Chapter 10
10
CRYSTAL
Gemma and I continued meeting every Monday and Tuesday for lunch. As I’d promised myself, I was taking things slowly. If I’d suddenly asked to see Poppy, Gemma would understandably have found it very odd. Instead, I let the conversation flow naturally into talking about her: what she and Gemma had done at the weekend, how she was getting on at nursery, when she was going to turn three, and so on. As far as Gemma was concerned, I hoped, I was just taking a polite interest.
‘Has Poppy asked about her daddy?’ I asked one day.
Gemma sighed. ‘Yes. It was stupid of me not to anticipate it. Up till now I’ve told her he’s gone to find us a new home, but I have to change the narrative now. I told her he was working away. She seems to have accepted that, but I know I’m going to have to deal with it properly at some point.’
‘That’s so difficult for you,’ I said. ‘But hopefully, as she’s so young, she might not even remember him very well after a while.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping. It’s not as if he’s going to be fighting me for custody or demanding to see her, is it?’
‘From what you’ve said, he isn’t father material at all.’
‘Well, so it turns out, no, he isn’t.’ Gemma sighed again. ‘But it’s come as such a shock, it’s hard to actually believe it. I mean, when I look at some of the photos of the two of them together – father and daughter – he really did look as if he loved her. He really behaved as if he loved her. How can someone change so much, so suddenly?’
‘Have you got any pics of them together on your phone?’ I asked, as casually as I could manage. ‘Or have you deleted them all? I think I would have done if it was me!’
‘I’ve kept a couple of special ones,’ she admitted, fishing in her bag for her phone. ‘I ought to delete them but… somehow I just couldn’t. Look. Don’t you think they look like the perfect daddy and daughter?’
I had to admit that yes, they did. Jack was carrying Poppy on his back, holding her securely to keep her steady, and they were both laughing – her rosebud mouth wide, her little white teeth gleaming, her eyes sparkling, their matching red hair shining. It hurt my heart so much to see that photo, I had to keep my head down while I tried to control my breathing.
‘It’s a beautiful picture,’ I managed to say eventually. And I added, to excuse anything she might have noticed of my emotional state, ‘I feel so upset for you, love. It must be so hard.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking back the phone and stuffing it roughly into her bag. ‘I need to try to move on, though. I need to delete it.’
And I needed to practise hiding my emotions. Because I was getting desperate, now, to meet Poppy in person. And I needed to be calm and in control when that happened.