All Because of You (Lakeview #2) (44 page)

“Tara? It’s me,” he said, and immediately she tensed.

“Pretty cowardly of you to get Natalie do your dirty work, isn’t it?” she replied.

“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I knew it was the only way to get you on the phone.”

“We have nothing to say to one another, Jason. You said it all seventeen years ago.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he countered softly. “You wouldn’t let me. You’d hung up the phone before I even had a chance to think. Tara, the same day you rang me, I’d been out earlier shopping for stuff for college. It was a total shock, and I couldn’t think straight.”

“How nice for you,” she said bitterly.

“Look, what I mean to say is …that I wasn’t in the proper frame of mind to tell you what you needed to hear – which was that I’d try to support you every way I could.  But I couldn’t say those words back then, Tara, because in all honesty I couldn’t
be
sure that I could support you at all. I had no job, no prospects, we didn’t even live in the same town for goodness’ sake!” When Tara said nothing, he continued. “I told my parents, who as you know were horrified, and more than a little embarrassed. They’d visited and had friends in Lakeview for many years, and then their son goes and gets a local girl into trouble. They wouldn’t speak to me for weeks. I was confused, upset, I hadn’t a clue what was going on.”

“And how do you think I felt?” 

“I know. Look, I’ll admit I tried at first to put it out of my head for a while, tried to convince myself – as my parents tried to – that there was nothing I could do. I was too young to provide for you properly, they told me, better to let your family rally round and help you out. And I thought that was what would happen – you were seventeen after all, barely out of school … so I thought I was doing the right thing – they’d convinced me I was doing the right thing. Looking back now, I know they were just trying to make sure I went to college and got my education. They didn’t want me wasting my life on some young girl I’d met on holiday. But they didn’t realise how close we were, and how much I cared about you.”

At this Tara’s heart twisted, and she closed her eyes. 

“And I did care deeply about you, Tara, I never lied about that. The closeness we shared over all those summers was real and it should have … I should have stood up for that. But I didn’t, and by the time I realised that I couldn’t leave you to your own devices, it was too late. I phoned your house one day and your sister told me that you’d moved away somewhere with the baby, moved away on your own. And when I asked her for your contact details she said she didn’t know them – said that it was somewhere in Dublin but she didn’t know where. And when I asked to speak to your parents, she told me that there was no point because they wouldn’t want to speak to me.”

Upon hearing this, Tara’s eyes narrowed. Emma had spoken to Jason, he’d phoned the house looking for
her and she’d never said a word. How could she? How could her little sister have so much hate and badness in her that at fourteen years of age she’d conspire to keep them apart? But then again, Emma was only young so perhaps she’d forgotten the conversation almost as soon as it had finished. And she wouldn’t have known Tara’s exact address at that stage either. So, she supposed she had to give Emma the benefit of the doubt. If she didn’t, Tara didn’t know what she’d do, and in truth, she’d had enough to deal with over the last few days never mind discovering that her little sister had a part in it all.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Tara, I’ll admit that I was stupid at the beginning, that my reaction was wrong and very hurtful. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I never meant for this to happen. I truly honestly cared about you, and I don’t know if we could have made it work, but now I really wish that I had tried. That I had tried to help you raise our … raise Glenn. You don’t know how much I regret everything that happened back then. I know it affected your life in an immense way, and I know you probably don’t want to hear it but it affected me too. I’ve never forgotten you or the baby. I always wondered about you and every time I went back to Ireland I used to imagine I’d bump into the two of you on the street some day. Yet at the same time, I was afraid that I
would
come face to face with you again because I knew you’d probably hate me for what I’d done. But you were my first love, Tara, and I’ve never forgotten you.”

Tara felt an immense lump in her throat. He sounded the very same as he had all those years before, all those summers when they were falling in love. She wanted so much to believe that he was being sincere, that he was telling the truth when he said he’d never forgotten them, that he’d regretted not trying harder to find them, that he’d wished he’d had the courage to try and make it better. But no matter how convincing he might sound, Tara knew deep down that if Jason had really wanted to find her and Glenn, he could very easily have done so.  So she really couldn’t let him persuade her otherwise. OK, so at the time, he was only a teenager, and it was a relief to know after all these years that he had really cared about her and wasn’t the heartless cad everyone had believed him to be, but still, this didn’t change what had happened.

“At the beginning of our relationship,” he went on, “Natalie asked me why I’d never married and I told her it was because I’d never found the right woman.  But the truth was, I’d never really got over what had happened with you, and how I’d made a mess of it all. You know how close the two of us were back then, how close we’d become during all those summers I came to Lakeview. And then I ruined it all – I ruined our relationship and, by abandoning you like that, I ruined your future too. And as I got older, I began to realise even more the damage I’d done and how much I’d hurt you. And I really did care for you back then, Tara. I know that probably sounds crazy to you now, but it’s true. But we were young, and I was stupid and I didn’t know what to …” His voice trailed off then and he took a deep breath. “Remember when we used to talk  about being soul mates, and how the universe had conspired to bring us together?”

Tara nodded, but then remembering he couldn’t see her, she croaked, “Yes.”

“Well, if you believed in that then, don’t you think that maybe the universe just might have conspired to bring us together once again? ”

Tara swallowed as Jason continued, his tone gentle.

“That there was a reason that you and Natalie met in Egypt, perhaps so she could eventually put us in contact again, and we could have this conversation. So that I could tell you how sorry I am about everything and how I wished things could have been different.”

“Is Natalie there with you now?” Tara asked, wondering what the other girl was making of all this. She didn’t want Natalie hurt, she didn’t deserve that. 

