David was so depressed and angry in the days after she left, but it gave way quickly to a deathly calm and defeat. I saw him every day; he came by for dinner with us. He’d play with his food, his face set in a miserable mask, but I was full of energy all the time. I could barely sit still during the day and I couldn’t sleep at night. Olivia had devastated my son, and I wanted revenge so badly that it was all that I could think about.
‘Liv promised me Zoe’s mine,’ David whispered one night. ‘But… I just don’t know.’ He raised his eyes to me. ‘You saw the red in her hair too, didn’t you? I looked the genetics up online. It’s possible we could make a baby with red hair but… ’
‘Grandpa Gillespie had a red moustache,’ Wyatt said flatly. ‘You need to stop this talk right now. Things are bad enough without adding to the drama. We need level heads now.’
‘Well, whether Zoe is yours or not, Olivia was simply never good enough for you, David,’ I snapped. ‘That girl was—’
‘Ivy,’ Wyatt groaned, and I broke off but clenched my fists. Our gazes met and locked, and Wyatt’s became pointed. I looked at David, and his eyes were shining – tears were threatening again. The urge to lash out at Olivia was so strong in those moments that it was all I could do to stop myself from storming away from the table and going right across town to her parents’ house, to give her a piece of my mind. I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew it would only make things worse for David. So instead, I reached across and squeezed his wrist.
‘David, we love you, whatever we can do to help – we will,’ I said, and despite all of the insanity, I mostly felt like my heart was going to break for David. ‘She just shouldn’t have provoked you. She shouldn’t have forced you into this position.’
‘I just need to keep this all quiet, you know? My reputation is everything. If this gets out… the business… the town council… ’
‘Has she told anyone?’ I asked. ‘I mean, no one knows, do they?’
‘Her family for sure. And she has a lawyer.’
‘Did she go to the police?’ Wyatt asked quietly.
‘Not yet. I have a mate looking out for me at the station. If she tries, he’s going to call me.’
‘So… have you spoken to her?’
‘No, but her lawyer has agreed to let me see Zoe on Friday. I’ll pick her up and bring her round for a visit if I have time.’ His lip curled, and he shook his head in disgust and looked to me, his gaze somehow pleading. ‘One hour, Mum. That’s all they’ve given me. One fucking hour a week with my daughter.’
‘It’s only for a while, isn’t it?’ I said gently. ‘Surely you’ll be able to get some more access once the dust settles a bit.’
‘Who knows?’ he whispered, and the anger drained out of him and he stared at the table again, and his gaze vacant. I curled my hands into fists at the defeat in his stance. It was so unjust that she could do this to him! This was all Olivia’s fault – whether Olivia had been unfaithful to David or not, it had been her decision to leave. David was a good man, and it incensed me that his wicked, unfaithful wife could have all of the power in a terrible situation of her own creation.
Every time I saw David that week, I hated Olivia just a little bit more. She’d taken things from my son that could never really be restored – his trust, and those innocent early days with Zoe. And perhaps Zoe really was his daughter, my granddaughter – how was I to know for sure? But I knew one thing: if Olivia really loved David, she would never have left him the way she did.
The day came for his afternoon with Zoe, and David was suddenly over the moon, positively glowing with excitement. He had taken the day off work to run some errands in the morning before he picked the baby up at lunchtime. He told me he’d call by with Zoe in the afternoon, and when I heard his car on the drive I ran out to see him – but I could see in his eyes that he still wasn’t right. There was a joy there, but behind it lurked a breathtaking depth of pain.
I told myself that made sense. After all Olivia had done to him…
Inside, I cuddled Zoe as I took her inside and sat on the recliner with her. She was sleeping – so chubby, so healthy, so well. It was a cold day and she was wearing a pink jumpsuit that I had bought her – I’d given it to Olivia when she was in the hospital, and although less than two weeks had passed, it felt like a lifetime ago. I wondered if she had chosen it specifically, knowing David would be likely to bring Zoe to my house. I wondered if it was a hidden message, some taunt to me. I pondered this and stared at the baby and for a while, paid too little attention to David as he sat opposite me, watching me. But eventually, his silence began to unnerve me, and so I smiled at him and I tried to distract him by refocusing his energy on the baby.
‘Thanks for bringing Zoe around.’ He smiled back at me, but there was still ice in his eyes, and I felt another cold shiver run down my spine. I held her closer – tighter – so tight that she squirmed a little in my arms. David stared at us, that odd smile still fixed on his face, and finally I asked the question I did not want to ask. ‘Are you okay, Davey?’
‘I’m happy. I’m relieved,’ he said simply, and I exhaled and looked back to the baby.
‘So will this be the start of regular visits, then?’
‘I’ll be seeing much more of her now.’
