blue eyes and dark blond hair. He was indisputably attractive. If you looked up the word
attractive
in a dictionary, it would probably say in italics
“See Jake Flynn.”

“I am attracted to you,” she said, and she was—it was impossible not to admire a man who was so pleasing.

Suddenly Jake leaned forward and picked up her hand, pulling her closer to him. “Well then,” he said, his voice low. “Would you mind if I kissed you? Just so I’ve got something to dream about while I’m doing all this waiting.”

“Okay then,” she squeaked. Jakes arms moved around her waist and pulled her body tightly against his, and he moaned in the back of his throat as he kissed her. Sophie opened her lips under his and closed her eyes. It was a nice kiss, a nice warm kiss, and it did feel good to be that close to another human body. She tightened her arms around his neck, and he slid his hand under the hem of Lisa’s shirt and—

“Izzy’s been sick.” Bella’s voice boomed in Sophie’s ear. She and Jake sprang apart in one movement to opposite ends of the short sofa.

“Your cheeks have gone red,” Bella said, screwing up her mouth as she looked at Sophie. “Anyway, Izzy’s been sick in the bed. I tried to get her to do it the bin, but she couldn’t wait. But at least she missed most of your shoes.”

Sophie brushed the back of her hand unconsciously across her mouth and looked at Jake. “I’m sorry,” she said.

But he just shrugged and smiled. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I
knew
there was a reason why we were waiting.” He laughed sweetly. “Come on. I’ll help you clean up.”

Later on, when bedclothes and pajamas had been changed, baths had been had, and an overwrought three-year-old had finally been cajoled back into bed, Sophie shut the door on Jake Flynn and sat on the sofa, looking at the blank screen of the TV again.

It had been a nice kiss, she concluded. And it had felt good to be in someone’s arms again. Sophie had begun to wonder if that was as wonderful as kissing ever got when exhaustion finally overtook her, and she slept on the sofa sitting up, fully dressed and entirely unwashed.

M
aria Costello called Sophie again at 9:00
A.M
. exactly on a Saturday morning two weeks later.

“I’ve nailed him,” she said.

Sophie had to pause for a beat until her brain managed to tell her who was on the other end of the phone. In the last couple of weeks she had become so locked into her strange new life of juggling the children, work, and Jake that she had almost forgotten there was a possible end in sight. A time when she might just get her ordered, quiet, peaceful life back.

“Really?” Sophie stood up, feeling a rush of blood and adrenaline to her simultaneously overstretched and shrinking brain. She left the table, where she had been trying to update her month-end figures in the midst of a cat’s tea party, and took the phone into the kitchen. “And have you found out
exactly
where he is?” She asked.

“Exactly,” Maria said triumphantly. “I’ve got his phone numbers, his address. I’ll give you his inside leg measurements if you want me to.”

“The address will do,” Sophie said, scrabbling about in her pen drawer, which always seemed to contain everything except pens. Finally she found one pen at the back and ripped off a piece of paper towel to write on.

“Go on,” she said.

“Here’s the number of the school he works at.” Maria read out the phone number and address with brisk efficiency, spelling the Spanish words at staccato speed. “The bill’s in the post, okay?” she concluded.

“Hang on,” Sophie said hurriedly. “Did you say he works at a
school
? What kind of school? Can’t you tell me a bit more about him? I mean, I had him down as an international drug baron.”

Maria laughed, but she didn’t sound amused. “More of a male Mother Teresa,” she said. “He’s been working as a volunteer for a street kids’ charity for the last couple of years.”

Sophie processed that bit of information. A man who leaves his wife with a newborn baby didn’t seem the type to devote his life to a children’s charity. Probably, she decided, it was the guilt, but being a coward as well as a bastard, he had tried to salve that guilt a few thousand miles away instead of facing up to what he had done at home.

“And it’s definitely him?” she said.

“Definitely,” Maria said firmly.

“Thank you, thank you, Maria.”

“I want payment by overnight mail,” Maria said, and she hung up.

Sophie put the phone down and looked out the kitchen window, to where Artemis sat on the top edge of the neighbor’s fence, poised to eviscerate the next passing vole or other unfortunate mammal. Sophie ran her palms over her cheeks and crossed her arms under her breasts.

So Maria had found him, and now she had to think about what that was going to mean. Two weeks ago Sophie could not have thought of anything beyond finding Louis. Now she realized she had to; his return would have consequences for everyone involved. She thought of the expression on Mrs. Stile’s face when she had mentioned Louis. She thought of Carrie alone with her children, too proud or embarrassed or maybe too distant to tell her that Louis had gone.