“No, she went out for a while to give us some privacy.” There was a brief silence. “I know I said I never found anyone to live up to the closeness I had with you, Tara, but with Natalie, I think I have.”

Tara closed her eyes, unsure how she was feeling about the whole thing. She didn’t want Jason back, of course she didn’t, but the emotions she was feeling just then were all-consuming and she hadn’t felt like that in a very long time.

“I’m pleased for you both,” she said eventually. “Natalie is a wonderful person, and I know you’ll be very happy.”

“Thank you – it means a lot to hear you say that.”

“Jason, I appreciate you telling me that you at least tried to contact me. And maybe you do have your regrets. But it doesn’t change the last seventeen years of my life, and it doesn’t change the fact that Glenn has no idea who you are, nor does he want to.”

“I understand that.”

“And I’m not going to tell him I met or have spoken to you recently. He’s got too much going on in his life right now.”

“I understand that,” Jason said politely. “And I don’t blame you.  I would hate to stir things up for either of you.”

“But …” Tara said then, and she could almost hear Jason hold his breath, “one of these days I will tell him about you. To be honest, up until now, strangely, he’s never been too bothered or terribly inquisitive about you. But that might change once he has a child of his own. And when I do tell him who you are and where you live, it’ll be entirely up to Glenn what he wants to do. I won’t hold sway over him either way. If he wants to see you, well and good, if he doesn’t I won’t force him.”

“Thank you,” Jason breathed, relieved. “I know I don’t deserve that much.”

“No, you don’t,” she said seriously, but then she smiled. “But I think I’d like you to meet him one day all the same. He’s an honest, decent and very special person.”

“Then he most definitely takes after his mother,” Jason replied quietly, and for a long time after that, the two of them just stayed on the line saying nothing because – Tara realised, tears streaming down her cheeks – after that there was nothing more to say.

A few weeks later, Glenn arrived home for dinner with a visitor in tow.

“Tara, this is Abby,” he said, his cheeks colouring slightly as he introduced a petite and timid-looking dark-haired girl.

“Pleased to meet you, em, Mrs Harrington,” the girl said, limply shaking Tara’s hand.

“Call me Tara,” Tara said with a friendly smile, although inwardly she wondered how on earth a girl this young and harmless-looking was going to deal with a pregnancy. Then again, she’d done it herself, hadn’t she
? “Mrs Harrington sounds so old.”

“Abby was asking why I always refer to you by name,”Glenn said, casually picking out bits of vegetables from Tara’s stir-fry, “but I’ve been doing it for so long now, I  hardly notice it. I don’t think I’ve ever called you Mum, have I?”

“If you do – I know you’ve done something wrong,” Tara said, with a playful wink at Abby, who blushed deeply.

Tara turned back to the cooker and smiled. He
had
indeed called her ‘Mum’, and only very recently, when she’d returned from London and they’d talked some more about his situation.

“The last thing I wanted was to disappoint you, Mum,” he’d said, and to her surprise, Tara had felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes. Hearing him call her that for what must have been the first and only time made her understand how truly affected he was by all this, and made her doubly resolved to help him through it whatever way she could. And by the looks of this tim
id little crature, he’d need it.

But gradually over dinner, Abby began to come out of herself and, judging from the calluses on her fingertips, it seemed she was as much as a computer freak as Glenn. “Abby’s one of the best hackers I’ve ever met,” Glenn enthused, his mouth open as he ate. “She’s kicks my ass when it comes to Linux!”

“Really,” Tara said, smiling brightly and trying to conceal her worries about the sort of child these two would produce. It would either be Bill Gates or Forrest Gump.

Much later that evening, over a cup of tea at Liz’s house, Tara aired her thoughts on the subject. She’d travelled home to Lakeview, leaving Glenn and Abby alone in her house to ‘discuss things’.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand how they ever got round to any funny business in the first place,” she laughed, referring to Glenn and Abby. “You should have seen the two of them plonked in front of the computer when I was leaving – the house could have been burning to the ground around them and they wouldn’t have a clue.” She sighed. “They’re such kids really.”

“They’ll be fine,” Liz reassured her from where she sat on the sofa, “and when they run into any problems, they’ll always have you to fall back on and give them a helping hand.”

“I know. Speaking of a helping hand, any word on a fulltime job for Eric yet? ”

Since coming clean about his employment circumstances, Eric had asked around the village and was currently keeping busy by doing some carpentry work locally. He was still working his bar shifts in Dublin, but with any luck he would soon be in a position to give those up for good.

“Not yet unfortunately, and I think he’s finally coming round to the fact that he might have to retrain. He doesn’t want to stay working in Dublin anyway, and after everything that’s happened recently, I don’t want him to either. We need to be together as a family. But lately he’s been doing a lot of work for Luke next door.”

“Really?” Tara looked up.

“Yep. He’s trying to give him a hand with much of the heavy work that needs doing in the house. Can you believe it? And our place practically falling asunder? The two of them are putting in a new kitchen next door at the moment. But then Luke in turn is planning to give Eric a hand with some work here so …” She shook her head. “I’m pleased they’re getting on so well, actually.  For some reason, I got the impression that Luke didn’t really take to Eric initially,” She frowned. “But they certainly seem fine now.”

“I’m so glad you and Eric managed to work things out – and I’m especially glad that …” the rest of her sentence trailed off. “Well, you know … that none of my family was involved in it.”

“Thank you,” Liz said, a guilty smile on her face.

“Thanks for what?” Tara asked, reacting to the smile.

“For not vocalising my own suspicions back to me. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it if you’d told me you had the same idea I had – that Eric could be the father of Emma’s baby. Convincing myself that it was all in my own head was what kept me sane, so you really don’t know how much I appreciate that.”