‘WHAT?’ LUCAS SHOT straight back up off the bench as if it was electrified. ‘What the hell are you saying?’
‘Lily is your daughter.’
‘What? No. She can’t be.’
Jess nodded. ‘You’re her father.’
‘She’s mine?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I have a daughter?’
Lucas paced backwards and forwards in front of the bench while Jess waited nervously. What was going through his head?
He stopped and looked at her, a puzzled expression in his forget-me-not-blue eyes. ‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘But why haven’t you told me?’ Lucas stood in front of her, rooted to the spot. He ran his hands through his hair and stared at her with a fixed, unseeing expression. ‘How could you keep this from me? Why would you keep this from me?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’ He was looking at her now, his blue eyes boring into her as if he was searching for any more secrets she had yet to divulge. ‘For telling me? For not telling me? For keeping her a secret? Which one of those things are you apologising for?’
Jess felt ill. She swallowed nervously and she could taste bile in her throat. ‘I’m sorry for telling you the way I did. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.’
‘How could you have kept this a secret?’
‘I didn’t mean to. I tried to find you.’
‘When?’
‘When I found out I was pregnant. Kristie and I hired a private investigator but after a month the PI told us we were wasting our time. Do you know how many Lucas Whites there are in Australia? And not one of them was you.’
‘When was this?’
‘It was April. The ski season was over, the resort had closed for the summer and you would have been home in Australia.’
Lucas’s legs folded and he sat back down on the bench. His face was pale. He looked ill. ‘I …’
‘What is it? Are you okay?’ Jess asked.
He looked up at her and she could see dismay in his blue eyes. ‘April?’
Jess nodded.
‘I wasn’t in Australia then,’ he said.
‘What? I thought you were going back to university?’
Lucas was shaking his head. ‘That was my plan. But my plans changed. I went home but I couldn’t settle into uni. The father of one of my mates offered me a job in his new hotel and I jumped at the chance. It was a fantastic opportunity, I was going to get to do everything from housekeeping to bartending to running the activities desk and administration, so I took a year off uni. That April, I was in Indonesia.’
‘I was looking in the wrong place.’ Jess sat on the bench beside him. She was close to tears. All that time spent searching for Lucas, only to find now that she’d been looking in the wrong haystack.
‘I’m sorry, JJ. I should have written like I’d planned to, but I thought I had time. I hadn’t expected consequences.’
‘Neither of us did, I guess,’ she sighed. ‘But I had to deal with the consequences and I’ve done the best I could.’
‘But what about more recently? Did you look for me again?’
‘Of course. I was eighteen, pregnant and alone—do you think I wanted to do this by myself? I searched again when Lily was born but I was still concentrating on Australia and the harder I looked without success the more I believed you didn’t want to be found. My father told me you wouldn’t want a baby, that you wouldn’t want to become a father with a girl you barely knew, and I didn’t want to believe him but in the end I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t find you.’
‘Lily is my daughter.’ Lucas stood up and Jess could see him physically and mentally settling himself. He straightened his back and squared his shoulders and focused his forget-me-not-blue eyes on her. ‘I need to speak to the doctor.’
‘What for?’
‘You said he was asking about allergies and family history. We need to tell him to test Lily for celiac disease.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I’m a celiac and if I really am her father then there’s a good possibility she has it too.’
‘Lucas …’ Jess was about to say ‘Trust me’ but she decided that was a poor choice of phrase. ‘Believe me, you’re her father.’
‘You said Lily had a lot of parties last week. If she has celiac disease and she’s overloaded on gluten, that could explain the vomiting. We need to let the doctor know. He needs to run tests.’
‘What sort of tests?’ Jess felt she should know the answers but it was strange how everything she’d ever learnt seemed to have vanished from her head. Right now she was a patient’s mother, not a nurse, and her head was filled with thoughts of Lily and Lucas. There was no room in it for facts about a disease she’d never had to deal with. A disease that quite possibly her daughter had inherited from her father.
Jess needed to focus. Lily was the priority here; she’d have to sort through all the other issues later, when her head had cleared and the dust had settled.
‘I think it’s just a blood test initially,’ Lucas was saying. ‘It’s been fifteen years since I was diagnosed. We’ll have to speak to the doctor.’
He headed back into the hospital with Jess at his heels. Dr Davis was standing beside the triage desk.
‘Do you have the CT results?’ Jess asked.
