For Our Children's Sake

‘We could start off in London and review it later. My house has room for some kind of a studio for you. I don’t know what you need for potting, but there’s an annexe on the ground floor that was intended for live-in help. It could be made into something quite useful. We could put in a wheel. A kiln? Is that what you need?’

Everything was moving too fast. He was answering questions she hadn’t even got around to thinking yet. Was he really asking whether she wanted her own studio? It was unbelievable. She couldn’t get her head round it at all. This just couldn’t be happening to her.

‘Mum mainly produces named mugs for the tourist market. I’d rather try and paint again.’ This was just surreal. ‘And I like to teach. I’ve been doing a bit at the local secondary school while their art teacher has been off on maternity leave. I could do more of that.’

‘There’s a desperate shortage of teachers in London, so I can’t see that as a problem.’ He filled up his fork and ate another mouthful. ‘What we ought to do now is get on with organising our wedding. There’s no point in hanging about now we’ve made the decision. I’m assuming we’ll go for a civil ceremony.’ He frowned. ‘I think the rules have changed since the last time I got married. I think there’s a month’s delay from visiting the register office to the wedding itself.’

‘Is there?’ Lucy heard herself ask.

‘Minimum. I suggest you move in with Abby and I as soon as possible and we’ll set everything in motion. If the wedding is, let’s say, eight weeks from now, it gives us some time to review it.’

‘Review it?’ she repeated weakly.

‘Once we’re married there can be no turning back. We’ll be in it for the long run. For better, for worse and all that.’

CHAPTER THREE

TAKING off the wedding ring Michael had given her was the difficult bit, Lucy thought. It really felt like the end of one life and the beginning of another. She looked down at her left hand as it rested on the steering wheel, at the white band indelibly printed on her skin, marking where her ring used to be. Practically all her adult life she’d worn Michael’s ring and now it really was over.

She was driving towards a new life. A new daughter.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Chloe asked, lifting her head from the awkward angle it had fallen to while she had slept.

‘Very close now, sweetheart.’

They had left the motorway and were weaving through closely populated suburban housing. It was dirtier and greyer. And this was her new life? There were no fields dotted with cows, no picture-book cottages, no meandering little streams cutting between the hills. In their place were manmade recreational spaces and row upon row of postwar housing.

‘How much longer?’

A bus moved up on the lane beside her. ‘It’s not far. Let me concentrate for a minute. There’s a turning off to the left somewhere near here.’

She’d always hated the idea of city life. The city had always seemed to her to be a grubby place to live. Some people saw opportunity, but all she saw was the claustrophobia of it all. Yet this was what she’d chosen. For the good of Chloe—and Abby, whom she’d never met—she was going to make her life here.

The road whipped round and the houses became more spaced out, some even attractive.

It was a strange feeling. Almost like the first day in a new job. A mixture of excitement, anticipation and pure fear. Since the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning a feeling of nausea had settled deep in her stomach.

Within the next few minutes she was going to meet the little girl she and Michael had created together. But for an administrative error it would have been this little girl she’d spent the last six years loving. Would she feel anything for her? Would it be enough to sustain her, spending her future with a man who didn’t love her and who openly admitted he didn’t want to?

She rounded another bend and turned into a wide, tree-lined avenue. ‘This is it,’ Lucy announced in complete disbelief.

‘We’re going to stay here?’

Lucy looked down at the awe in Chloe’s face. It was an emotion she shared. She reached into the side pocket of her car door and pulled out the sheet of paper she’d written his directions on before turning to look back at the huge picture windows and curved brickwork of Dominic’s home. In her wildest imaginings she’d not conjured up anything like this.

She took a deep, shaking breath. ‘For a while. Come on, let’s go and meet Abby.’

She turned the car up the wide drive and brought it to a halt outside the imposing front entrance. She’d never fit in here. Never. She hadn’t given Dominic’s financial status much thought. Her mind had been too preoccupied with everything else. But, faced with this huge chasm between them, she wished she had. What did the blasted man do anyway, to make this kind of money? She should have noticed the T-shirt he’d worn was expensive, that the fabric was thick and didn’t look as if it had been through the washing machine a couple of hundred times.

For the first time she felt conscious of her own clothes. There were no designer labels in her wardrobe, just simple cottons and natural wool jumpers she put together in a style she hoped was entirely her own. She probably didn’t present the understated elegance he was used to. If it had been possible to turn round and run she would have done so. Instead, she helped Chloe from the car and firmly shut the door.

A small face was watching from the window, and it made her heart pound as she caught a glimpse of dark hair before it darted away. With Chloe’s hand held tightly in hers, she walked unsteadily up the three wide steps. Please, oh, God, please let Abby like me, she prayed under her breath.

‘They’re here. They’re here!’ she heard as the door swung open and a small dark-haired figure darted out underneath Dominic’s arm. ‘You’re late!’ Abby stopped before Chloe. ‘You’ve been ages getting here. We’ve had your bedroom ready for hours. You’re in the blue room, next to mine. It’s a nice blue and it’s got yellow flowers on the bed. Do you like dolls? I don’t.’

Abby didn’t seem to need to draw breath. It was like being greeted by a whoosh of water, even though all her remarks were directed at Chloe. With the complete ease of childhood the two girls decided they were friends and, with tacit agreement, Abby rushed Chloe into the house and up the stairs, their voices becoming muffled.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dominic said, walking towards Lucy and guiding her more gently through the front door. ‘Abby’s been up for hours and is very excited.’