Chapter 20
Esther had barely slept since Danni had come to tell them about Hope.
At first, she’d tried to cling to the tiny possibility that there might be some kind of mistake and that this Laura woman had confused Joe with someone else; after all, it had been more than twenty-five years ago, and she and Joe had been so young back then.
All of that grasping at straws had disappeared the moment she’d seen Joe and Hope side by side.
There’d been no doubt that she was his daughter and the realisation had crushed her.
She hated herself for it, for wanting to squash Joe’s dream of becoming a father, if it couldn’t be with her.
She’d had to get out of the room, but she couldn’t outrun her feelings.
When she’d finally stopped, taking in great heaving breaths that had quickly given way to great heaving sobs, she’d known it hadn’t helped.
Even when she’d walked on, attempting to clear her head and doing her best to make sense of everything that had happened, none of it made any difference, because Esther didn’t want this. She didn’t want any of it.
Joe had tried to talk to her about it when she eventually got home, and to ask her what she wanted, but she couldn’t bear to tell him the truth and to say those words out loud.
She hadn’t told anyone how she really felt.
Instead, she’d done her best to put on an act that she was okay and that all she needed was a bit of time.
She’d been dreading bumping into Hope at work and being confronted with this living, breathing reminder that her husband had a child with another woman.
Esther had been so thankful when Jess had got in touch to explain that Hope had chosen to focus solely on community midwifery for now and wouldn’t be working at the hospital for the foreseeable future.
She’d felt incredibly grateful to the younger woman, but horribly guilty too, wishing she could be a bigger person, a better person, but the truth was she didn’t want to see Hope.
Just the thought of it made her throat close up again.
She was bereft and grief-stricken, but that didn’t stop her feeling like the worst person in the world for creating a barrier between Hope and Joe.
He’d insisted he was happy to take things slowly and wait until Esther was ready to get to know Hope better, but what if she never was?
She was doing her best to push down the thoughts that kept plaguing her and chasing away any chance she might have of getting a good night’s sleep.
She desperately wanted to find a way past this.
She had to, because this was their new life now, but she still had no idea how to do it.
For now, Esther was trying to fake it until she made it, but there was one person she should have known would see through those attempts.
‘Essie, you need to stop. You’ve been on your feet all day, barely pausing for a break, and now you’re pedalling that thing like your life depends on it.
It’s like you’re deliberately trying not to give yourself the chance to even breathe, let alone think.
’ Danni had arrived to find Esther pedalling furiously on the spin bike she kept in the summerhouse.
The music she’d been playing on the speakers was so loud that she hadn’t even heard her friend come in, only realising she was there when the music stopped, but she still didn’t stop pedalling.
‘I’m just trying to keep fit.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re trying to outrun or outride your feelings and if you don’t get off that spin bike, I’m going to get on the running machine and run at full speed until you do.’
‘You’re nearly eight months pregnant!’ Esther was terrified at the prospect that Danni might actually make good on her threat and cause herself a serious injury.
As she looked at her friend again, she was almost certain she would.
‘Okay, okay, I’m stopping, but that’s blackmail and it’s not fair.
’ She felt like a petulant teenager on the receiving end of a lecture about her behaviour as she finally stopped pedalling and climbed off the bike; her voice huffy and her demeanour even more so.
‘And it’s not fair of you to keep trying to pretend you’re okay, when I know for certain you’re not.
’ Danni reached out and put a hand on her arm.
‘I feel like some of this is my fault for telling Hope that she needed to tell you and Joe the truth, when she might well have kept it all to herself otherwise.’
‘It’s not your fault, it’s no one’s fault. Anyway, you were right, Hope did need to tell the truth, for her sake and Joe’s.’
‘And what about yours?’
‘I’ll be fine, I just need a chance to process it all.’ The words were well rehearsed, because she’d said them before, but she still sounded like a bad actor in a low-budget TV show, and Danni knew her far too well.