Sophie hadn’t considered the consequences for anybody besides herself. It was very likely now that she had found Louis that her life would improve and the burden of the children would pass from her to him, which after all was only right. But what if his coming back wasn’t the best thing for the girls?

Two weeks ago, Sophie wouldn’t have thought twice about dialing that number and getting Louis back here as fast as humanly possible. But in the fourteen days that had passed since Maria’s first phone call, something had changed. Something that Sophie could hardly put her finger on until that moment.

She realized she had actually started to care for Bella and Izzy.

It wasn’t like being in love or anything as grand as that. She hadn’t suddenly felt compelled to adopt them and call them her own. After all, she hadn’t really kissed or hugged either of them since they had arrived. But gradually Sophie felt she had come to respect them coping as bravely and as stoically as they did with all that had happened to them, a fact she was grateful for, as she was certain if they had worn their grief on their sleeves, she would never have been able to handle them. And besides that, she had got unexpectedly used to the new rhythm of her life and having the girls in it.

In fact, Sophie reflected, the hardest hurdle to overcome had been not the children but working her job around them. Somehow she had expected it to stretch and give way like a fast-flowing river rushing past boulders. She had thought that Gillian’s motherly compassion for her dead best friend’s kids would be endless and that her need to keep Sophie on would be essential, but in fact Sophie had learned something in the last two weeks that she would rather not have discovered: as far as work was concerned she was expendable. It was a cold and sobering lesson to realize that the ten years she had devoted to McCarthy Hughes had not earned her any security to speak of. But even so, she was more determined then ever that she should not let all she had worked for slip away.

So they developed a routine.

Every morning Izzy would wake Sophie up at just after six. The two of them would wake Bella, and then all three would eat cornflakes and toast on the kitchen floor. Sophie would suck down a cup of boiling hot instant coffee as if it were the elixir of life, and Bella and Izzy would drink a pint of low-fat milk between them.

The three would then wash together in the bathroom. Sophie would fill the sink with warm water, hand the girls a sponge each, and do her best in between their splashes and soakings to get herself clean. She would look at the bath and dimly remember a time when she used to have an hour or so to lounge in it, but the best she managed now was a swift shower after the girls were in bed. Dressing was relatively easy, mainly because Izzy wore only one thing, which worked out fine since Sophie had begun to use her washing machine regularly and then dry the fairy dress on the radiator every other night. Sophie supposed there was some kind of unspoken rule that you should not allow a child out in public in a dress that had caked tomato ketchup encrusted down its front, but she refused on principle to wash it every single day.

Bella was even easier to manage, choosing items out of her meager wardrobe every day with an élan her mother would have been proud of. There had been an incident when she had helpfully put in a load of wash and transformed all Sophie’s pristine white underwear into a sort of brothel pink, but Sophie had been surprised to discover she didn’t care. Her pants may be pink, she reasoned, but at least they were clean. Sophie herself managed to keep up her appearance of groomed neatness, which hid the lesser parts of personal grooming that she had had to let go, so that the stubble grew on her legs and under her arms and her fair brows thickened slightly. No one was going know, after all, and whether she realized it or not, it gave her another reason to keep Jake Flynn at arm’s length.

And then Sophie would take the girls to the office every morning between nine and one. The first day she did this, Gillian had suggested in a kind but resolute manner that she organize some part-time child care because an office was no place for small children. Of course, Gillian was absolutely right, but at that point Sophie had felt like she was in one of those fairy tales when the prince has to achieve three impossible tasks to win the hand of the princess. She felt like she had to solve all of these impossible tasks, only at the end she didn’t get anything like a prince; in fact, if she was very lucky, all she would get would be her old life back intact.

But Sophie had nodded politely and asked Cal to find the number of a day-care provider in her area, confirm that she was registered, and double-check her references. She had taken the girls around to meet Alice Hardy that very afternoon. Bella and Izzy had seemed to like Alice’s friendly, sunny ground-floor flat with a playroom, and while Bella read a book seated at a mini table and chair set as Sophie talked over terms with Alice, Izzy went as far as to play shop with a little boy that Alice had that day.

