One Night She Would Never Forget

Patrick nodded, feeling again the highs and lows of that time. The dread, the fear, the excitement.

‘She was great at first. On a high, I guess. Happy to clean up her act and get married and excited about being a mother. But by the time Ruby was due she was quite down, very flat. I finally managed to convince her to see her GP, who wanted her to go on some antidepressants but she was adamant she wouldn’t take anything while she was pregnant.

‘And then in the weeks after the birth she got worse. I tried to get her to see somebody but she refused. When I came home that evening to find she wasn’t there, a part of me wasn’t surprised. But I never thought she’d just disappear … just go … for good …’

Miranda leaned forward a little in her chair. He was twisting his wedding ring round and round his finger with his thumb, the low strain of emotion in his voice giving her goose-bumps.

‘Do you think she had a bit of a … breakdown that day?’

He shrugged. ‘I think so, yes. Gwen, our neighbour at the time, said she’d seen Katie leave the house clutching her handbag and looking in a bit of a daze. Katie didn’t apparently even acknowledge Gwen when she asked how things were going with the baby.’

Miranda was no mental-health expert but that didn’t sound good to her. ‘But she rang her mother and you were off the hook, right?’

He snorted. ‘Not immediately. The police, quite rightly, I suppose, were suspicious about the authenticity of the message, so they ran forensic tests comparing it to the welcome message on our answering machine and eventually they cleared me of any suspicion.’

‘So … she’s never turned up?’

Patrick shook his head. ‘No. The police dropped the investigation once they were satisfied she was alive. I’ve hired several private investigators but it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.’

Miranda’s mind crowded with questions, each more urgent than the next. ‘Aren’t you worried that she may have come to some harm in the intervening years?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But there’s occasional activity on her bank account and every once in a while she rings a great-aunt of hers, tells her she’s okay and then hangs up.’

Miranda couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he must have gone through in the years since Ruby had been born. The wondering. The not knowing. Not to mention having to be mother and father and juggle job and family responsibilities and finances and a hundred other things.

Just like her.

‘I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through,’ she murmured. ‘It must have been so hard. To have coped with all that as well as trying to be a father.’

The empathy in her gaze was real and washed over him, oozing into all the cracks that had opened up again as he’d talked about Katie’s desertion. ‘To be honest, it nearly broke me.’

He paused. It was the first time he’d admitted that out loud. He’d spent a lot of years presenting a tough front but it seemed okay to admit the truth to her. To finally admit it to himself even.

‘I didn’t cope that well for a while. I kind of just … survived. If it hadn’t been for Katie’s mother helping out I think I might have gone under.’

Miranda nodded. She was glad Patrick had had someone to lean on. How would she have survived without her grandmother’s love and support?

‘What does Ruby know about it?’ she asked. It was the thing as a mother she found most difficult to comprehend—how could Katie have deserted her baby?

Patrick dragged himself back from the helplessness of that time, pleased that he now had time and distance and perspective.

He shrugged. ‘I’ve just tried to be honest. Ruby, like Katie, does tend to be a bit on the anxious side so we don’t make a big deal out of it. She knows she has a mummy who loves her but is too sick to look after her properly so Daddy does it instead.’

Miranda pursed her lips. ‘Ooh. That’s good.’

He grimaced. ‘Well, it seems to appease her. For now. What do you tell Lola about her father?’

‘Honestly? Lola is far too egocentric to care. She asked once when she was two why she didn’t have a daddy and I told her that some kids didn’t have daddies, which seemed to satisfy her perfectly. As long as there’s Pinky, Bud and cupcakes in the world, she’s happy.’

Patrick laughed at Miranda’s candid answer. It was nice to meet a mother who had her daughter’s measure. He’d met many a rabid mother since having a child of his own and it was nice for once to talk to someone who wasn’t blind to everything.

‘So where is he? Lola’s father?’

Miranda shrugged. ‘On a beach somewhere, I guess.’

‘You’ve lost contact?’

‘We never really had contact. I grew up near a really great surf beach and he was there for a few weeks, camping with a bunch of friends, on a big trip around Australia. I was seventeen and … a little on the rebellious side …’

‘Seventeen?’ Horrified, Patrick did the maths in his head. But no matter how many times he did the simple sum he kept getting the same answer. ‘Dear God that makes you …’

‘Twenty-two.’

‘Oh, God.’ Patrick buried his head in his hands. He’d slept with a woman ten years his junior? How was it possible that Miranda was just a year older than Katie had been when they’d first hooked up? She was so much more mature in a multitude of ways.

‘Is that bad?’

He looked up. ‘Very, very bad. I figured you were the other end of twenty.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Sorry.’ He grimaced. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

Miranda laughed at his obvious discomfort. ‘It’s fine. I was a teen mother—it tends to mature you pretty quickly.’

Patrick groaned again. A part of him had been thinking that maybe they could pick up where they’d left off. ‘I’m going to hell.’

Miranda leaned in close to him and whispered, ‘It’s okay. I wasn’t a virgin.’

He winced. ‘That is so not funny.’

‘Oh, come on.’ She grinned. ‘It is. Just a little.’

Patrick did not return the grin. After Katie, he’d made a personal vow to never get involved with anyone who could still see twenty in their rear-view mirror.

Seriously? How could she only be twenty-two!