He nodded. ‘There was no sign of a blockage on the CT scan either.’
‘We’d like you to test Lily for celiac disease,’ Lucas said.
‘Why?’ he asked Jess. It was his turn to be puzzled now.
‘Apparently her father has celiac disease,’ Jess replied.
Dr Davis frowned. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘Lily is my daughter,’ Lucas interrupted, ‘and I have celiac disease.’
‘She’s never been tested?’ Dr Davis asked.
‘We were estranged,’ Jess said.
At the same time Lucas said, ‘I didn’t know I had a daughter.’
Neither of the answers made things any clearer for the doctor.
‘Look, that’s all irrelevant,’ Lucas continued. ‘The bottom line is I have celiac disease, Lily is my daughter and her symptoms sound consistent with celiac disease. Even if she was asymptomatic, there’s a high possibility she has it too. We’d like her tested.’
Dr Davis was nodding now. They’d managed to get his attention but if Jess thought she was going to be the one in control she was mistaken. Lucas was used to being in charge; she’d forgotten how much he relished it and he didn’t mince his words with the doctor. He’d become like a wild animal protecting his offspring and nothing was going to stop him from getting what he wanted for Lily. Not this doctor and certainly not her.
If Lucas thought there was a strong chance that Lily had celiac disease they needed to find out for sure, but listening to him now and looking at his body language she knew that if she thought he would bow out of their lives, out of Lily’s life, without a whimper, she was mistaken. She knew he would want to be involved, she knew he would fight for Lily, but where would that leave her?
‘A blood test isn’t conclusive. There are other digestive diseases with similar presentations,’ the doctor explained.
‘I know that but it’s a start,’ Lucas replied.
‘What do you test for?’ Jess asked.
‘The best test is the tTG-IgA test. It’s the most sensitive and is positive in about ninety-eight per cent of patients with celiac disease.’
‘Positive for what?’
‘Tissue transglutaminase antibodies. They’ll be present if the celiac patient has a diet that contains gluten. But if they’ve already been avoiding gluten you may get a false negative. Does Lily eat food that contains gluten?’
Jess nodded.
‘The result might still depend on whether or not she eats enough gluten.’
‘It’s our best chance,’ Lucas insisted. ‘Can you run the test?
‘I can order it but I’m also going to admit her overnight. I want to keep her here while we run the tests. If it turns out to be appendicitis or a bowel blockage, she’s better off here. I’ll go and make the arrangements.’
‘Now what?’ Jess asked Lucas, as they watched the departing figure of the doctor.
‘We wait. The important thing is finding out what’s wrong with Lily. Celiac disease isn’t life-threatening but if left untreated or undiagnosed it can cause irreversible damage to her small intestine. You know that—you’re a nurse. If that’s all it is it can be controlled by diet. Just cut out gluten. It’s much easier to manage now than it was years ago. The important thing is to get it diagnosed.’ He ran his hands through his hair, making it more tousled than it normally was. He sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m going to wait outside. Come and get me if there’s any news.’
That didn’t sound like he wanted company.
He headed for the exit and Jess waited inside. Alone. And wondered if she’d done the right thing. But she’d done what she’d had to for Lily’s sake.
Lily was brought back from the radiology department and Jess sat with her as the nursing staff got her settled into a ward bed. Her blood was taken and a sedative was added to her drip and Jess stayed with her until she fell asleep.
Lily hadn’t vomited since they’d arrived at the hospital and Jess would have been happy to take her home. She would have gladly put all this behind them but the doctor’s reasons for admitting Lily were valid ones. She would stay at the hospital for as long as it took to diagnose Lily’s problem. But what about Lucas? Had he waited? Was he still in the hospital or had he got out while he still could? She couldn’t have blamed him, her announcement must have come as quite a shock. She should have broken the news differently.
She owed him an apology.
She found him sitting on a bench outside the emergency department with his head in his hands. He lifted his head as she sat beside him but he didn’t look at her. He ran his hands through his hair as he stretched his legs out, before tipping his head back and resting it against the wall. He was casually dressed in jeans and lace-up workman’s boots with a T-shirt under his coat. His hair was tousled but his infectious grin was missing. What had she done?
He sighed and finally looked at her. His forget-me-not-blue eyes were dark purple. He looked exhausted. ‘You should have told me.’
‘I know.’
