‘Well, I’m glad her plan to get rid of me went well for her,’ Nick said sarcastically.
‘Don’t be like that, mate. After all, it all turned out OK in the end, right?’
If by OK, he meant a dead fiancée, a child that wasn’t his and his soulmate lost forever on the other side of the world, then, yeah, he was great, Nick thought bitterly.
The look on Deepak’s face showed that he realised the stupidity of his words. He looked down at the floor.
Nick was stunned by the lengths Sally had gone in her desperation. ‘I had no idea how manipulative she was,’ he muttered. ‘And what does Sumaira have to say about her husband fathering a child by her best friend? Your wife tends to have an opinion on most things.’
‘She’s gutted. She hasn’t kicked me out but she doesn’t want me to see Sally’s baby.’
‘What about you? What kind of future do you want with him?’ The task of raising the baby had fallen to Nick, and he loved him to the end of the world, but he did sometimes wonder if it was better for Dylan to be with his real father.
Deepak paused and looked away, but Nick held firm, desperately trying to disguise how concerned he was about the answer to come. He knew that many men would’ve discarded a child that wasn’t biologically a part of them, but Nick had sacrificed too much already to give up on Dylan. The delicate little boy who slept so peacefully in his arms had lost his mother even before his birth, and Nick would not allow him to lose the man who had hoped to be his father. He felt an overwhelming amount of love for his son, as he had come to think of him.
‘I don’t think the kid and I have any future together,’ Deepak eventually replied.
‘You don’t think, or you know for sure?’
‘I know for sure.’
‘Do you feel anything for him at all?’
‘No, and I’m not ashamed to admit it either. I’m sitting here looking at him and I don’t feel a thing. All I see is trouble and complications. I don’t even have an urge to hold him or cuddle him like I do with my girls. Even if Sumaira hadn’t rejected him, I still wouldn’t want him.’
Nick was disgusted by this admission. ‘You and Sally were better suited than you think. You both only care about yourselves.’
‘If you want him to stay with you, I’ll sign whatever papers you need me to sign to make it official.’ And, with that, Deepak rose to his feet and walked towards the front door. ‘Nick,’ he said, without turning around. ‘I really am sorry for everything, and I hope you believe me.’
Nick didn’t reply. When the door closed, he held his son tightly and planted a long, gentle kiss on his forehead.
Chapter 100
MANDY
‘We don’t think it’s the first time Pat’s taken a child that wasn’t hers,’ Lorraine said. ‘Neither Richard’s nor Chloe’s DNA results match each other’s or hers. They’re all unrelated.’
‘Could she have adopted them?’
‘We’ve checked European and American databases, and so far we can’t confirm that. Now we’re looking into cold cases of children reported missing around the time Richard and Chloe were born.’
‘Jesus.’ Mandy shook her head in disbelief and her heart sank at the thought of what could have happened had she not identified the Lake District holiday cottage in Richard’s photographs. She clutched her son a little closer to her chest, wondering how Richard and Chloe’s biological parents must have felt not knowing what had happened to their babies.
‘What’s going to happen to Chloe?’ she asked Lorraine, who sat opposite her. It was the first time they’d met face to face since Mandy’s baby had been rescued a week earlier.
‘She’s been charged with kidnapping a child, but as she has no previous convictions she’s been released on bail pending further inquiries. We predict her defence will plead insanity. But don’t worry, she has restrictions preventing her from going anywhere near you or your home. Pat is being held in a psychiatric unit following her overdose, but it’s going to take some time before we find out the full story.’
Mandy found it difficult to erase the image of the moment she saw her child for the first time. He was wrapped in a towel, held loosely by Pat, who was unconscious and surrounded by empty blister packs of tablets. Everything else slipped into slow motion as Lorraine held Mandy back, her flailing arms reaching to grab her child. He was scooped up instead by a paramedic, whisked to the safety of the landing and placed upon the floor, his towel removed and his body checked for any signs of injury. It was only when it was confirmed there were none that Mandy was permitted to hold him for the very first time.
She’d fallen to her knees when he was placed into her arms. She smelled his head and ran her fingers across his soft chest, and held him close to her body so that he could feel her heartbeat against his skin.
