Adam’s Boys (7 page)

“What is it, Abbie?” Adam asked, a wary edge creeping into his voice.

“God, I wish more than anything else in the world that I didn't have to tell you this,” Abbie almost moaned, wondering whether she might be caught up in a bad dream that would end at any moment. But in dreams you couldn't smell fresh, salty air and pungent seaweed. Nor could you feel the warm breeze as it kissed your cheek and played with your hair. No, there was no doubt about it—her conversation with Adam was no bad dream. But it was definitely a conversation that would soon turn nightmares into reality.

“You see, after you left me and returned to the UK, I discovered I was pregnant.”

“I know that,” he replied with a cautious edge to his voice. “Justin told me. Henry's father didn't want to be involved with the baby …”

But Abbie was shaking her head.

“No, that's not right. Justin never knew the truth because I kept it from him. The truth was there was no man after you—no man at all …”

Adam's upper body jerked violently and his eyes switched towards the two boys climbing on the rock wall edging the sea pool. In morbid fascination Abbie watched on as stunned recognition lifted his facial features and then gradually turned them to stone.

He straightened next to her, and climbing painstakingly to his feet, walked very slowly to the edge of the promenade. Henry spotted him immediately and waved from where he was standing on one of the rocks at the edge of the pool.

Abbie got up, and unsure what on earth she would do next, walked to Adam's side. But as she did, he turned on her with eyes that were ice blue with anger, his voice soft and measured like an iron fist in a velvet glove.

“You
are
telling me that Henry is my son.”

“Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.”

“No doubt about it?”

“None at all.”

“And the birth control …”

“Didn't work, despite …”

“So then why don't you enlighten me,” he interrupted with a near snarl. “What reason can you possibly give me to explain why you've kept Henry from me until now?”

Abbie didn't reply. She was too busy battling an almost overwhelming urge to turn and run away so that she wouldn't have to endure another moment of his loathing. But she owed him her presence, and any answers she could offer him. And that was the very least she owed him after what she'd done to him.

“The thing is, Adam,” she said, barely able to manage more than a whisper, “when I discovered I was pregnant you were still a mess after Ellen's death. And you and she had this incredibly high profile marriage—the scandal of a baby would have blown your reputation to bits. And no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't see that there was any room in your life for me, let alone …” But Adam held up his hand to stop her.

“So I've lost more than three years of Henry's life because you felt entitled to keep him from me. And you made that decision all on your own. God, what kind of a woman are you?”

She watched him in tortured anguish, knowing there wasn't a single thing she could say to defend herself. All she could do was try and explain her motives, yet she knew they would come out sounding hopelessly weak and completely pathetic, no matter how she packaged them up.

“I'm so sorry,” she blurted miserably, her take-it-on-the-chin veneer beginning to crumble fast in the face of his growing revulsion for her. “I don't know what to say that can explain or excuse what I've done.”

Abbie released a violent sob in a sudden outbreak of guilt and remorse, but she didn't turn away. She remained where she was, staring hard at Adam's rigid expression, like a sculpture in its tense immobility. Clearly unable to stand the sight of her for another instant, he tore his haunted gaze from hers and turned it towards Henry, still playing happily on the rocks in the distance.

At that moment Adam took a step forward and dropped himself from the promenade and onto the sand below. He made his way across the narrow stretch of beach and in his full suit, walked straight into the sea in Henry's direction without a moment's hesitation.

Only when he was knee deep did he appear to wake up out of his stupor and realise what he'd done. But instead of walking back out again, he dropped himself down to sit waist deep in the shallows and drop his face into his hands.

How Abbie wished she could do or say something to help him, but she couldn't move a muscle. And even if she could, she'd already done too much—Adam would want nothing from her now.

In the end it was Henry who acted.

Noticing the fully clothed man being buffeted in the chest by gentle waves, he left Pete immersed with the sea life they'd found, jumped into the water and dog-paddled his way across the pool. Adam was oblivious to his younger son's presence until he'd sat down next to him, his warm, wet body pressing up against his father's saturated cotton shirtsleeve.

