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She stared at him, her eyes dark with pain, her guard down as she registered the solemnity behind his words, baffled by the expression in his eyes.
It was almost as though being here with her tormented him in some way.
‘So there’s no doubt, then: Jessica is my child.’
The words were sombre, weighted. For some reason the tone of his voice made her shiver.
She couldn’t speak and so she shook her head.
‘Then there’s something I have to tell you. Something I myself didn’t discover until after we were married, otherwise I would never…
‘I have the same congenital disorder as Michael Sullivan. I seem to have escaped suffering the normal physical symptoms and disabilities suffered by male children inheriting the disorder, but I am a carrier and it’s more than likely that Jessica may be as well.’
Lacey started to get up out of her chair and to go to him, driven by an overwhelming impulse to do so, to wrap him in her arms as she had done little Michael, to cradle him against her body and tell him that it was all right, that she was there and that she loved him; and then she realised what she was doing and sat down again abruptly, her whole body starting to tremble, not so much in shock at what he had just revealed, but from shock at what his words had brought to the surface, had made her recognise; namely, that time made no difference at all, that her heart remained frozen in time, the heart of the young girl who had fallen so deeply in love with him. But she couldn’t still love him. He was a stranger; physically familiar, perhaps, but in every other way…
‘I know you must be shocked. I might have had twenty years to get used to the idea, but I can still remember how it felt the day I discovered the truth. I had no idea you were having my child. I thought…’ He stopped. ‘She’ll have to be told of course.’
It took Lacey several seconds to realise what he meant. She was still trying to come to terms with his earlier bitter statement. What did he mean—the discovery? How had he found out? Why had he said nothing to her?
‘God knows, this was the last thing I wanted—to pass on to an innocent child my inherited taint, to be responsible for causing someone else the anguish…It should never have happened. If I’d known you had conceived—’
‘You’d have what?’ Lacey demanded shakily. ‘Forced me to have an abortion…to get rid of our child…just as you got rid of me, your wife? If you felt like that why didn’t you say something…why did you marry me in the first place? You said you wanted children.’
‘It’s a long story. I haven’t come here to wallow in self-pity, Lacey. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you up on that platform and then again at the restaurant; and then today to learn that you had a child…an adult daughter—’
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she interrupted him bitterly.
‘I’m rather unique apparently. It’s very rare for male carriers of the defect to survive to adulthood, never mind not suffer any physical effects of the disease. My specialist had suggested I might come here to meet Ian. There’s some research being done on injecting antibodies from carriers into male children suffering from the disease. It’s a very new form of treatment, but it seems to help put the disease into remission. The only problem is it works only with antibodies from adult male carriers, and there aren’t too many of us around.’He moved awkwardly in his chair, causing her to frown. His leg. Was that why it was bothering him? She gave a tiny shudder at the thought of him in pain…suffering.
‘So it was purely by chance that you guessed about Jessica?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘But now that I do know—well, she has to know. There will be steps she may want to take to ensure that she in turn does not pass on the disease. Not an easy decision for a young girl on the threshold of her life, but ultimately…’
Lacey’s frown deepened.
She turned and looked at him.
‘You’re not suggesting that Jessica ought to contemplate being sterilised, are you?’ she demanded, outraged.
‘It would seem the logical…the sanest course,’ Lewis agreed slowly, avoiding looking at her.
‘You mean you’d deny her her right to have children?’ Her voice shook with emotion.
‘I mean that I’d want to protect her and any child she might have from the threat of pain…suffering…and ultimately death,’ he told her soberly.
His words made Lacey wince and brought tears to her eyes.
‘It doesn’t have to be like that now,’ she told him. ‘There are new tests…new methods. Jessica could choose to have only girls. How could you even think of denying your own child her right to have children?’ Again her voice thickened with emotion.
‘Do you think this easy for me?’ Lewis demanded, standing up. ‘All these years of believing, of thinking…As soon as I discovered the truth I had a vasectomy.’
‘A vasectomy? But—’
‘But you’d already conceived,’ he interrupted her grimly. ‘I didn’t know that. Have you any idea what it means to me to discover that I have a child?’
‘Yes, I think I do,’ Lacey told him bitterly. ‘And I thank God that you left me when you did, Lewis, because I think it would have truly broken my heart if I’d ever learned that you wanted me to abort our child. Thank God you never knew that I’d conceived.’
He had gone an odd, pallid colour that made his cheekbones stand out starkly beneath his taut skin, his eyes so dark that they appeared totally colourless. He was, she saw, a man suffering from acute shock, but she could not afford to have any compassion for him. Not after what she had just learned.