‘Every week, you mean?’
‘No, Mum. I’ve decided not to settle for an hour with her a week.’
‘Have you and Livvy reached a compromise then?’
‘After today, things are going to be sorted.’ I raised my eyebrows at him, but he pressed his finger against his lips. ‘I’m still working out the final details. You’ll know soon enough.’
I had seen my boy laugh and cry and dance and run and sleep and learn and grow and change over his lifetime. He had been my sole focus and my greatest privilege for almost forty years. I knew him inside and out, better than I knew myself.
I knew then that he was going to do something to get at Olivia. I thought maybe he was going to run away with Zoe – or that he’d found some new lawyer who was going to pull some sleight of hand and switch the custody arrangement.
They were both frightening options, but I somehow still felt sure that David would do the right thing for Zoe. So maybe if he was going to run off with her, it would just be to prove a point, or maybe if his solicitor had found a loophole, it would force Olivia to reconsider the situation and be less restrictive with his access to the baby.
It didn’t occur to me for a second that he would do anything permanent. I knew my son. He just wasn’t like that.
Zoe was tired and started to fuss, and David told me he needed to take her home for a little nap. When the time came for him to leave, he pulled me close and hugged me, and I was sure then that he was going to run away.
‘Whatever you’re planning, David—’ I started, and he smiled at me. He was at peace. All I could think was – well, if Olivia was going to make this difficult for him, then maybe he really had no choice in the matter. Maybe running off with Zoe would show Olivia just how deeply David loved them both. Maybe that was just the way it had to be.
‘It’s okay, Mum. I know what I’m doing.’ And then for the first time in decades he said casually, ‘Love you.’
‘I love you too, son.’
He kissed me on the forehead, with Zoe caught between our torsos, and then he unlocked his car.
‘You aren’t walking home? She’ll probably fall asleep as you go around the corner.’
‘I’ll need the car, Mum. It’s fine.’
He sat Zoe gently into her car seat, then he closed the door, and I let him leave.
I let him leave.
I went back inside. I sat down to finish my cross stitch, and my hands were shaking. I rose, and I started to pace. I picked up the phone to call him, then I sat it back down again.
I told myself I was being silly. I told myself I was overreacting, being a hysterical, foolish old woman, just like Wyatt always said I was.
I put the dogs on their leads and I went for a walk. It was cold – my fingers were icy, my lips felt numb – and I remember the warm flush of relief that ran from my head to my toes as I turned the corner and saw David’s car in the garage at his house. The roller-door was open, and Zoe’s door was open, and I imagined him getting home a few minutes earlier to find her asleep, and him lifting her gently from the seat and carrying her inside.
I felt instantly ridiculous at the sight of his car right where it belonged. David had made some mistakes – but my son was hardly a lunatic, and he’d never do anything to jeopardise his chances of continued access to Zoe in the future. I turned around and went home.
By the time my phone rang an hour and a half later, I had sufficiently distracted myself from my earlier concerns. I’d pottered around the house as if I didn’t have a care in the world. But then the phone rang. I answered it mildly.
‘You’re speaking with Ivy.’
‘Ivy… ’ Olivia sounded uncertain, and in a single instant it was back – the ice-cold chill down my spine. I gripped the phone tighter in my hand.
‘What do you want?’ I snapped at her. I heard her sharp intake of breath.
‘David hasn’t dropped Zoe back and he’s not answering his phone… Have you seen them?’ I didn’t answer her – I wasn’t sure how to. She cleared her throat, and then she added in a confused whisper, ‘He was due back an hour ago, Ivy.’
The instinct sounded – the icy grip of fingers of fear around my mother’s heart – I knew then that he was in trouble. I hung up and dialled my son’s mobile number. I held my breath and felt myself tense with every ring that sounded and passed, and then I dropped my handset and I ran from the house, stopping only at the hall table to pick up my mobile phone.
I saw the note on David’s front door as soon as I rounded the corner. The garage door was closed now, so I couldn’t see if the car was there, but I could see the paper that had been fixed to the very middle of their large, charcoal front door.
I leapt up the steps two at a time and then I tore the papers from the nail that held it against the door. There were two pages there – an official looking form at the back, and a note at the front.
I looked at the form first.
Request for DNA Analysis – Paternity Confirmation
The form was pre-filled for Olivia and Zoe and addressed to Olivia at her mother’s address – but what was it doing here at their house, and dear God – here was the proof, if she’d ordered this test, she must have a reason to suspect that someone else was Zoe’s father! I couldn’t wait to tell David – but just as that thought struck me, I saw the handwritten note. It was folded over – and the word Olivia was written in thick, heavy black letters on the front. The paper felt ridiculously heavy as I unfolded it – as if its weight was so much greater because of my fear.