Only then did Adam drop his hands from his face to look down at Henry. Abbie could see her little boy talking to his father and placing a hand on his knee to comfort him. With that, Adam lifted his arm to wrap it around Henry's shoulder.

The two of them sat in silence for upwards of five minutes, watching Pete fossicking on the opposite rock ledge, oblivious to the catastrophic news that had his father besieged in a world of grief over the loss of his younger son's first years of life.

But then Adam enclosed Henry in both of his arms, pressed his lips against the top of the little boy's head, climbed to his feet and walked purposefully out of the water.

“My car keys are up on the bench where we were sitting,” Adam tossed at Abbie as he walked past where she stood statue-like on the promenade. “Take the boys home to your place. You'd better keep Pete for the night too.”

And with that Adam headed for the road and didn't look back.

“Is Dad really mad at us?” Pete asked uncertainly as he and Henry appeared at her side, staring after Adam's hunched and lonely figure as he disappeared across the park.

“No, honey,” Abbie replied. “Adam's not upset with either of you. He's upset with me.”

“Boy, you must have done something really bad,” Pete suggested, looking at Abbie with fascination in his wide, brown eyes. “He walked into the water with all his clothes on! I've never seen Dad do anything like that before!”

“I did do something really bad. I didn't tell him something important that I should have told him long ago.”

“Is that why he's so sad?” Henry asked.

Abbie nodded as she fought for air. Because the two little boys at her side had seen within moments what it had taken her years to finally work out: her secret would crush their father completely.

“Hello, darling! What are you doing prowling around the house like a caged lion?”

Maeve McCarthy's eventual appearance at her front door took Abbie by surprise, even though she'd been pacing the living room for well over an hour, willing her aunt to come home from her cards night as soon as possible.

Nothing had eased Abbie's frantic worry about Adam since he'd walked away from her at the beach that afternoon.

In a mortified daze she'd managed to herd Pete and Henry under the beach shower and into his car for the trip home. Then finding her house empty as the three of them burst through its front door, she'd set about getting both boys into hot baths and pyjamas. An early dinner was next before putting them into her bed in front of the television as a special treat. By the time Maeve finally walked through her door, both boys were sleeping peacefully, exhausted from the excitement of their big day.

“Maeve, thank goodness you're home! Do you mind if I leave the boys with you?” Abbie babbled helplessly as she fell upon her aunt in relief. “They're asleep upstairs and I have to find Adam. I'm not sure what time I'll be home.”

“Pete's here, is he? Yes, of course you can go, but what's wrong, darling? Is everything all right? Will Adam be back to get Pete tonight? This is all very confusing!” Maeve declared finally, running a suspicious eye over her wild-eyed niece, clearly wondering how her nervy mood and the last minute sleepover were fitting together.

“Yes, I know it's confusing, but do you mind if I don't try and explain now? It's a long story and I really need to go.”

“All right. That's fine. Don't forget your umbrella …” Maeve called out from behind.

But Abbie barely heard her. Nor would she have cared about an umbrella if she had. She was already sprinting up the street to cover the short distance between her home and the one Pete had volunteered was his and Adam's when they'd driven home from the beach earlier that evening.

She needn't have hurried.

Her instincts told her Adam would be at some pub drowning his sorrows or walking his miseries off on the streets of Sydney, and they'd been right. His three-storey terrace was in complete darkness when she arrived.

Still, Abbie went through the motions of ringing the front door bell, listening in frustration to its lonely echo in the dark and empty rooms within. After a minute or two of her exercise in futility, she sank down onto the front steps, vowing to sit there all night if necessary. Yet she had absolutely no idea what she was going to say to Adam when he finally returned home,
if
he returned home at all that night.

Well, it didn't matter.

The first thing she'd do was make sure he was okay. The second thing she'd do was somehow get through to him about how desperately sorry she was for the terrible thing she'd done and her determination to now make things as right as she possibly could.

Abbie remained on the step and barely moved a muscle; not even when the day's temperature finally plummeted two hours later; not even when the heavens opened and rain fell in sheets until she was completely drenched. The only thing that stirred her was the occasional sound of approaching footsteps.

