Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
The DNA test kit arrived the next day and all three of them sent back a sample. Grace decided to stay over with Ellen and Robert and, by the time she got home from work on Thursday, the results were in her email inbox.
Even in these circumstances – maybe especially in these circumstances – Ellen had loved having Grace at home.
The evening before, they’d watched a film and she and Grace had curled up on the sofa together.
She’d missed having her close. When Robert tired early and went to bed, they’d sat up talking about Max and the situation of having to see him at work every day.
He’d made a half-hearted attempt to justify his behaviour, but – thankfully – Grace wasn’t having any of it.
This morning, when Ellen had heard Grace’s alarm go off, she’d slipped on her dressing gown and come downstairs to make her coffee and a sandwich to take with her to work. Grace had laughed at her. ‘I’m a bit old for a packed lunch, Mum.’ But she’d taken it all the same.
It’d been a rough day for Robert. He was getting frustrated that he was stuck in a chair for most of the day and the results of the test were obviously on his mind.
When Grace got home around six-thirty, they were both waiting for her.
Despite her suit and heels – her perfectly applied make-up – to Ellen she was no different from that little girl who’d clatter in the front door after school, throw her bag on the floor, kick off her shoes and follow Ellen out to the kitchen, her conversation a stream of consciousness recount of everything that had happened to her since breakfast.
When she saw her coming up the path, Ellen opened the front door to welcome her home. ‘How was your day, love?’
Standing on one leg, then the other, Grace eased off her black patent heels. ‘Dull. I just wanted to be back here. How’s Dad?’
‘Driving me crazy.’ She smiled. ‘He’s fine. Waiting to see you.’
‘I checked my phone on the train home. I’ve got the results.’
Ellen scanned her daughter’s face for a clue. ‘And?’
She shook her head. ‘I haven’t looked yet. I was waiting to get home in case…well, I wanted to be with you and Dad. If he’s up to it?’
Robert’s voice called out from the sitting room. ‘What are you two whispering about? What’s a man got to do round here for a hug from his daughter?’
Grace smiled and Ellen followed her into the sitting room, watched her lean down and wrap her arms around Robert. ‘Hi, Dad. How are you feeling?’
Robert didn’t answer. Instead he kept his arms around Grace. It took a few moments for Ellen to realise that he didn’t want to let her go.
She watched them there, as if that moment was frozen in time. As soon as Grace opened that email, everything might be different. For now, in this tiny slice of time, they were as they’d always been. A lump rose in her throat.
When Grace emerged from Robert’s arms, her face was wet with tears. Robert kept hold of her hand. ‘Nothing will change, Gracey. You’ll always be my girl, whatever that says.’
Ellen placed her hand on her throat to try to stop it from hurting. Grace nodded at Robert, her own voice not much more than a whisper. ‘I know, Dad.’
Ellen didn’t know what to do with herself.
It was her secret that had put them in this position.
Now, the not knowing was unbearable. Still, she was torn between wanting – like pulling a tooth – to open that email and know for sure.
Or whether she wanted to leave it, to never know, to carry on as she had for the last twenty-six years, believing that Grace had the father she deserved.
Robert glanced at her, then back at Grace. ‘Shall we, then?’
Grace nodded. She relinquished Robert’s hand and perched on the sofa opposite, thumbing through her phone to get to the email.
How could something so momentous in their lives be decided by an electronic message on her phone? Robert reached out for Ellen’s hand and she took it. Watching Grace’s face as she read from her screen. Please let Robert be her father. Please.
But when Grace looked up, the colour drained from her face, it was clear that it was not good news. She shook her head, her hand fluttered to her face to catch a sob.
Maybe she had it wrong. ‘Can I see?’
Grace passed the phone over. On the screen, a table which compared numbers across three columns: Mother, Child, Alleged Father. At the bottom of the table, the summative statement which had caused Grace’s reaction.
Robert tried to peer over Ellen’s shoulder. ‘What does it say?’
In an act of penance, she read it aloud. ‘The alleged father is excluded as the biological father of the tested child. The probability of paternity is zero per cent.’
Robert closed his eyes. It was so unusual for her to hear him cry, that she thought he was coughing. Grace was out of her seat in a second. ‘Oh, Dad. Don’t cry, please don’t cry.’
He held out his arms and she fell back into them, the two of them united in their shared grief.
Ellen was frozen, looking at the screen.
She’d really believed that Robert was Grace’s father.
They were so alike. They enjoyed the same films, had the same sense of humour, she even smiled the same as he did.
This must be wrong? But it was there in black and white.
The probability of paternity is zero per cent.
‘I’m so sorry.’
