“No, thanks,” she says.
I feel hurt. I know it might be childish of me, but I can’t help it. I try to ignore the feeling, but the hurt evolves into paranoia. What if Imogen’s lying about not wanting cream, to undermine me on purpose? If she lied about self-harming, what else could be untrue?
“You sure?” I ask. My voice is a little high-pitched. I’m still holding up the cream, my finger poised to squirt it.
She nods and reaches for the mug of plain hot chocolate, pulling it toward her, the mug scraping painfully on the kitchen island surface. I open the packet of marshmallows, and tip some into my mouth as she takes her first sip.
I watch her out of the corner of my eye and though she says nothing, I’m very satisfied because she finishes the whole thing, and when she’s done, she has the cutest speck of froth on her upper lip, and it reminds me so much of when she was younger, which makes me feel better.
How much of a special affinity did I feel for her, I wonder, before I knew she was mine, when I still believed she was Rob’s? If I noticed a detail like that, then I guess I must have.
To trace a line from here to our past is thrilling. I must find photographs where Imogen and I are both in the picture. New frames will have to be bought for our new home together. With a little photoshopping, I might be able to create a picture of just the two of us. The idea of recording and making our new history together cheers me up immensely.
I look at her fondly and she returns my gaze with what looks like wariness, or, at least, boredom. But I’m used to unrequited feelings and I’m nothing if not an optimist. I know she will learn to love me.
“Shall we move into the sitting room?” I ask her.
She’ll be feeling sleepy very soon and the last thing I want is for her to fall off the stool she’s perched on.
“Sure,” she says. “Why not?”
“We could put the TV on?”
“Fine.”
I watch her settle herself down on the sofa and I hand her a blanket. She snuggles under it like a baby. I take the chair beside her from where I can see her out of the corner of my eye, but she can’t see me looking.
When she starts to look sleepy, I relax a little and I’m seized by a sort of euphoria because I believe that what I’ve done has been incredibly daring, thrillingly so. It’s a vast step away from what everyone expected of me, a rejection of the tedium of those well-worn paths you’re supposed to travel in life.
I’ve ripped myself away from cliché and embraced originality, casting aside the staggering tedium of marriage in search of a true, blood connection. As I cross my legs quietly, careful not to disturb Imogen as she slips into semi-consciousness, I feel almost drunk on the power of being the architect, the creator of something so bold and within that hurtling, tumbling slipstream of a feeling, I dare to wonder, whenwillImogen show me that she loves me? How will it happen? Just imagining it is electrifying.
I want to get up and shout to the heavens. I want to release the tension I’ve been feeling and start a celebration. But I mustn’t. Not yet. So I sit and watch her and though I remain as still as a statue on the outside I relish the feel of my love for her burning hot inside me and I wait that way until she shuts her eyes.
When I’m certain that she’s properly out of it, I fetch my bag and ready the kit. I’ve read the instructions many times and done this on myself, so I know what to do.
I ease her mouth open gently, marveling at the pink inside. “Sorry,” I say, because this is an intimate thing to be doing. I swab carefully. She stirs a little and I stop, but she relaxes again, and I get the job done.
I put her swab in the sterile tube and seal it. I package it up alongside my own swab and message the service.
The courier arrives an hour later. I’m impressed. You get what you pay for, I guess, and I paid a lot for an express service. The result of the DNA paternity test will be sent to me within twenty-four hours, and I intend to present it to Imogen when I let her know that I’m her biological father.
Perhaps, one day, we’ll even get it framed and hang it alongside our new family portraits.
Jayne pulls her boots on. She doesn’t believe Emily will try to get down to the farmhouse on her own. She’d put money on finding her somewhere close, near the entrance to the lane, having second thoughts.
She hesitates before leaving the barn, remembering Ruth, and calls upstairs but Ruth doesn’t answer. Jayne’s boots are covered in mud. She runs upstairs, anyway, leaving damp prints on the treads.
Ruth sits on the bathroom floor, her head resting against the wall. Her mind is on a rough drunken journey, one minute trying to fathom her surroundings—it’s a compact bathroom, she’s aware of that because she hit her head on the underside of the basin the first time she tried to get up—another minute thinking of Toby and his student, Lexi MacKay—did Lexi think she was special? How many other special young women have there been?—and then her doctor brain kicking in—you vomited because you drank too much, you need to rehydrate, see if you can keep some food down. But cutting through it all, like a note so high and so strung out that it’s painful, a longing for Alfie and each thought of him makes her limbs feel heavier, the air she’s breathing thicker. All of it compounds a crushing sense of uselessness. Of abject failure.
A pounding jolts her into a more functional consciousness. Jayne is on the other side of the door, calling her.
“I’m fine,” Ruth says. “Just a minute. I’ll be down in a minute.” She feels as if words are sliding from her mouth, over numb lips.
“I’m going after Emily. She’s trying to walk down to the farmhouse.”
I would like to go too, Ruth thinks. She doesn’t register the danger it might put her in, and she tries to get up, but can’t.
“Ruth?” Jayne calls. “Did you hear me? Are you okay?”
