Mum, Ive got something to tell you sit down, will you?
Alice flopped down onto the settee beside her mother, Margaret, curling her foot underneath herself and wriggling into a more comfortable spot. Her eyes glittered with a wild, unsteady joythe same look that last showed up on her face when shed been twelve and had just won the towns literature contest.
Ive met someone. In a café. Well, no, not just randomly. We were at tables next to each other, he started the conversation, and then, just like that, we ended up talking for three hours. Can you believe it?
Alice babbled at breakneck pace, skipping from one thought to the next, tangling her words, circling back when her excitement tripped over itself. His name was Tom. He was thirty-four, working at an architecture firm, magnetic sense of humour, andher voice climbedthe only person in the world who ever let her finish a story without butting in. Three dates in ten days. The last one ended with the two of them wandering along the Thames Embankment until two in the morning, forgetting they had to be up for work at dawn.
He gets me, Mum. In a way no one ever has. I start a thought, and he justcatches it, follows it on. I keep thinking, goodness, where did you spring from?
Margaret, hearing all this, tilted her head and gave a slight, quizzical shake: not disapproving, just surprised.
I can see youre positively gleaming. Havent seen you like this in ages, Alice.
And then Alice fell silentnot suddenly, but as if all her giddy words had slowly trickled out, until only something quiet and weighty remained at the bottom. She stared down, knuckles white where her fingers tangled tight.
But…
But what? Margaret leaned in, frowning, searching her daughters face. Alice, what is it?
Hes married.
Margaret leaned back, her face still for a moment that stretched, the silence thick, heavy, broken only by the clocks old tick. It was just enough time for Alice to regret every confession of the last quarter hour.
Alice, thats not just a but. Thats monstrous. Dont you see what that means? Youre breaking up a familytaking someone elses husband.
Mum, he says he stopped loving her long ago. The only thing keeping him there is the child. Im not making this up, its what he told mehonestly.
And the child doesnt count? Dont you seeyoure climbing into someone elses life and making choices for people who never asked you to?
Im not making decisions, I just
Youre just seeing a married man. Three times in ten days. And now sitting here with shining eyes, as if nothing at all is wrong with that.
Alice stood. It felt unbearable, to sit next to her mother and hear these words withering the last bit of her happiness. Margaret rose too, but didnt follow. She lingered by the sofa, and somehow that made it worse. If shed come over and hugged her, Alice thought, perhaps she could have managed, but instead Margaret merely watched as Alice wrenched her coat from its hook, shoved her arms into the sleeves, and slipped outswallowing sobs that burned and wouldnt budge.
At home, Alice sat on the hall floor with her shoes still on, palms pressed against her wet cheeks for nearly twenty minutes. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. His name lit up the screen. She wiped her face on her sleeve, cleared her throat, and forced herself to sound almost normal as she picked up.
Hi. Toms voice was soft, so soft, and it nearly undid her right then.
I told my mother. About you. About us.
Howd she take it?
Awful. She said I was tearing a family apart. That I was a terrible person. Wellnot in those exact words, but close enough.
Tom was silent, the line breathing with the sound of him searching for the right words.
Alice, listentruth is, Im lost myself. My daughters four. Every day I think: if I leave now, Im betraying her. But I cant keep going like this. I think my wifes cheatingCharlotte, I mean. And if it came to court, I suppose I could use that, but
He trailed off. Alice just listened, the emptiness between them echoing through the line, until a questionone shed avoided, but which must have been lurking in her subconsciousbroke loose.
Tom, are you sure your daughters yours? You just said you suspect her of cheating.
Silence.
Tom didnt ring that night, nor the next day. Alice sent him a simple messageno questions, no pressurejust to say she was there. The reply came a day later: Had a test done. Awaiting results. Cant talk right now, sorry. Alice didnt push further, though it took every scrap of will not to call.
A month glided past, so slow it felt as if time itself were playing tricks. Tom rang, sometimes late, sometimes just for a few minuteshis pain evident in the way he faltered, the way he cut himself off and drifted into trivial chatter about the weather, the train delays, his toast burning again.
She didnt press, didnt prodshe was simply there, talking of work, of a new bakery with mad cinnamon swirls opening nearby, anything to give him five minutes peace from his own thoughts.
Then, one Thursday night, rain battered at the windows. Alice went to bed early, determined to get some proper sleep at last. The door buzzer sounded at eleven. She slipped on her cardigan and padded to open the door.
There stood Tomdrenched, red-eyed, a crumpled piece of paper clenched in his hand. He said nothing. He didnt need to. Alice could read it all written across his face even before she spotted the paper. She grabbed his wet sleeve, pulled him inside, shut the door with her foot and hugged him so hard that Tom finally let go and rested his forehead against her shoulder.
Shes not mine, he choked outand the pain of it burnt Alice as if shed been scalded. Four years, Alice. Four years I thought I had a daughter. She knew all along.
Alice stroked his soaked hair and didnt try to say anything wise. Right now, he just needed someone who wouldnt let go.
The divorce took long, stifling months. Alice went with him to the solicitor, fetched paperwork, made dinner for him after bruising days in drab officeswhen he seemed almost hollowed out.
She never complained, nor asked for more than he could give, though there were nights when she, too, felt a kind of lonely shadow at her side. But Tom slowly began to look more whole, as if each day rebuilt something within him that Charlottes silence had torn down for years.
Nearly a year passed. They married quietlyno grand celebrations, just a registry ceremony. Later, Alice whispered shed never felt happier, because nothing was fake. Their new flat smelled of fresh paint and sawdust. Alice loved that smell: it meant a beginning. Their beginning.
Then Lewis was born. They brought him to Alice in the warda tiny, indignant bundle, warm and screeching. She looked over at Tom, who stood rooted, hardly daring to breathe, and thoughtjust a year ago none of this seemed even possible.
Two weeks after coming home, Alice handed Tom an envelope with DNA results. He glanced at it, then at Alice, and shook his head.
Alice, honestly. Id never need that from you.
Open it, she said, curling with Lewis on the sofa. Its not about trust. Its for our peace of mind. What if they got the babies mixed up at the hospital? At least we know for sure this noisy little thing is ours.
Tom unfolded the page, scanned the words, and set it on the table. Then he sat down beside her, gently pulling Alice and Lewis close. They stayed like that, three of them, while the neighbours banged away at the wall and the telly flickered blue shadows.
Alice closed her eyes and thought of her parents finally warming againher father shook Toms hand last week and offered to help with the cot; Margaret brought over woolly booties, three sizes too big, but knitted with such love Alice nearly cried at the door.
And she thought, maybe shed been right that time last yearwhen she chose not to give up, no matter how strange and winding the path had been.