She didn’t notice the paramedics rush to Pat’s aid or watch as they turned her on to her side and shoved piping down her throat, forcing her to vomit. Every voice that spoke to Mandy was muffled because all she could hear was the delicate sound of her baby breathing.
‘There’s something else I should tell you that I’m not supposed to,’ continued Lorraine, ‘something that was discovered in Pat’s medical records. Apparently she has a history of psychotic episodes that doctors who treated her believe stemmed from multiple miscarriages and at least two stillbirths. At some point these episodes appear to have ceased, which match up to the time Richard and Chloe came into her life.’
Mandy couldn’t help but feel sympathy towards Pat for the torment she must have suffered all those years ago. She knew how awful miscarriages could be and how they can ruin your life. It didn’t exonerate her subsequent behaviour, but it went a little way to explaining it.
Mandy embraced Lorraine before she left the private room in the care home, and she thanked her for all she had done. Then, she picked up her son and made her way to see Richard. She took a moment to compose herself, and then slowly opened the door to where Richard was lying in bed, where he’d been when she’d first greeted him six weeks earlier.
‘Hi Richard,’ she began gently, and took a chair by his side. ‘I’ve brought somebody to see you. This is your son, Thomas. I named him after my dad who died a few years ago, I hope you don’t mind. I know you’ve met him before when your mum brought him but I thought it’d be nice if it was just the three of us together.’
Mandy gazed at father and son in turn, and admitted to herself that Pat was right: there was a palpable resemblance between the two. They shared the same colouring and even the positioning of dimples in their cheeks.
She thought back to the news headlines regarding the Match Your DNA falsified results scandal, which she’d heard earlier as she drove to the nursing home. If hers and Richard’s had been faked, she’d decided it didn’t really matter. The result was still this beautiful child buckled into the baby seat next to her. Once, she’d worried that she couldn’t love a child that wasn’t born out of a Match as much as one that was. But now she knew that not to be the case.
The strong smell of disinfectant in the room made Mandy’s nose tingle and she sneezed twice, which made Thomas giggle. She rose, placing him on the bed inside the safety railing next to Richard’s forearm, which lay poker straight by his side, and fumbled around in her pocket for a tissue.
‘Don’t be like that, mate. After all, it all turned out OK in the end, right?’
If by OK, he meant a dead fiancée, a child that wasn’t his and his soulmate lost forever on the other side of the world, then, yeah, he was great, Nick thought bitterly.
The look on Deepak’s face showed that he realised the stupidity of his words. He looked down at the floor.
Nick was stunned by the lengths Sally had gone in her desperation. ‘I had no idea how manipulative she was,’ he muttered. ‘And what does Sumaira have to say about her husband fathering a child by her best friend? Your wife tends to have an opinion on most things.’
‘She’s gutted. She hasn’t kicked me out but she doesn’t want me to see Sally’s baby.’
‘What about you? What kind of future do you want with him?’ The task of raising the baby had fallen to Nick, and he loved him to the end of the world, but he did sometimes wonder if it was better for Dylan to be with his real father.
Deepak paused and looked away, but Nick held firm, desperately trying to disguise how concerned he was about the answer to come. He knew that many men would’ve discarded a child that wasn’t biologically a part of them, but Nick had sacrificed too much already to give up on Dylan. The delicate little boy who slept so peacefully in his arms had lost his mother even before his birth, and Nick would not allow him to lose the man who had hoped to be his father. He felt an overwhelming amount of love for his son, as he had come to think of him.
‘I don’t think the kid and I have any future together,’ Deepak eventually replied.
‘You don’t think, or you know for sure?’
‘I know for sure.’
‘Do you feel anything for him at all?’
‘No, and I’m not ashamed to admit it either. I’m sitting here looking at him and I don’t feel a thing. All I see is trouble and complications. I don’t even have an urge to hold him or cuddle him like I do with my girls. Even if Sumaira hadn’t rejected him, I still wouldn’t want him.’
Nick was disgusted by this admission. ‘You and Sally were better suited than you think. You both only care about yourselves.’
