“Ruth! What’s wrong?”
“It’s Alex’s baby,” she whispered, holding on to my hand still, squeezing it. Her eyes were closed. “It’s Alex’s baby, Laura. What am I going to do?”
My lungs were compressed. I couldn’t breathe. She opened her eyes then and gazed at me mutely, her face tear-streaked, her hair in disarray. I heard a raspy sound and realized it was me, trying to draw air in.
“That’s impossible,” I managed eventually.
She released my hand. “Oh God. It’s all such a mess.”
“But—” I almost asked,How?but changed it in time. “How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. It was the week my mother tried to talk me into moving us all to Winterbourne. I was so angry, so miserable. I went to the Halloween party with Alex. And he was—he was nice to me, Laura. He’s the only person who’s ever really liked me for who I am. My mother wanted me to marry him, you know. She told me Dominic would never love me the way Alex did.”
I shook my head. She was wrong. I knew how much Dominic loved her, how desperately he wanted her to be happy. Butthen the memory of him leaning toward me, kissing me, made me curl my fists. I felt sick.
Ruth groaned. “I hate that she was right.”
“No,” I said. And then, “What are you going to do?”
“What can I do? Fudge the dates a bit. Not that Dominic will do the math. Hope the baby doesn’t look too much like Alex. Oh God.” She rested her forehead in her hands for a minute then sat back up and held her arm out, rolling it over to reveal the blue veins in the whiteness of her inner wrist. “Do you think our skin colors might balance out to match Dominic’s?”
An incredulous noise escaped my lips.
“Ruth, this is madness.”
She showed no sign of having heard me. “Alex’s sisters all have lighter skin than him. Half Indian, half good old Yorkshire. If I’m lucky...” She frowned, her gaze unfocused. “He’s always been jealous of them, you know—his sisters. They’re all settled with children—so many nieces and nephews. He pretends his job is everything, but I know he longs for a family of his own...”
Suddenly, she lunged forward, gripping my arm tightly this time, her nails digging into my skin.
“Ow!”
“You mustn’t tell anyone,” she hissed, her eyes narrow, a fleck of her saliva hitting my cheek. “Never. Not Alex. Not my husband. No one.”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
She squeezed even harder. “Promise?”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I cried, pulling away, standing up, and turning my back on her. Red marks swelled on my arm.
Behind me, she wiped her face, combed fingers through her hair, composed herself. I watched her reflection in the window as she straightened up and called out to Edwin.
“Edwin, darling. Come and put your shoes on. It’s time to take Laura to the station.”
Edwin ran in with a picture for me: it showed me and Ruth and Dominic on one side of a Christmas tree with Edwin on the other. A large wiggly shape overlapped our heads.
“It’s a sea serpent,” he said. “It’s going to gobble us up for its Christmas dinner.”
17
Seraphine
ICAN’T THINKstraight, here in the stale heat of the kitchen. Kiara’s message is too much to take in. The word burned into the grass; the lipstick writing on the mirror; Laura’s intimidating letter that I fished from the trash bin: I wish I’d never started any of this. I want to go back to the way things were before I found the photo. I want to be left to mourn my father without questioning whether hewasmy father.
I need to clear my head. I need to go to the cliffs.
The door keys are slippery in my fingers as I double-check that everything is locked. Despite my certainty that no one could be living in the annex without my knowledge, I lock that door too and hide the key in the kitchen. The garden has a frazzled feel in the midafternoon sun; insects dart above the weeds in the borders, and a clump of red-hot pokers sags wearily over the lawn. The rounded sweet scent of old-fashioned roses drifts along with me as I make my way to the back gate.
The sea breeze calms me, as always, and I sink into the longgrass at the base of the folly tower, wriggling to create a more comfortable seat, soaking up the warmth from the stone at my back. This is my spot, even in the winter. This is where I come most days after work, when Edwin thinks I should be out socializing, meeting people—“the occasional party won’t kill you, Seraphine.” I frown. Edwin has never really understood me. Not the way Danny does. Not the way Dad did.
