Helena turned the car on to Abbeville Road and continued along the tree-lined road until she reached their house. Her tyres crunched over their biscuit-coloured gravelled driveway and she silenced the engine. She climbed out and went around to the passenger side to assist James.
‘Take it easy now, watch that step,’ she warned as she aided him up the chequered tiled step that led to their front door. She made sure he was steady on his crutches before putting her key in the lock and helping him inside. Not for the first time, she felt daunted by the recovery that James had ahead of him. His physiotherapist in the hospital was pleased with how quickly he was regaining his strength, but James still had a long road ahead to get back to the man he once was.
She helped him into the living room. Gone was the sofa and the coffee table and in their place now stood a bed. Breda and Kevin had come over the evening before and helped her to set it up, so that he wouldn’t have to use the stairs.
‘You’re amazing, Helena, I just wanted to tell you that,’ James said, surveying the room. ‘I can’t tell you how good it feels to be back home with you.’ She knew by the way he held her gaze that he wasn’t just referring to his hospital stay but to their marital difficulties before the crash too.
Although James was excited to be home, she was more reticent. She had no problem nursing him back to health, that was what she was trained to do after all, but it wasn’t just James’s bones that were broken, their marriage was too and now they would have to face the issues which had torn them apart in the first place – the heart-breaking losses, the gruelling rounds of IVF, the pain of knowing that she would never carry her own baby. They had reached a point where they hadn’t been able to look at each other without seeing the grief mirrored in the other’s eyes so it was easier to avoid one another. On her darker days, Helena had even questioned whether James might be better off without her.
Her eyes landed on the collage of wedding photos that hung on the wall. Suddenly their smiling faces beaming from the pictures seemed mocking. She moved closer to take a better look at what had been the happiest day of her life. She could still feel the excitement that had radiated from her that day, still disbelieving that, after spending so long waiting to meet the love of her life, within six months she had met and married him. As she and James had recited their wedding vows, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Her fairy tale had had its happy-ever-after ending. Her eyes moved along the photographs and they landed on a shot of her and James having their first dance. She leaned in closer and she could make out Rowan’s beguiling smile in the background. Milly had only been a couple of months old when she and James had married; had Rowan stood at the side of the dance floor on their wedding day as James had twirled her around to Frank Sinatra’s ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’, wondering if her small baby could have been James’s? Had she even felt an ounce of guilt that day for betraying Aidan? Helena wondered bitterly.
She couldn’t help but think about the last time she and James had been together under this roof. She had been in a world of pain, having had the clinic snatch her dreams away from her. She had thought that life couldn’t get any worse that day, but it had; since then she had been forced to take leave from her job and had very nearly lost her husband too. Her life of old now seemed so simple by comparison – yes, her heart had been broken in their fruitless struggles to have a baby, but back then she hadn’t had to deal with her suspicions about Milly’s paternity.
She had tried telling herself over and over again that of course Aidan was Milly’s father and he had just been confused about his blood type, but a louder voice would always drown her out and ask what if? What if James was her father?
Something had happened in the hospital the day before as she had sat at the little girl’s bedside. It was as though Milly had cast her under a spell. The time they had spent together felt magical. As they had played and sang together, her voice so joyous and sweet, Helena had felt something change inside her. Milly was such a special child, to think there might be a part of her husband in that little girl was intoxicating. A dream that was so beautiful, it teased her. That darling, smiley little girl. When Aidan had returned, the spell had been broken and Helena knew she was fooling herself. She was playing a game in her imagination but she needed to stop because Aidan was Milly’s father, no matter what happened. His friendship had come to mean so much to her. They had bonded over their shared shock and pain, but as she’d left, she couldn’t look him in the eye, knowing that she had Milly’s toothbrush in her handbag. She still hadn’t removed it. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it. Could she really go through with the paternity test? It seemed so deceitful. So shady. Like a story you would read about in the pages of a gossip magazine. And if it transpired that James really was Milly’s father, what then? What would she do with that knowledge? Would she tell James? Would she ever be able to tell Aidan, knowing that this would shatter the only piece of him that remained intact? Something like that could crush him entirely; he might not survive it. What would she do with such an earth-shattering piece of information? Aidan had been through so much, she could hardly storm in and throw that at him as well? But was it fair to James to have what might be his only opportunity to have a child of his own – his own flesh and blood – taken away from him? Despite his role in betraying Aidan, she knew she couldn’t stand by and let him be robbed of a chance at fatherhood because of Rowan’s deceit. Morally he had a right to know the truth, but she didn’t know what was right or wrong, fair or unfair any more.
If she wanted to go ahead and do the test, then she would need a DNA sample from James; that was the easy part, she could take his toothbrush too, or some of his hair. The only thing that was stopping her was the knowledge that once she did this and found out the truth – whatever that might be – there would be no turning back. For better or for worse, she would need to be prepared to deal with whatever the test told her. Once she opened the lid of Pandora’s box, she couldn’t close it again and she knew she needed to be ready for that.
She hated herself for what she was doing to Aidan who had already suffered enough. She was nearly as bad as Rowan with the secrets she was carrying. But what else could she do? She had to know the truth before she went round the twist. Her mind was too full of possibilities and it unsettled her. Helena couldn’t deal with question marks in life, it was just the way she was. Now that the seed had been planted in her mind and taken root in there, she had no option but to climb the branches and explore.
‘Helena?’ James was saying, pulling her out of her thoughts. ‘You’re miles away.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, moving away from the photographs and snapping back to reality. She began to guide him into the bed and took off the trainer that he was wearing on his supporting foot.
‘I was just saying that I know we have a long road ahead to get back to where we were. I can deal with our being childless, but I can’t live my life without you.’
‘Let’s take it one day at time, yeah?’ she replied as she plumped his pillows to help make him more comfortable. No promises. He was forever apologising for contacting the surrogacy clinic, she knew he regretted what he had done, but now it all seemed so insignificant given everything that had happened since then.
She handed him the TV remote and went out to the car to get his small suitcase from the boot. Lifting it out, she took it into the kitchen. She flicked the switch on the kettle to make herself a camomile tea. She was exhausted, the tiredness ached right down into her bones. While the kettle boiled, she pulled the case over towards her and began taking out the belongings that she had packed for him after he had been hospitalised. She removed his robe and slippers, his tablet and phone charger and tossed the dirty laundry into a pile on the floor. Finally she came to his washbag. She held it in her hands for a moment. The truth was terrifyingly close. Just one more step and she could put herself out of her misery, she could have all the answers to the questions that were tormenting her. Before she could talk herself out of it, she rooted in the cupboard where she kept the first-aid box. She opened it up, removed a pair of latex gloves and put them on, then she unzipped the washbag and lifted out his toothbrush. She twirled the handle around between her thumb and index finger. To hell with the consequences, it was time to untangle Rowan’s web of lies.