‘I understand you couldn’t find me but for the past two weeks I’ve been right here. You’ve had plenty of opportunity to say something and you still chose not to. Why? Why would you continue to keep this a secret? Did you not think I deserved to know I had a child?’
‘I was waiting for the right time. I didn’t know what you’d think. I needed to find out what kind of person you had become. I didn’t know if you wanted to be a father. If you didn’t want Lily then she would be better off never knowing about you. Better that than for her to know that her father didn’t want her.’
‘Of course I would want her. How could you think otherwise?’
‘You don’t miss what you’ve never had. She might not matter to you.’
‘How can you say that? Of course she matters, and think of all the things I’ve missed. I missed her being born, I missed her starting school, losing her first tooth, taking her first step, saying her first word. My God, JJ, I don’t even know when her birthday is.’ He listed all the milestones that Jess had witnessed. She hadn’t taken them for granted but she had revelled in them.
‘Her birthday is September thirteenth.’
He ignored her olive branch. ‘And what about Lily?’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘You thought I wouldn’t miss her but what about her? Do you think she doesn’t miss having a father?’
Jess had felt the absence on Lily’s behalf and Lily herself commented when she saw her friends’ families. But did she really know what she was missing? Jess suspected she did—Lily knew what other people’s fathers were like. She just didn’t know her own.
He had made a good point.
‘Yes, she misses it,’ she admitted. ‘She would love to have a father. She would love you.’ Jess could feel tears of regret welling in her eyes but she tried to fight them back. She didn’t want to turn on the waterworks, she didn’t want Lucas to think she was looking for sympathy—she didn’t deserve sympathy. But she did hope to make him understand. She was scared that if he didn’t understand he was going to hate her, and how would she live with that?
‘And when she asked about her father? What were you planning on telling her?’
‘I hadn’t worked that out yet. I didn’t think we’d ever see you again.’ Jess’s voice was quiet. There were so many things she’d refused to think about. So many things she’d just tried to ignore. It looked like those days were over now.
‘Did you think you were the only one who could love her?’
Jess shook her head. ‘No.’ But I was worried you wouldn’t love me.
‘I thought I knew you, JJ. I came back here to prove myself to you but I wasn’t prepared for this.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know but I want to see Lily.’
‘What are you going to say?’ Jess was worried. Was she about to lose everything?
‘Nothing yet,’ he said as he stood up. ‘I’m not an idiot. This is a shock for me, it’s going to be a shock for her too. I just want to see my daughter. Is that too much to ask?’
Jess shook her head and walked with him to the ward. She hesitated outside the door to Lily’s room.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Lucas asked.
‘I wasn’t sure whether you wanted me to.’
‘Lily might think it’s odd if she wakes up to find me by her bed. You’re the one she’ll be looking for.’
Lily was still asleep. Lucas stood by her bed. He didn’t speak, just stood and watched her. Jess knew that feeling. She used to spend hours just watching Lily sleep when she’d been a baby. She looked like a little angel.
She stirred and murmured. She opened her eyes and recognised Jess but didn’t wake fully. ‘I need Ozzie,’ she said.
Jess pulled the little grey koala with white-tipped ears and a shiny black nose out of her handbag and tucked it under Lily’s arm. Lily never liked sleeping without Ozzie. She hugged the soft toy into her chest and closed her eyes again.
‘Is that …?’ Lucas spoke.
Jess nodded. It was the koala he’d given her for her eighteenth birthday seven years ago.
‘You’ve kept it?’
‘It was all I had of you.’ Jess could hear the catch in her throat. The little koala had been the cutest thing she’d ever seen, aside from Lucas, and it had become her most treasured possession throughout her pregnancy, and now it was Lily’s.
‘Does Lily know where you got it?’
‘No.’ Jess shook her head and turned as she heard the door open.
Dr Davis stepped into the room and he held a piece of paper in his hand. ‘I have the blood-test results,’ he told them. ‘Lily has tested positive for TTG antibodies and the test also showed elevated antigliadin antibodies.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means Lily could have celiac disease.’
‘Could?’
‘The blood test isn’t definitive,’ he reminded her.
‘So what do we do now?’
‘You can take her home once this drip has run through, provided she has something to eat and keeps it down.’
‘She doesn’t need to stay overnight?’
‘No. With her history and the blood test and scan results I think a bowel obstruction is unlikely so provided she eats, doesn’t vomit and can urinate, you can take her home. But she will need an endoscopy and biopsy of her small intestine in order to confirm the diagnosis.’
