Chapter 55
Cal
Things continued to go well in the bar. Business was steady.
Christmas and New Year were mayhem, although nothing Cal and his team couldn’t cope with.
Edinburgh got busier every year around the Hogmanay celebrations.
Cal was grateful as it had given him less time to dwell on the hollow emptiness hanging around ever since Bea had left.
As they always were, January and February were long, cold, hard months with no highlights besides Cal’s birthday and the hope that spring might bring some sunshine.
He kept himself busy with work and going for a run most days.
It was too cold for surfing so he contented himself with quick dips in the sea to wake himself up in the mornings.
He swore it was good for the immune system.
There was also an element of torturing himself a little, although he wouldn’t admit that.
In late March, the baby was born, and word came from an exhausted but ecstatic Elisabetta that both she and the little boy were fine.
Cal was torn between wanting to visit the child and not wanting to have his heart broken again.
He knew that if he met the baby, held him in his arms, he would want him to be his son, fall in love on the off chance he was and if he discovered that he was not, it would be unbearable.
So he told Elisabetta that he needed the paternity test done before anything else.
She was surprisingly accommodating and couriered a swab test to him.
The phone call came forty-eight hours later.
‘I’m so sorry, Cal. I was almost certain. I believed instinctively that he was yours.’
Cal resisted the temptation to tell her that her instincts had never been especially finely tuned.
It would have been the wrong thing to say.
He was a swirl of emotions already and throwing bitterness into the mix would not be productive for anyone.
It was sad the baby wasn’t his. Although he had done his level best to keep his emotions in check and not get too attached to being a father, he was only human and it was natural that certain thoughts had crept in: playing football with his son or daughter, teaching him or her to surf.
It would take a little time for him to become accustomed to the fact that this would not be happening imminently.
It would hopefully happen someday, but this was not his time to be a dad.
When Cal did become a father, he knew who he wanted it to be with.
But that dream was gone. So, why couldn’t he shift her from his mind?
The frustration at having lost Bea and also not being a dad was crushing.
He had lost her for nothing. Now he was alone.
And, if he was honest with himself, it was nothing less than he deserved.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting Bea, from wanting to win her back.
So, never one to back away from a fight he had even the smallest chance of winning, Cal knew what he had to do.