You made me do this. See you at the mountain.
I stared at the note, completely bewildered. What on earth did he mean? Olivia’s number was still on my speed dial, and that was fortunate, because as I tried to call her my hands were trembling so hard that I might not have managed otherwise.
‘Ivy?’
‘He… ’ I was still holding the note; its meaning slowly penetrating the fog in my brain. ‘At the mountain, Livvy. He said he’s at the mountain. At the Bush Chapel, I guess.’
‘Oh, okay… but… ’ I heard her relief give way to confusion, then she asked me hesitantly, ‘Did you speak to him?’
‘No… he… there’s a… ’ I closed the note again and saw the harsh marks of the letters of Olivia’s name.
David hadn’t written that note – he had scrawled it, his hand in a fist.
‘Olivia – we need to go there. Right now.’
As I drove, I tried to imagine the scene that would be waiting for me. David had probably planned some romantic gesture just like his proposal – yes – surely that was it. I would arrive and find myself somewhat awkwardly in a field of flowers with David on a picnic rug with Zoe in his arms. Perhaps he was going to propose again. Perhaps this was their fresh start. He did so love Olivia.
You made me do this.
My foot flattened against the floor and I drove faster – the closer I got, the more panicked I felt. When I finally pulled into the lookout clearing, I saw a car at an awkward angle beside David’s – I saw Olivia’s sister was right beside it on the phone, bent at the waist and screaming into the handset. Louisa too had been speeding, she too had stopped abruptly – her car door was wide open, and it reminded me of the moment just hours earlier when I’d seen David’s car in his garage with the door open and that beautiful warm rush of relief.
But there was no relief for me now, because this was not the scene I’d been hoping for at all. There was no picnic. No flowers.
Only David’s car, and the garden hose taped into the exhaust pipe, winding its way lazily to the back window of the car – the window right above Zoe’s seat. The windows were all fogged up – frosted almost, as if they’d been tinted with some kind of swirling grey tint. I surveyed this with a confused kind of horror – all of my thoughts gradually slowing until they fell like heavy raindrops instead of in a steady flow.
Smoke in the car.
David in the car.
Zoe in the car.
Olivia with a rock. A huge rock. How could she even lift that?
Oh God. She was aiming it at the driver’s side window. What if the glass shattered and hurt my David? I screamed and leapt from my car before it had even stopped moving. As I ran from the car, my ankle twisted on a thick tuft of grass and I fell to my knees but kept moving forward – clawing my way across the ground towards the other cars. I tried to stand – but my ankle gave way immediately – and so I continued to crawl, one hand in front of the other, my knees scrambling across the rough ground.
‘No! No!’
I kept screaming the word as if it could stop the nightmare unfolding before me. I heard Olivia’s desperate, unbearable cries too – but they washed past me because I saw the boulder hit the glass that was probably right beside my son’s head. The glass sank in – but the window didn’t shatter – and the rock fell to Olivia’s feet. She picked it up again and even as I scrambled towards her I marvelled through the numbness of my shock at her strength to be able to lift it. She was red faced and determined and she threw it all the way through the window this time.
Oh God. It surely landed on him. What if it hurt him? Oh God. Oh God.
Olivia unlocked the car and went straight for the backseat but all I could think was my baby – my baby – my baby. I was staring at the driver’s side – my focus fixed solely on David – at the exhaust fumes still pouring from the car through the open door – and it was only when I saw Olivia fall to her knees too with the baby in her arms that I looked to her again.
Zoe was still wearing the pink jumpsuit I’d given her.
Olivia lowered her to the ground and began to perform a frantic CPR. Her tears ran down over the baby’s face and she was shaking and framing her daughter’s tiny cheeks with her palms in between each compression. I thought for a moment I saw Zoe move, and I sobbed in relief and resumed my scramble towards David.
But then as I came closer, I looked towards Zoe and Olivia again, and I knew then. Zoe’s tiny, perfect face was grey, but her lips were a startling, sickening plum colour. Olivia was screaming and shaking her daughter now but it was all in vain. It was all too late.
I reached David just as the police arrived. I was completely unaware of the wailing of the sirens and the tyres on the gravel – but I felt an officer wrap his arm around my waist to pull me away from my son. I struggled against him and managed to break free – and scrambled up into the car to stare at David.
He was a baby just a minute before that; a newborn in my arms, fresh and new and perfect. And then he was a toddler, chubby and curious, and a pre-schooler with questions so big my mind ached from the endless barrage of them. And then he was a school kid, and his enthusiasm delighted my heart, and he was a teenager with growing confidence and individuality – and a young adult who knew where he was headed – and then a man who made me so proud.
And then I touched the grey shape of his cheek and he was none of those things, because he was cold to my touch, and everything I had ever lived for was lost.