Her hopes lifted each time as she waited for Adam to come into view. But time and time again, they were dashed as strangers passed by, staring in obvious surprise from underneath their umbrellas at the odd sight of the wet and bedraggled girl sitting on the third step of the elegant Paddington home.

As midnight finally ticked by, Abbie sunk her head in defeat onto her folded arms and closed her eyes—exhausted, half-frozen and utterly miserable.

How long she sat there like that, or even whether she dozed off for a little while, she never knew. But finally she sensed that someone was standing next to her.

Lifting her head slowly, she found Adam towering above her. He was dressed in jeans and a blue v-necked T-shirt. One foot was resting on the step she sat on. He was also dry, unlike her. But the most disturbing thing about him was the way he was watching her, silently and without a flicker of emotion, his face no more than an eerie mask.

“Come inside. I'll get you something dry to put on,” he muttered before walking up the stairs and unlocking his front door.

Stiff and frozen in every one of her joints, Abbie climbed awkwardly to her feet. In the next moment she'd stumbled into his front hallway as he flicked a switch, filling his home with low, soft lighting. Uncertain what to do next, she waited where she was and watched him disappear, only to return a minute or two later with a bundle of clothing in his arms.

“Put these on,” he ordered as he passed them to her, avoiding her eyes. “They'll be too big for you but they're all I have.”

He disappeared again and she made her way up the stairs to the bathroom to do as he asked in mortified obedience.

Adam was right about the clothing. His tracksuit was enormous on her. She had to pull on most of the drawstring to stop the pants from plunging to her feet every time she moved. As for the top, it hung around her legs to about mid-thigh. But it was dry and warm; Abbie was beginning to feel her fingers and toes again as she wandered back down the stairs and through the house in search of him.

She followed the lights to the kitchen where he was making a pot of coffee, two mugs out on the bench in front of him. But to Abbie it looked like an executioner preparing his tools of trade—suddenly she was wondering whether her coffee would be as restorative as she might have hoped.

He lifted his eyes to take her in, clutching at her pants to keep them up as she slipped onto one of his kitchen stools. And right then something passed across his expression, but it was so fleeting and cryptic she couldn't decipher it at all.

“Where have you been?” Abbie asked more boldly than she felt as she accepted a mug of coffee from him, wrapping her hands around its warmth gratefully. “I was worried about you.”

“Worried! Really!” His voice was scathing but eerily calm. “Never mind where I was. I was somewhere doing a lot of thinking about you, me, Pete and Henry. And although it's taken me all this time to work out what I want from this mess, it will take precisely sixty seconds to communicate it to you.”

Although Abbie knew she was staring at Adam in wide-eyed alarm at what was coming she couldn't drag her eyes away from his, let alone speak. It didn't matter. Adam clearly had no interest in hearing from her.

“I want Henry in my life full-time while I'm in Sydney. I can never regain the time I've lost with him and I'm not prepared to lose another minute while you and I waste time in court and argue over access.”

Abbie's heart clenched hard within her chest. It sounded like they were moving into an acrimonious divorce without anything like a real marriage to precede it. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but couldn't.

“You know as well as I do that the family court are giving fathers bigger portions of time with their children these days,” he went on with about as much warmth as he would have displayed were he handing down a sentence to a convicted criminal. “Despite what you've done though, I'm not out for revenge. It's not in Henry's interests to blow your life with him apart, and so I'm going to offer you a choice. You can opt for an agreed court order for access where Henry's week will be split between us, or you can move in here with him by Saturday night. But I'm not talking a couple of suitcases. If you choose the second option your whole life will move in here—every book, every toy, everything. You and I will look after these boys as a couple—I'll give you all the help and support I can, and I want the same from you. As far as Henry is concerned, this will be his home, and as far as Pete is concerned, you'll be his primary carer—just as much as I am. Pete's struggling with anxiety and confidence issues that I'm determined to resolve, and you're going to help me do it. That's part of the deal and it's not negotiable.”