***
A lazy day together was the plan. Alex and Gabrielle weren’t due back until late afternoon and I knew once that happened, something huge was on its way. Adam knew it too, which probably explained why he’d avoided the subject all weekend. I’d asked what his argument with Gabrielle had been about, hoping it might give me a heads-up. Whatever Alex wanted to discuss was so important that he needed a few days away to rehearse it. I’d drawn my own conclusions from the very little information I was working with.
“I think Gabrielle is pregnant. Either that or they’re getting married,” I told Adam over breakfast.
He nearly choked on his toast. “Where did that come from?”
“Call it a hunch.”
“Your hunch is wrong, Coccinelle.” He shook his head.
I had to believe him. Adam knew exactly what was going on. I was the only fool being kept in the dark.
“What were you arguing with your cousin about?” I asked, for the umpteenth time.
A look of dread washed over him, an expression that happened every time I asked.
“I’ve already told you, we weren’t arguing. I simply asked her a question and she replied,” he said, shrugging his shoulders to suggest indifference.
I was getting nowhere. “You should tell me what you know. It’s the right thing to do.”
Adam’s confounded expression didn’t waver. “I can’t tell you this. If I told you what I know, you’d be left with a million more questions that I don’t know the answer to.”
“Fine,” I huffed, folding my arms and leaning back. “I’ll wait for Alex to tell me.”
“Awesome idea,” he breathed, visibly relieved.
The subject was closed – but it didn’t stop me thinking about it. I’d managed to push most thoughts of Alex out of my mind until that morning. Once I started counting down the time until he was due home, I became fidgety and preoccupied. He’d told me he’d be home by six. Before six, I was free and easy. After that, all bets were off.
24. Romance Languages
An hour earlier than I needed to leave, Adam drove me to the café to collect my car. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave early; I just couldn’t sit still. I also needed to secure the takings from the previous day before Alex found out that I hadn’t.
My beaten up little car stood alone in the car park.
“Oh, it’s still here,” I said, feigning melancholy.
“Did you think it wouldn’t be?”
I had no qualms about leaving my car there overnight. Car thieves are fussy. If I’d left the engine running and a free-to-good-home sign on the windscreen, it still would have been there a month later.
I reached for the door handle but he pulled me back. “Adam, I have to go,” I said, grabbing his wrist to stop his hand creeping any further up my shirt.
“Not for ages,” he breathed, totally unremorseful.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to keep me here.”
He straightened up, grinning craftily. “You do know me, and I am trying to keep you here.”
“Should I be worried about going home?” I wondered.
“Of course not,” he replied, hesitating too long. “My reasons for keeping you here are purely personal.”
I wasn’t convinced. Picking up on my angst, he held my hand tighter than usual. “Someone incredibly smart once told me that everything works out in the end.”
I looked across at him. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Then it’s not the end.”
His grin was contagious and I smiled back. “Wise words, Adam Décarie.”
“Fighting words, Charlotte Blake,” he declared, sounding more American than usual.
I was halfway out of the car when I turned. “Did you mean it when you said you’d take me anywhere I wanted to go?” I asked.
He nodded but the gesture didn’t match his woeful expression. I remained still, waiting for him to add something.
“Where would you like to go?”
“Back to last night, in the tent, when nothing else mattered.”
Adam stared at me for a long time. I wondered if I’d said something stranger than usual. Finally he reached into the console of the car, pulling out a notebook and pen. He scrawled a few words, tore out the page, folded it and handed it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Everything I know,” he replied, flatly.
He couldn’t have written more than a couple of sentences. I had to consider the possibility that Adam really didn’t know anything. I started to unfold the paper but he stopped me.
“If you don’t get the answers you need, read it then. But give Alex a chance to tell you first,” he urged.
Unable to find my voice, I nodded, clenching my fist around the note.
“I love you, Charlotte.” He spoke strongly, like those four words were a big bandaid for my soul.
I scurried into the café before I could change my mind about leaving.
Seeing Ethan perched near the counter wasn’t unexpected. It was actually a relief. It meant Nicole was occupied and her questions would be minimal. I grabbed a calico bag from under the counter and filled it with the money from the till – just as I should have done the day before.
“What’s your rush?” she asked, bumping the till shut with her hip.
“I’ve got to get home. Can you lock up for me?”
“Sure I can,” she replied, glancing at Ethan.
I glanced at Ethan too, and caught him rolling his eyes at her. Obviously my request had cut into their plans. I felt no pity. I’d covered for Nicole the day before and if he dared to kick up about it, I was prepared to remind him of that.
“Thank you,” I said, glaring at Ethan.
Nicole must have noticed. She cleared her throat, pulling my attention back to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, granting me a small smile that I knew was false.
I slipped out of the café without another word. Dealing with that little stage show could wait.
My little car started on the first try – perhaps appreciative of having fuel in its rusted tank. The engine didn’t falter but I still drove slowly.