‘Please, Essie. Talk to me. You need to let it out and tell someone how you’re really feeling. If you can’t do that with me, then who can you do it with?’
‘I ought to be able to do it with Joe.’ Esther tried to blink back the tears that she hated herself more than ever for crying. Danni was right, she had to tell someone. ‘I’m horrible and selfish for thinking this, but I don’t want Joe to be a father, if it can’t be with me.’
‘Oh, sweetheart, no. You’re not any one of those things.’ Danni wrapped an arm around her shoulders, which made it even harder for Esther to hold back her tears.
‘I thought I wanted a baby more than anything.’ She gulped, trying to stop her voice from choking in her throat, but she didn’t quite manage that either.
‘Except all I want now is for it to just go back to being me and Joe. I kept telling myself how lucky I was to have the kind of relationship we’ve got, and I really started to believe it might be enough. ’
Esther had worked so hard to convince herself that what they had together was enough, even if they never had a baby, just like Joe had always said, and it had been working.
She’d kept reminding herself that their connection was strengthened by the fact she had Joe all to herself – except now she didn’t.
He had someone else who was part of him and, because of the kind of man Joe was, he’d want to do all he could to build a bond with Hope.
His generous heart was one of the reasons she loved him and he wouldn’t be her Joe if he didn’t feel that way, but it meant she could no longer celebrate the fact that they were each other’s everything, the way she’d been trying so hard to do.
‘It’s completely understandable that you’re feeling this way. It must have been a huge shock, and I’ve got no idea how I’d feel if something like that happened with Charlie.’
‘Even if it did, you still have Caleb and the baby. It feels like I don’t have anything that bonds me with Joe like that.
He managed to get someone else pregnant after a quick teenage fumble on the beach.
It must mean that all of the problems we’ve experienced trying to have a baby must be down to me, mustn’t it?
’ Esther’s voice cracked again and when she looked up at Danni, her eyes had filled with tears too.
‘None of this is because of anything you’ve done, and I know Joe hates how much this has hurt you, because I do too.
I wish I could say something to help, but all I know is that my brother loves you more than anything else in the world.
He couldn’t love you more than he already does, and that wouldn’t change if you had a child. He’d do anything to make you happy.’
Esther nodded, because she believed what her friend was saying, but that was what scared her.
She was terrified that Joe would sacrifice the chance to build a relationship with Hope, if he thought that’s what he needed to do to stop Esther unravelling altogether.
She couldn’t live with herself if she was responsible for stopping him from getting to know his daughter.
Faking it until she made it was one thing, as long as there was a chance of eventually making it for real.
If she couldn’t be sure about that, she’d need to step away until she was, and give Joe the chance of spending time with Hope.
She had no idea how long that stepping away would last for, and all she could do was pray that it wouldn’t be forever.
‘I don’t understand why you’re going?’ The look of devastation on Joe’s face when she told him she was going to stay with her parents was hard to witness.
This was hurting him as much as it was her, but she couldn’t let him see how she felt, otherwise he might find a way to make her stay, and she couldn’t let that happen either.
‘I don’t know what I want any more, but I know I can’t work it out when I’m with you.’ Esther was amazed at how calm she sounded, when inside a voice was screaming at her to stay and sort this out, whatever it took. It seemed like Joe could hear it too.
‘Please don’t go, darling. We can find a way forward together and whatever we do, it can be on your terms. I won’t push you to do anything you don’t want to do.’
‘I know and that’s exactly why I’ve got to go and stay with Mum and Dad. You need some space too, to work out what you want.’
‘All I want is you. I love you so much.’ Joe was saying the right things, the way he always did, and she knew he meant them, or at least that he wanted to.
But in his heart, there was already a place for Hope, a space that had been made as naturally and completely as if he’d always known he was her father.
Esther didn’t doubt that for a moment, because of the man her husband was, but he wasn’t allowing himself to acknowledge it. She had to give him the space to do so.