So it had been a bit of a blow the following morning when the girls realized Sophie was leaving them with Alice and both collapsed into inconsolable tears. Sophie had felt that Izzy’s tears were more a reaction to her sister’s distress, but Bella’s reaction had taken her aback. She hadn’t seen any emotional outbursts from the uniquely even-tempered child and so had supposed her placid exterior was the norm. But as Sophie had waved good-bye, Bella’s face had crumpled and she backed away from Alice and turned in to Sophie’s leg, clinging to her thighs.

Sophie had crouched down to try to untangle Bella, and Izzy launched herself at Sophie’s back and flung her arms around her neck. Briefly, Sophie had thought it was like being wrestled by two man-eating crocodiles.

“Come on, girls,” she’d said briskly. “Let’s be reasonable.”

“Please don’t leave us here,” Izzy had begged. “Please don’t leave us!”

“It’s only for a couple of hours!” Sophie said, irritated at first. “I’m coming back!”

“
Please
don’t leave us again, Aunty Sophie,” Bella said. “We don’t know these people, and please don’t make us live with people we don’t know—please,
please
! We’ll be so quiet. We will be so good, and I won’t let Izzy be naughty, please,
please
!”

“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” Izzy had wailed right in Sophie’s ear.

It had taken a moment for Sophie to decipher the words from the sobs, but once she did, she’d thought she understood. “This is just while I go to work,” She’d attempted to explain. “Like school or nursery. It’s not a foster home or anything like that.” Sophie had sensed Bella wanted further reassurance, but she hadn’t known what else to say.

“If we are with you, we know we’re safe,” Bella managed to say, her dark eyes made liquid by the tears in them.

A strange look had passed between Sophie and Bella then. Sophie had suddenly realized that somehow Bella had come to trust and need her, clinging—Sophie guessed—to the one thing in her life that seemed relatively stable. It was another hint, another glimpse of the real girl who was hidden so carefully away. It made Carrie’s death suddenly seem all too real, in that sunny basement flat over half a year later, and for a second Sophie had felt the threat of tears prickle behind her eyes. She wasn’t the only one who locked her emotions tightly away.

Since the moment Tess Andrew had walked into her office, Sophie had barely allowed herself a moment to think about Carrie, partly because she felt she didn’t have the room or time yet to grieve or to miss Carrie but also because she was afraid that, when the dust had settled, she might find out she felt nothing at all, or else not nearly enough, about the death of a friend who had once meant everything to her. But in that moment Sophie had felt everything that Bella was feeling, and she knew that somewhere inside of her, feelings for Carrie must still live. And knowing that connected her attachment to the children with one more fragile strand, because Bella was showing her a reflection of herself. A picture that made sense.

“Okay,” she’d said with a shrug. “You’re coming with me.”

“Children often cry like this at first,” Alice told Sophie kindly. “And they nearly always are putting it on. They’re happy as soon as Mum’s gone. They’ll get used to it.”

Sophie had looked into the other woman’s open, well-meaning face. “You’re probably right,” she’d said. “I just think that these two have got enough to get over already.”

And the moment Sophie had walked into the office with the children that morning, she had gone to Gillian’s office and played her in a way she would never have previously dreamed of.

She’d told Gillian she had tried to leave the girls with a care giver; she’d told her how they had reacted. “They just lost their mother,” she’d said. “They are terrified of being abandoned again.” It was a direct challenge to Gillian, daring her not to show compassion for the children’s plight. “I know this is no place for kids, but I’ll make sure they are kept out of the way, and I won’t let them interfere with any of my work. The minute they do, I’ll think again.”

“It’s not just what I think,” Gillian had said cautiously. “There’s health and safety and insurance and all sorts of other things to consider.”

“It’s only temporary,” Sophie had pressed her. “Their dad will be back soon.”

“Well, you’d better make sure you’re only in the office for as short a time as possible,” Gillian had said. “And I want to see updates for all your accounts before you go.”

Sophie had had a long talk with the girls, explaining why they had to be extra good, and they had stared at her blankly. The connection she had felt with them at Alice Hardy’s seemingly lost again.

And then Cal had produced a huge box of building blocks. He’d unrolled a colorful rug and set it down in one corner before tipping the blocks out. Izzy had hopped with anticipation.

“And here are crayons, and pens and paper. And here’s two Barbies and a Barbie car. Now”—he’d looked sternly from one girl to the other—“these are
my
toys, and I am
very
kindly letting you play with them, so I expect you to play nicely, and share and not take them out of this office, or I will have to take them back. Now do you promise?”

“Yes, Cal!” the girls had chorused before descending on the rug.