And Mother Makes Three. Liz Fielding

this little girl have found out who her real mother was? Surely you had to be eighteen before you could even begin to search the records?

      But no, that couldn’t be right. It was there in the letter. ‘...You won’t have to see Daddy...’ Oh, God bless the child, it was enough to break your heart.

      She stuffed the letter in her pocket and went downstairs, picked up the kettle, filled it and switched it on, then took out the letter again.

      No, really. It had to be a mistake. It was impossible. Brooke wasn’t the kind of girl to get pregnant, after all. She was too focussed, too smart, too selfish. She’d known what she wanted and had set out to achieve it with a single-mindedness that had taken her to the top. She had known their mother was dying when she had left for Brazil, chasing the latest in a long line of television awards for her Endangered Earth series.

      If she hadn’t wanted her precious car tucked up safely in the garage while she was away it was entirely possible that she would have made some excuse not to find the time to come home and say goodbye.

      Yet if it was impossible why was it so difficult to simply brush away the idea?

      She read the letter again, felt the tug at her heartstrings. Lucy. The child could be her niece...

      No. She refused to believe it Or was she afraid to believe it? Afraid to believe that her sister could be that heartless? No. It had to be some little girl in a world of hurt latching onto a woman who had made caring for the planet her personal crusade. A little girl hoping that a woman with so much compassion would have some love left over to spare for her.

      

      Fitz turned from the cooker. Lucy was drawing a picture, working at the kitchen table, her arm curled protectively about the paper. ‘Will you be long, sweetheart? Tea’s nearly ready.’

      She tucked her pencils and the picture carefully away in her school bag then looked up, her bright blue eyes unusually shadowed, like someone with a secret.

      And she did have a secret. How long had she known? When had she found her birth certificate, the photograph of Brooke Lawrence, all the things he had kept locked away at the back of his desk, at the back of his life?

      He had been going to tell her. One day. He had fooled himself into believing that he would know when it was the right moment to sit her down and explain about her mother, tell her what had happened. But what time was ever right to tell a child that her mother hadn’t wanted her?

      ‘I’m done,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘Shall I lay the table?’

      God, when she smiled she looked so like Brooke. He hadn’t anticipated that. The chestnut hair and blue eyes had fooled him into thinking that there was nothing of Brooke to see in the child. But that enchanting smile...

      ‘Please,’ he said quickly and looked away, making a performance of stirring the sauce. Why did it still get to him? Brooke Lawrence might have had a smile like an angel but that was as far as it went. Somewhere, deep inside him he’d always known that, even when he’d been pursuing her with a single-mindedness that had been nine parts testosterone to one part common sense.

      How on earth was he to tell this child, this little girl that he loved so much that he sometimes thought his heart might break just looking at her, how was he to tell her that her mother had never wanted her, had handed her over to him and walked away without a backward glance the day after she was born?

      He had never believed she would do it. He had always believed that once her baby was lying in her arms she would love her.

      No. He could never tell Lucy how it had been. But Claire Graham was right—he would have to tell her something, as much of the truth as she could manage. When she was old enough she could confront Brooke herself, ask her why. Ask her how she could do that. Maybe she would be able to tell him, because he had never understood.

      He should tell her now, before she fabricated a dozen fantasies about how it might be. He stared into the saucepan as if the contents might provide him with inspiration. Nothing. ‘Lucy—’

      ‘What are we having?’ She hooked a long, thin arm about his waist as he stood at the cooking range and, standing on tiptoe, peered into the saucepan.

      ‘Spaghetti carbonara.’

      ‘Oh, yummy. Can I have a Coke with it?’

      He glanced down at her and his courage failed him. ‘If I can have a beer.’

      ‘Yeuch. Beer’s disgusting.’

      ‘Oh? And how do you know what beer tastes like?’ She giggled and his heart did its usual somersault. ‘Go on, then, get the drinks while I dish up.’

      Later, he tried again. ‘Lucy, Miss Graham asked me to visit her today.’

      A brief startled glanced then a casual, ‘Oh?’ Then, ‘Can I turn on the television?’ She was avoiding asking him why her head teacher had wanted to see him.

      ‘Leave it a minute.’

      ‘It’s something I want to see,’ she protested, unusually sulky. This was worse, far worse than he had ever imagined. Or maybe he had just refused to imagine this moment.

      ‘She told me...’ he began, then cleared his throat. ‘She told me...’ He stared at the top of her head as she suddenly became totally engrossed in her trainers. ‘She told me about sports day,’ he said, finally. ‘Did you forget, or didn’t you want me to come?’

      She flung her head up. ‘No! You mustn’t! You mustn’t come!’

      ‘Why?’ Her reaction startled him but he tried not to show it, tried to hide his concern beneath a grin. ‘Are you going to come last in everything?’

      For a moment he saw her struggle with a lie, with the temptation to tell him that she was going to be terrible. But maybe she realised he didn’t give a hoot where she came in the fifty metres, or whether she fell over her feet in the high jump, that he would come because he loved to see her having fun. ‘No. But if you come it will spoil—’ She stopped.

      ‘Spoil what, sweetheart?’

      ‘I...I...’ She reddened, swallowed. ‘I’ve done something that’s going to make you really angry. Daddy.’

      He was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know, so he pulled her towards him, picked her up and settled her against his chest. ‘Let me decide about that. I don’t suppose it’s as bad as you think.’

      The words were a long time coming and when they did come they were mumbled into his chest. ‘I—wrote—to—my...’ His heart seemed to stop beating during an endless pause.

      ‘Who did you write to, sweetheart?’ he prompted, when be could no longer bear it.

      ‘My mother. I wrote to my mother and asked her to come to sports day.’ And then the words tumbled out, unstoppable. ‘I asked her to come because they said I was lying, they wouldn’t believe me, but it’s true, isn’t it?’ She sat back and looked up at him, every cell in her body appealing to him to tell her it was so. ‘Brooke Lawrence is my mother.’

      His throat was tight, a lump the size of a tennis ball blocking the words. But he had to say them. ‘Yes, Lucy. Your mother is Brooke Lawrence.’

      If he’d expected anything, it would have been reproach that he hadn’t told her before. Her triumphant, ‘Yes!’ was like a knife to his heart. ‘And she’ll come to sports day and everyone will know—’ She slid from his lap and twirled giddily across the living room floor.

      ‘Look out!’ His warning came too late as she swept a small china spaniel from the top of the television. It hit the carpet and bounced and would have been safe but before she could stop herself Lucy trod on it and there was an ominous crunching noise.

      Fitz caught her by the arms as she catapulted back towards him, holding her still, his arms about her in a protective vice, a safe place he had made for her, a place where nothing