Chapter 18
‘Are you sure you’re ready to do this?’ Joe slid an arm around Esther’s waist as she stood in their kitchen, drying a cup slowly and methodically so that she wouldn’t have to turn to look at him.
‘I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.’ It was a question he’d already asked several times since Danni had gone outside to make the call and come back in to confirm that his daughter would be there in less than an hour and that she was bringing a friend with her for support.
His sister had already made her excuses to leave, so it would just be the four of them.
‘Are you sure you want me here the first time you meet her?’ Esther continued.
‘I could always wait until the next time if you’d rather. ’
She made the words sound so casual, as though the thought of a next time and a whole lifetime of meet-ups after that didn’t absolutely terrify her.
‘Of course I want you here. We’re a team, a family.
This has all been a huge shock and I don’t know if I can face meeting her without you.
Does that make me incredibly selfish?’ He sounded so uncertain and she finally forced herself to put down the cup and turn to look at him.
As raw as this was and as surreal as it felt that Joe’s daughter was on her way to their house right now, she couldn’t blame him for anything.
He hadn’t known about his daughter and Esther knew the last thing he’d ever have wanted was to hurt her.
She loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone and that meant she had to push down her own pain and let him have this moment.
She had to find a way to stand by his side and welcome his daughter into their home, trying not to let her devastation show.
Thank God the numbness hadn’t worn off altogether yet, or she’d have stood no chance of holding back the tidal wave of emotion bubbling just under the surface.
‘Of course you’re not selfish, Joe. I don’t think you could be if you tried.
And you’re right, we are a family.’ It was something she’d been trying to tell herself for months; that she and Joe would still be a family, even if it was always just the two of them, but now it would never be just the two of them again.
He had a child. He had a child. He had a child.
Swallowing against the panic rising in her throat, she rested her head against his chest, hoping her voice didn’t betray just how much she wished she could be anywhere else right now.
‘That’s why I need to be here when we meet the newest member. ’
‘You’re the best person I know, Esther, and I love you so much.
’ As Joe pulled her into his arms, she buried her head in his chest, wishing she didn’t feel like the worst person he knew instead.
After all, only the most despicable sort of person would be harbouring a secret hope that this woman might turn out not to be Joe’s daughter at all.
‘Will you come with me, if I go and see Esther and Joe?’ Hope had watched Louie’s face as she asked the question, while Danni was still on the phone waiting for her to confirm that she was willing to go and meet with them.
She saw the flicker of discomfort in Louie’s eyes and realised that she was putting him on the spot.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s okay, I know it will probably make things awkward between you and Joe, given that you work together. ’
‘It’s not that, and of course I’ll come. I just wanted you to be certain you want me there when you speak to them about all of this for the first time.’
‘I’m sure. I think it might make it less intense, especially for Esther, and I really want someone there for me too, if I’m truthful.
’ Hope needed Louie to understand how much she needed him there.
‘I’ll explain that you found out the truth at the same time as Danni, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have with me.
As pathetic as it might sound, you’re my best friend in Cornwall. ’
She managed a half smile then and he returned it with a much broader one. ‘I’m glad, although I hope we’re on our way to being more than that.’
‘So do I.’ She’d kept her promise not to hide anything else from him and she really was hoping that things might go somewhere with Louie, but for the time being, all of that was on hold. She had more pressing things to focus on.
Now, as they walked up the path to the front door of the Carters’ home, she was more grateful than ever that Louie had agreed to come. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure she’d have managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, the way she knew she had to.
‘Shall I just knock?’ Hope turned to Louie as they stood in front of the house, suddenly feeling more like a child than a grown woman, and needing permission to do something as simple as knock on the door.
‘Yes, they know we’re coming and I’m pretty certain they’ll already be on tenterhooks waiting for you to arrive.’ He put his hand on her shoulders, turning her to face him. ‘It’ll be okay, I promise.’
‘How can you know that? What if they don’t like me?’
‘Of course they will. They already liked you, before all of this.’
‘Exactly, but before all of this, things were very different. Then, I was just a new person on the periphery of their lives. Now they’re about to find out that it’s me, I’m Joe’s…
’ She wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, because what was she?
The result of a teenage holiday romance that should have been nothing more than a fuzzy memory for Joe, something he probably hadn’t even deemed worthy of telling Esther about, when they’d told each other the story of their lives before they got together.
She wasn’t supposed to turn up more than a quarter of a century later and say, ‘Surprise, I’m the daughter you never knew you had. ’
When Danni had insisted that Hope should be the one to reveal to Joe and Esther who she was, Hope had spent the first five minutes of their telephone conversation begging Danni to do it for her, but Danni wouldn’t change her mind.
‘They know you exist now and they want to meet you. This has all been kept a secret from Joe for so long and you should be there to see his reaction when he finds out it’s you.
If I know my brother at all, it’s going to be positive, and I want you to see that for yourself.
I think it will be what convinces you that this was the right thing to do. ’
It was a pretty big risk Danni was taking, because she couldn’t know the things she’d said for certain, but in the end, Hope had realised Danni was right.
Whatever Joe’s reaction to discovering that he was Hope’s biological father, she wanted to see it for herself.
She’d been relieved they wanted to meet her at all, because she could only imagine how shocking it had been to hear that Joe had fathered a child all those years ago.
She didn’t doubt they wanted to know who she was, but did they really want to open up the possibility of having her in their lives?
She couldn’t help feeling that whatever Esther was doing would be for Joe’s sake; what she thought he wanted.
Hope wasn’t in the kind of relationship where she could even try to put herself in Esther’s shoes.
She and Louie had only been dating for a matter of weeks.
The closest she could come was trying to work out how she might feel if someone turned up and knocked on the door of the house in Tenby, telling Dave that he was their father.
She couldn’t imagine finding it easy just to welcome that imaginary person into her life.
She didn’t want her father to have another child they knew nothing about, or to have to accommodate a stranger into the family.
That’s not to say that Hope wouldn’t eventually learn to accept the person and maybe even be glad of their existence.
Surely no one would choose that kind of invasion, though, least of all someone in Esther’s situation.
‘Look at it this way, now they have even more reason to like you than they did before.’ Louie’s assertion forced Hope out of her contemplation, and she looked up at him, as he continued. ‘You’re not just a colleague at the hospital now, who they already thought was great. You’re Joe’s daughter.’
Hope wanted to shake her head and say that no, she was Dave and Alison’s daughter.
Or at least preface Louie’s description with a caveat, the way she did when she described Joe as her birth father.
It differentiated Joe from Dave, exactly as it should, but there was no equivalent for a child.
No one would refer to her as Joe’s birth daughter, so she could hardly expect Louie to come up with a term she was comfortable with either, because there wasn’t one.
Instead, she just turned back towards the door.
‘I suppose we’d better get this over with.’ Not waiting for him to respond, she tapped the knocker against the wooden door three times in quick succession, and it swung open immediately, as though Joe had already been waiting there, exactly as Louie had described.
‘Oh my God, Hope.’ For a moment, Joe looked completely expressionless and she held her breath waiting for his reaction, but then a huge smile broke out across his face.
‘I can’t believe it. Are you…?’ His face clouded again, as though he’d been hit by the sudden realisation that Hope turning up with Louie at that precise moment might just have been some kind of coincidence.
‘Yes. I’m the baby Laura had when she was still at school.
’ She still wasn’t able to use the word ‘daughter’, and she didn’t know what she should do, either.
She could hug him, but the possibility of rejection was far too high, and he looked equally unsure about how to proceed.
‘I hope it’s okay that I brought Louie with me.
He found out about all of this at the same time as Danni, and I just needed a friend to be able to face this. ’