Initial shock over, sobs shuddered through her own body and Robert reached for her, holding her as she wrapped one arm around Grace and another around him.
It was impossible to see where one of them ended and another began.
He whispered into her hair. ‘It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.’
She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but eventually they let go of one another. Robert searched their faces. ‘I meant what I said before. This changes nothing. It’s just biology. You’re my daughter, Gracie.’
‘And you’re my dad. I know. I just wanted…’
With his forefinger, Robert reached out and caught the fresh teardrop on her cheek. ‘I know. Me, too.’
Ellen’s whole body ached with guilt and grief.
‘And I don’t want that person, the one who did that to Mum, I don’t want to be related to him. I don’t want to be connected to him.’
Ellen felt exactly the same. She hated Ian more than anyone else on Earth. Even more so since Lucy had told her what kind of man he’d continued to be. She didn’t want him to have any kind of claim on her precious girl. ‘You’re not connected to him. I can see nothing of him in you.’
Robert nodded. ‘I think your mum’s genes must’ve done a number on his. You’re all your mum.’
They all knew this wasn’t true, but she loved Robert for saying it. Grace chewed on her lip. ‘But I want your genes. I want to be yours.’
‘You are mine and, let’s face it,’ he pointed to his chest, ‘my genes aren’t necessarily the best. I’m very glad that you haven’t inherited this from me.’
That was another set of results that they’d have to worry about. Grace would no longer need to be tested for Robert’s heart condition, but Abigail would.
Grace sniffed. ‘I’m going to go and wash my face. Take my suit off.’
‘Okay, love. I’ll make you a cup of tea, shall I?’
At the same time, Robert and Grace said, ‘Have you got any biscuits?’ Then they looked at each other, and laughed at how similar they were, before Grace began to cry again.
Ten minutes later, she’d disappeared upstairs and Ellen had returned from the kitchen where she’d put the kettle on. Robert was still in his chair, staring into the middle distance. She was almost scared to interrupt his private thoughts. ‘Are you okay?’
He turned his kind blue eyes in her direction. ‘Bruised not broken.’
It was a phrase they’d used with the children when they were small. A shorthand way to ascertain the seriousness of a fall or collision or accident. He held out his hand and she took it, perching herself on the arm of his chair.
Though she’d said it many times, there was no other word for the way she was feeling. ‘I really am so sorry. I know that this is all my fault.’
Robert brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. ‘You need to stop apologising. It is what it is. We’re going to be fine. Better than fine, we are going to be great.’
There was another question that she hadn’t been able to purge from her mind. Perhaps it was selfish to ask, but she needed to hear his answer. ‘Do you think we’d still have got married if I hadn’t got pregnant when I did?’
His eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Of course. From the moment I met you, I knew you were the one for me, Ellen.’
Her throat threatened to close up. ‘And what about if you’d known that the baby wasn’t yours? Back then, I mean. When we were twenty and hadn’t even graduated?’
Robert studied her face. Clearly, he knew that she didn’t want a pat answer: she wanted the truth.
He kept his gaze on her as he spoke, his voice gentle.
‘Honestly? I can’t say what I’d have done in that moment.
I was a kid. We were both kids. But if I hadn’t married you, it would’ve been the biggest mistake of my life, Ellen.
I was meant to be with you. You have made me who I am.
Our girls have made me who I am. Without the three of you, my life would have been far the poorer. ’
Fresh tears flooded her cheeks. For over half of her life, she’d lived with the guilt and felt not good enough. If only she hadn’t held this secret like a cold pebble of fear in her chest all of these years. ‘I love you so much.’
He smiled. ‘And I love you.’
The door opened and Grace, looking about fifteen in her pyjamas with her face scrubbed clean of cosmetics, appeared around the door. Ellen stood to hug her close and she kissed her. ‘I’m on my way to get the tea and biscuits.’
‘I’ll come out with you to make sure you don’t try and fob us off with the non-chocolate ones.’ She winked at Robert and he held his hand up for a high five. They were going to be okay. She was sure of it.
In the kitchen, Grace leaned against the worktop while Ellen dropped a tea bag into each cup. ‘I was thinking. The girl that helped Dad out with his heart thing – Charlotte is it? She’s my half-sister.’
Probably because she’d been so convinced that the DNA report would show Robert to be Grace’s father, Ellen hadn’t actually made that connection.
It made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.
Biologically, Grace would be as closely related to Charlotte as she was to Abigail. ‘I suppose she is, yes.’
Grace reached up to the cupboard where the yellow plastic Tupperware containing the biscuits lived. ‘I think I’d like to meet her.’