‘A biopsy? What for?’
‘To look for inflammation of the intestinal lining and changes to the villi. That’s a more definitive indication of celiac disease. Lily will need to see a specialist for the endoscopy. It will be done under a GA. I’ll organise a referral. Has she seen a gastroenterologist in the past?’
Jess shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Who would you recommend?’ Lucas asked. ‘Who is the best paediatric gastroenterologist in Vancouver?’
‘Stuart Johnson.’
Jess had known that would be the answer. ‘Is there anyone else?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Dr Davis replied, ‘but you asked who the best is and in my opinion Dr Johnson is. But I can give you some other names if you prefer.’
Lucas jumped in before Jess could protest any further. ‘He will be fine. We’ll take that referral.’
‘Okay. Do you have any other questions? I’m not an expert but at this stage I wouldn’t panic. It looks like celiac disease may be the problem and if that’s the case it’s one of the easier gastrointestinal problems to control. Just make sure you keep Lily eating some gluten. If you stop before she sees the specialist they may not be able to make an accurate diagnosis. If she has a diet that is already low in gluten we could see a false negative. The recommendation is that she should continue to eat two slices of bread, or the equivalent amount of gluten, per day.’
Lucas waited until the doctor had left the room before he turned to Jess. She knew what he was about to say.
‘What is the matter with Stuart Johnson?’ he asked. ‘Do you know him? Is he a relative? What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s my father.’
‘Your father! Your father is a gastroenterologist?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he’s the top dog?’
‘What’s going on, JJ? If your father is the best in his field, why did you ask for a different referral? Why don’t you want to take Lily to him?’
Jess had managed to delay the discussion until Lily had been discharged and they were in Lucas’s car on the way home. Lily seemed to have fully recovered from whatever it was that had upset her. There was no trace of the vomiting, she’d had a good sleep and appeared to have no lingering ill-effects. Jess, on the other hand, was exhausted, physically and emotionally, but she knew Lucas wasn’t going to let matters lie.
Lily was cuddling Ozzie while she listened to Lucas’s Christmas music through the headphones on his cell phone when he raised the subject again, and Jess figured she might as well get the conversation over with while Lily was out of earshot and otherwise occupied. Maybe it would be easier if Lucas was concentrating on driving and couldn’t interrogate her or pin her down with eye contact. ‘What do you remember about my father?’ she asked.
‘That’s a loaded question. The only time I came across him was on your birthday when he called me all sorts of colourful names and threw me out. You probably don’t want to know my impressions of him as a person.’
‘And you’re asking why I don’t want him to be Lily’s specialist?’
‘If he’s the best in the business then I assume his behaviour that night isn’t a reflection on his skills as a doctor. I’m prepared to separate the two. If he’s the best I want him to see Lily.’
‘My father and I aren’t in contact any more.’
‘What?’ Lucas slowed the car as he took his eyes off the road and looked at her. ‘At all?’
Jess shook her head.
‘Since when?’
‘Since Lily was born. I haven’t seen him for six years. He’s never met Lily.’
Lucas flicked his gaze back to her a second time. ‘If we are going to have any chance of working things out between us, for Lily’s sake, we need to operate on a policy of full disclosure. No more secrets. I think it’s time you told me everything.’ His hands were tight on the steering-wheel and Jess could hear in his voice the effort he was making to stay calm.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘Remember I told you how Stephen’s death shaped us into the family we became? How I was protected, supervised, guarded almost, from that day on? I went to school, I spent time with Kristie and we came up here as a family. I went to parties but only if Dad had thoroughly researched the event. I understood his reasons—he was determined to do everything he could to keep me safe—and it didn’t really bother me until I met you.
‘That was when I finally understood Kristie’s point of view when it came to boys. For the first time I was prepared to disregard my parents’ wishes. For the first time I was prepared to take risks, to ignore their rules, to lie to them or to my aunt and uncle. I couldn’t resist you and I couldn’t forgive my father for dragging me away from you, for separating us. You were my first love. I couldn’t resist you and I gave you everything. My heart and my soul.’
‘You gave me everything except for our child,’ Lucas said, as he glanced in the rear-vision mirror.
Jess clenched her hands in her lap as she willed herself not to cry. Lucas’s words were like a sledgehammer against her already brittle heart and she could feel how close it was to shattering. She had done her best but it didn’t seem as though he was prepared to believe that. Maybe, given time, he would trust her again. She’d never deliberately kept Lily from him and maybe one day he would realise that.
