‘My wife, Eloise, was born with a defective heart. She should never…I should never have—’
Lucy waited. For the first time his pain pierced hers. This man knew exactly how she was feeling. He knew because he was in the same nightmarish place. Here with her. No one else would ever be able to understand how bleak it was possible to feel. But this man—Dominic—knew. He really knew.
He began again. ‘Eloise always wanted children.’ He looked down and traced a pattern with his shoe on the dry mud. ‘But they never came. Month after month. There was nothing.’
Lucy sipped at the bitter coffee and waited as he struggled to get the words out. ‘We didn’t know about her heart then. Not then.’ He looked up at the trees. ‘Later we knew, of course, and we were told she shouldn’t ever have a baby. There was a ‘‘significant risk’’, they told us. But Eloise was desperate. Her life wasn’t ever going to be complete without children. I tried…’
She understood that desperation for a baby. Month after month of nothing. The feeling that somehow each month you’d lost your baby, even though your head told you there’d never been anything to lose. The sensation of life ebbing away, month after month. Lucy tried to think of something to say, some comfort.
‘I let her go for the IVF. When Eloise knew she was pregnant she was so excited. Couldn’t wait to have our baby.’ He pulled himself up straighter on the bench. ‘But there were complications during the Caesarean. She died giving birth to Abigail.’
Lucy hadn’t expected that. Her right hand, holding the coffee, shook. Died. Her first reaction was one of sympathy, immediate and intense. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’
‘Abby is everything I have.’
His head was bowed and she could see the weight of everything resting on his shoulders. His wife had died giving birth to a child that wasn’t his own—and yet he still loved his Abby. Her Abby. Just as she loved Chloe.
‘How did you discover Abby—’ her voice hovered over the unfamiliar name ‘—wasn’t your natural child?’
‘She has a rhesus—’
‘Negative blood type. I remember. Dr Shorrock said.’ She smiled sadly as he looked across at her. ‘So do I.’
‘I wish I’d never found out.’ Dominic held her gaze. ‘I love her more than anything in the world. She may not be my natural child but she’s more mine than anyone—’
He broke off as though he’d suddenly remembered whom he was speaking to. Yet Lucy didn’t mind. She looked at the passion in his face and was glad Abigail had found somewhere safe.
Safe. It was so strange. This stranger made her feel safe. Just sitting with him had begun to make the panic recede a little. The pain was still there. A hard knot at the very centre of who she was. And yet, looking at Dominic, she could believe she’d survive. That there might be a way to claw through this nightmare.
‘I understand,’ she said softly. ‘I love Chloe.’
His eyes were moist as he breathed the name. ‘Chloe. It’s a beautiful name.’
‘She’s beautiful. An incredible little girl.’ Lucy stood up and dropped the empty cup into the remains of a burnt-out litter bin. ‘Shall we walk?’
‘Yes.’
They took the path across the grass. ‘Abigail’s a lovely name too.’
‘It means ‘‘father rejoiced’’. I wanted her to know I didn’t blame her. When Eloise died,’ he said awkwardly, and then he shrugged. ‘It seemed important at the time.’
An understanding of just how much this man must have suffered washed over Lucy once again. His wife had died giving birth to Abigail.
Losing Michael had been painful, but she didn’t have any sense of guilt about it. From the little he’d said it was obvious Dominic Grayling blamed himself, in part at least, for agreeing to the IVF treatment. Yet even in the midst of that tumult of emotion he’d still thought about his baby girl, how she would feel every birthday, and he’d given her a name that told her she was loved. He had to be a special kind of man.
‘Is Abigail like me?’ she asked, suddenly feeling the need to know. She turned to look at him, the wind whipping her hair across her face.
‘A little. In the colour of her hair. But more, I think, in the way she moves. She moves like you.’
It was faintly embarrassing to have this stranger look at her in such a way. Focused. As though he could see nothing but her. Lucy looked away.
‘And Chloe?’
‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly. ‘She has your shape face, your hands…’ His hands. She hadn’t even registered she’d noticed his hands—and yet Chloe had the same long fingers. She’d always loved her daughter’s fingers. Right from a baby. ‘Artist’s hands,’ Michael had called them.
‘I’d like to see her.’
He’d spoken quietly and yet the words were like a slap. Her head snapped up.
‘No.’
‘Don’t you want to see Abigail?’
Lucy let his words flow over her.
‘Can you really go your whole life without knowing what she’s like?’ He paused. ‘Whether we like it or not, other people are going to start making decisions for us. When I first found out about Abby…Hell, this is hard.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘My instinct was to keep it all quiet. Make sure no one discovered the mistake. Keep her mine. Just mine.’ And his voice rang with possession.
Lucy met his eyes and the intensity in his kept her looking.
‘But we can’t do that. Either of us. Both girls have the right to know their genetic make-up. Chloe could perhaps need that more than Abby.’
A shiver of cold washed through her as she understood the implications of what he was trying to tell her. ‘Is Eloise’s heart condition hereditary?’
‘It’s possible for her to have inherited the same problem,’ he stated baldly. ‘But not likely.’
Lucy turned away as she felt the panic begin to rise up again. ‘I can’t bear this.’
‘We have to.’ Dominic caught her arm. ‘Our girls are only six. Far too little to deal with this. We’re the grownups here and we’re going to have to deal with it.’
His fingers held her arm still, preventing her from walking away. She could almost imagine the warmth from his hand was giving her strength. Passing from him to her. She turned back towards him. ‘I’m scared,’ she whispered.
‘If I could tell you everything’s going to be all right I would. But I don’t know that. I only know I’m going to do anything to protect Chloe and Abby from the consequences of this. I don’t want to sue the hospital. I don’t want any publicity.’
The mention of the word ‘publicity’ took the whole situation into another dimension. Lucy hadn’t had time to think about the full ramifications of what had happened. She’d heard the defensive tone in Dr Shorrock’s voice but it hadn’t registered with her as anything other than awkwardness. But, yes, they could sue the hospital for negligence. But if they did, what then? A tragic mix-up at an IVF clinic would have all the elements needed to shoot the story to front-page prominence.
And then she thought of Chloe. A bright, sunny little girl who was already having to live her life without her daddy. Who had so few memories of the man who’d loved her for the first five years of her life.
‘I don’t want any publicity either.’
The tension in Dominic’s face relaxed and he let go of her arm. ‘I’m sure the courts will do everything they can to protect the girls. They’re so young…I don’t