Beating Alex home wasn’t part of the plan, but as soon as I pulled up to the house I knew I had. I didn’t go inside. Instead, I sat waiting on the front steps, growing more anxious by the minute.
What could he possibly have to tell me? I wondered if he was going to try talking me out of my trip. Perhaps I’d done something to make him think that travelling was a bad idea. Unlikely, I reasoned. Alex always played fair. He’d made no secret of the fact that he was unhappy that I’d decided to end my trek in New York, but encouraging me for years and then talking me out of it at the last minute was not his style.
Adam’s note felt like a lump of lead in my pocket. I spent a long time watching the daylight fade as I weighed up the pros and cons of reading it. In the end – true to form – curiosity won.
Digging deep, I retrieved the paper. It was so scrunched that it took a few seconds to unfurl, giving me time to reconsider reading it – but I didn’t. Compromising with my conscience, I unfolded only half of the note.
The words didn’t make any sense, and for good reason. They were written in Latin.
“Mea filia, mea vita,” I recited, doubting my Latin pronunciation was any stronger than my French.
I’d seen the words before. My brother had two tattoos, an intricate Celtic band around his right arm and the Latin script across his heart, both acquired when he was a teenager. I’d never asked what it meant, assuming it was some phrase that was meaningless now he was grown-up and over the tough-guy-tattoo stage.
Adam had seen the tattoos when Alex took his wine-stained shirt off.
Adam’s major in college had been Romance Languages. He would have understood the Latin script perfectly. Languages were his thing. Drama was my thing, and judging by the way my hand was shaking, I sensed my drama was about to get a whole lot worse.
&
nbsp; I unfolded the second half of the note, knowing Adam would have translated it for me. I was right. Nausea set in as I studied the words on the page, swallowing hard as bile rose in my throat.
“My daughter, my life.” I repeated it aloud over and over, so many times that it began to make no sense.
Alex had a daughter?
Impossible!
Before Gabrielle, there had never been anyone he was serious about…except me. I’d taken up his entire adult life…
And I suddenly realised why.
Pieces began falling into place at a crushing rate. I fell forward onto my knees, crawling to the edge of the veranda, reaching it in time to throw up in the garden bed below. I clutched my stomach, half sobbing and half retching, unable to stop until my body was too exhausted to continue. I laid my head on the cold stone paving, unsure if I’d ever have the strength to move again.
I don’t know how long I lay there before Alex arrived home. It was still light, so it couldn’t have been long. He ran to the veranda, shouting my name, probably thinking I was dead. I felt dead. My world had stopped – and from the little I knew, it was entirely his fault.
“Get away from me, Alex,” I murmured, too numb to throw any anger behind it.
He levered me to a sitting position, pulling me in close to him. He took the paper from my fingers and I felt him freeze.
“Let me explain,” he pleaded. “I need you to understand everything.”
I tried shaking my head but the hold he had on me made it impossible. “Tell me that it’s not true. Tell me Adam is wrong and I’ll believe you.” It took forever to get the words out.
It took longer for him to reply. “I can’t do that, Charli.”
“You have to, Alex,” I demanded. “I remember things. I know it’s not true.”
I could feel his hand trembling on my cheek. “The woman you remember was my mother, not yours. You’re my daughter.” His voice cracked with under the weight of his confession.
I pulled away, suddenly unable to draw enough oxygen out of the air. Alex pushed me forward, rubbing my back as I rested my head between my knees. I was dying.
“No,” I whimpered.
“It’s true, Charli.”
“No,” I repeated, sounding no stronger than before.
“I was only seventeen when you were born. Your mum’s name is Olivia. She was seventeen too. You were born in Sydney.” He rattled the information quickly. It was like he wanted to state as many facts as he could before I got up and ran away. If my legs had been functioning, I would have.
I couldn’t believe him. My whole life had been a lie. I couldn’t bear to hear any more. I covered my ears with my hands, pleading with him to stop.
“It’s the truth, Charli,” he groaned.
I found the strength to break his hold. “I will never believe a thing you tell me for the rest of my life.”
Alex was on his feet before I’d finished. He grabbed me by the wrist and roughly led me to the front door while he fumbled for the key. Once inside, he strode down the hallway, dragging me behind him. In the spare bedroom was the filing cabinet, and he dropped my arm to rifle through it. I rubbed my wrist as if he’d hurt me. If he thought he had, he ignored it. Finally he thrust a piece of paper at me.
“Read it,” he demanded.
It was my birth certificate.
I couldn’t deny it any longer. Even blocking my ears, closing my eyes and singing loudly couldn’t drown out the fact that I was indeed the daughter of Alex Blake and Olivia Fielding.
I slammed it into his chest. “I won’t hear it from you. I don’t ever want to hear another thing from you!”
Alex looked devastated. “Then go to Floss,” he said, defeated. “She knows everything.”
I glared at him as I backed away, and left the house without another word.