AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am an old lady, Lexie,” she says brusquely. “And this is an old man. How am I supposed to recognize him after all this time? People change, you know. Even me.”
My eyes flick over her face, taking in the truth of this statement.
Mum’s always been what people tactfully call “well-preserved”. It’s kind of her thing. This is a woman who almost died having a boob job not long ago: and, honestly, she’s the kind of woman who’d probably claim that she’dratherhave died than look anything like her age.
Which is why it’s so shocking to hear her refer to herself as an “old lady” — words that I did not ever imagine falling from her carefully painted lips.
Under the harsh light of the soft play, though, I can see lines on her face that I don’t remember being there before. The blonde hair is mixed with strands of gray. Worst of all, the glasses she’swearing have one of those strings attached to them so you can wear them around your neck.
Mum wouldnevernormally wear something like that. I still remember the look on her face the time she spotted Ruby Taylor in the supermarket with a shopping trolley. But now here she is, suddenly mortal, for the first time in my living memory, and I can’t help feeling like it’s my fault somehow. She’s always said that worrying about me puts years on her, and I haven’t exactly been low-maintenance on the worry front lately.
“But the name?” I persist, pushing this thought to the back of my mind for now. “You must recognize the name, at least? Lochlan Bell? Was that his name? Was that my dad’s name?”
Mum looks at me thoughtfully, and I realize my entire body is rigid with tension as I wait for her answer.
Everything hangs on her next words. My two sisters. My hopefully-not-wicked stepmother. Mydad. The fuckingspaniel.
So, just the rest of my life, then. No biggie.
“I don’t know,” Mum says flatly. “I don’t know what your dad’s name was, Lexie, because I don’t know who your dad was. Like I say, it was… well, a weird time. To say the least. Stop biting your nails, Lexie, it looks cheap.”
I take my fingers out of my mouth, my shoulders sagging with disappointment.
I’ve always suspected this might be the case with Mum; that she hadn’t told me who my dad was because she literally doesn’t know herself. She was something of a wild child when she was younger, by all accounts. Back when the Steele name still meant something in this part of the Highlands, and she still had my grandfather’s money to spend, and only herself to spend it on. The parties were legendary, apparently. Once, my grandparents went away for the weekend and came home to find the garden being used to stage a music festival. Mum almost got struck out of the will for that.
“The stories I could tell,” she used to say, tapping the side of her nose conspiratorially.
She rarelydidtell them, though; and, when she did, it was always impossible to tell which stories were true, and which were just the product of her over-active imagination. Which is why it’s not particularly difficult for me to believe that the story of my parentage might be one of many that’s been lost to the mists of time.
But then…
“But the car,” I blurt out. “You must know who owned the car? You said it was his — my father’s. That’s why you gave it to me. So you must know who gave it toyou?”
Mum lets out a long sigh, as if this conversation is something she knows she has to go through, even though she’d rather be doing literally anything else.
“I bought the car, Lexie,” she says bluntly. “It was my car. It was always my car. Your granddad bought it for my 21st birthday. I just told you it was your father’s because I wanted you to have something… some kind of connection to him. I don’t know, maybe that was wrong, but—”
“What, to lie to me?” I say fiercely. “For literally myentire life?”
“Lexie, it was all I could give you.” Mum reaches out and takes my hand. It’s such a surprising gesture for her that, for a moment, I just stare down at it as if it’s a foreign object. “I couldn’t give you a father,” she goes on. “So I gave you… well, theideaof one, I suppose.”
“Yeah, but it was alie.” The words come out in a weird, high-pitched voice that doesn’t sound like mine. “All you gave me was alie.”
I lean back in the uncomfortable plastic seat, and watch the hazy image I’d formed of a handsome man in an orange convertible fade away to nothing.
He didn’t exist. Whoever my dad was, it wasn’t the man I’ve been picturing, because the man I’ve been picturing wasn’t real.
Lochlan Bell, however,is.
Which means I still have questions for Mum.
“So. Lochlan Bell,” I say, when I can trust myself to speak again. “What about him?Couldit be him?”
“I… I suppose it could,” Mum replies unwillingly. “I did know a Lochlan. It was a long time ago, though. I suppose this could be him.”
She looks at the photo again, curiously.
“I hadn’t even thought of him in years,” she says, putting the phone back down again. “Not until that news reporter started calling me. I refused to speak to her, though. I know you didn’t like it when I spoke to the press about you and Jett, so I just said ‘no comment’, like you told me.”