She checked back over her shoulder to where Lily lay with her eyes closed. She was either sleeping or listening to music but either way she wasn’t paying them any attention. Jess needed Lucas to understand what had happened. She needed to try to explain.
‘That’s not fair. I told you I tried to find you. If my father had had his way you wouldn’t have Lily now either. She is the reason I haven’t seen him for six years.’
‘Lily is?’
Jess nodded. ‘My relationship with Dad had been strained ever since we left Moose River. He was still furious that I’d lied to my aunt and uncle and that I hadn’t followed the rules, and finding out I was pregnant was the icing on the cake. I thought that maybe it would be good news, maybe it would help to ease the pain of Stephen’s loss, but Dad was convinced it was going to ruin my life. He didn’t want me to keep the baby and, as I’ve explained, he convinced me that you wouldn’t want to be a father. He used the argument that you’d never tried to contact me. He was quite persuasive and I even started to question whether you’d given me your real name.’
‘Of course I had.’
‘I know that now but you have to understand that I was only eighteen and not a very mature eighteen. I was naive and uncertain and scared, and Dad’s argument was quite convincing.’
‘What did he want you to do? Did he want you to terminate the pregnancy?’
‘No! He would never have asked me to do that. We may have had our differences of opinion on lots of things but that wasn’t one of them. After losing a child of his own, he wouldn’t have wanted me to terminate a pregnancy. He wanted me to give the baby up for adoption.’
‘But why?
‘He was worried that I was too young. That having a baby at the age of eighteen would ruin my life, my plans for the future. He tried to convince me that there were other options, that I didn’t have to be a single mother. Obviously, I refused to give her up. I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant but I had a baby growing inside me and it was my job to protect her. Plus she was yours—I couldn’t give her up.
‘So I decided to keep the baby and prove to my father that I could manage on my own, that I didn’t need his help. I was going to prove I could handle the consequences. It was stupid really. I had no idea about anything but I resented my father for taking me away from you and I wasn’t going to let him take my baby as well. So I sacrificed the bond I had with my father for the love I felt for Lily. I told my father I was keeping the baby and if he thought I was making a mistake then I would do it on my own and he need have nothing to do with me or his grandchild.’
‘Was it a mistake?’
‘I certainly hadn’t planned on getting pregnant but being with you wasn’t a mistake. And Lily isn’t a mistake.’ Jess glanced back again at her sleeping daughter. Their daughter. Lily was perfect and Jess had never regretted her decision. ‘I was a naive teenager with no clue but a massive stubborn streak. It hasn’t been easy but I don’t regret it.’
‘I’m sorry, JJ. It’s been tough on you and I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but don’t you think it’s time you swallowed your pride and moderated your stubborn streak? Don’t you think you should try to sort things out with your father? For Lily’s sake?’
Jess shook her head. ‘No. Too much has happened. I’m not sure I can go back.’ Her entire life had changed and all the decisions she’d made, for the right or wrong reasons, had brought her to where she was now. She didn’t think her decisions could be reversed that easily. She didn’t know if she could do it. ‘Couldn’t we just ask for a couple of other names? It would be a lot easier.’
‘But your father is the best. You’re telling me you don’t want your daughter, our daughter, to have the best medical attention we can give her? Because I sure as hell do.’
‘Let me make some calls,’ Jess begged, as Lucas indicated and turned the car onto Moose River Road. ‘Let me see what other specialists I can come up with. Please? Just give me twenty-four hours.’
‘I’ll do you a deal. I’d like to spend some time with Lily so assuming she’s feeling okay tomorrow I will pick her up in the morning and she and I can do something together while you sort out a specialist. We both have some decisions to make.’
Jess was worried. Was this going to be the beginning of deals and bargaining? Was Lily’s time now up for negotiation? But she couldn’t refuse his request. Not if she wanted to win the argument over the specialist.
Lucas parked his SUV in front of the Moose River Apartments. He carried a drowsy Lily inside for Jess but he didn’t stay. He didn’t stop under the mistletoe and he didn’t speak to Jess again. It was as if he didn’t even notice she was there.
Whatever Jess had dreamt of having was surely gone. She wasn’t going to get the fairy-tale ending. They weren’t going to be the perfect family on a Christmas card. She’d be lucky if she was left with anything at all.
But was that just what she deserved?