‘If you want him to stay with you, I’ll sign whatever papers you need me to sign to make it official.’ And, with that, Deepak rose to his feet and walked towards the front door. ‘Nick,’ he said, without turning around. ‘I really am sorry for everything, and I hope you believe me.’
Nick didn’t reply. When the door closed, he held his son tightly and planted a long, gentle kiss on his forehead.
Chapter 100
MANDY
‘We don’t think it’s the first time Pat’s taken a child that wasn’t hers,’ Lorraine said. ‘Neither Richard’s nor Chloe’s DNA results match each other’s or hers. They’re all unrelated.’
‘Could she have adopted them?’
‘We’ve checked European and American databases, and so far we can’t confirm that. Now we’re looking into cold cases of children reported missing around the time Richard and Chloe were born.’
‘Jesus.’ Mandy shook her head in disbelief and her heart sank at the thought of what could have happened had she not identified the Lake District holiday cottage in Richard’s photographs. She clutched her son a little closer to her chest, wondering how Richard and Chloe’s biological parents must have felt not knowing what had happened to their babies.
‘What’s going to happen to Chloe?’ she asked Lorraine, who sat opposite her. It was the first time they’d met face to face since Mandy’s baby had been rescued a week earlier.
‘She’s been charged with kidnapping a child, but as she has no previous convictions she’s been released on bail pending further inquiries. We predict her defence will plead insanity. But don’t worry, she has restrictions preventing her from going anywhere near you or your home. Pat is being held in a psychiatric unit following her overdose, but it’s going to take some time before we find out the full story.’
Mandy found it difficult to erase the image of the moment she saw her child for the first time. He was wrapped in a towel, held loosely by Pat, who was unconscious and surrounded by empty blister packs of tablets. Everything else slipped into slow motion as Lorraine held Mandy back, her flailing arms reaching to grab her child. He was scooped up instead by a paramedic, whisked to the safety of the landing and placed upon the floor, his towel removed and his body checked for any signs of injury. It was only when it was confirmed there were none that Mandy was permitted to hold him for the very first time.
She’d fallen to her knees when he was placed into her arms. She smelled his head and ran her fingers across his soft chest, and held him close to her body so that he could feel her heartbeat against his skin.
She didn’t notice the paramedics rush to Pat’s aid or watch as they turned her on to her side and shoved piping down her throat, forcing her to vomit. Every voice that spoke to Mandy was muffled because all she could hear was the delicate sound of her baby breathing.
‘There’s something else I should tell you that I’m not supposed to,’ continued Lorraine, ‘something that was discovered in Pat’s medical records. Apparently she has a history of psychotic episodes that doctors who treated her believe stemmed from multiple miscarriages and at least two stillbirths. At some point these episodes appear to have ceased, which match up to the time Richard and Chloe came into her life.’
Mandy couldn’t help but feel sympathy towards Pat for the torment she must have suffered all those years ago. She knew how awful miscarriages could be and how they can ruin your life. It didn’t exonerate her subsequent behaviour, but it went a little way to explaining it.
Mandy embraced Lorraine before she left the private room in the care home, and she thanked her for all she had done. Then, she picked up her son and made her way to see Richard. She took a moment to compose herself, and then slowly opened the door to where Richard was lying in bed, where he’d been when she’d first greeted him six weeks earlier.
‘Hi Richard,’ she began gently, and took a chair by his side. ‘I’ve brought somebody to see you. This is your son, Thomas. I named him after my dad who died a few years ago, I hope you don’t mind. I know you’ve met him before when your mum brought him but I thought it’d be nice if it was just the three of us together.’
Mandy gazed at father and son in turn, and admitted to herself that Pat was right: there was a palpable resemblance between the two. They shared the same colouring and even the positioning of dimples in their cheeks.
She thought back to the news headlines regarding the Match Your DNA falsified results scandal, which she’d heard earlier as she drove to the nursing home. If hers and Richard’s had been faked, she’d decided it didn’t really matter. The result was still this beautiful child buckled into the baby seat next to her. Once, she’d worried that she couldn’t love a child that wasn’t born out of a Match as much as one that was. But now she knew that not to be the case.
The strong smell of disinfectant in the room made Mandy’s nose tingle and she sneezed twice, which made Thomas giggle. She rose, placing him on the bed inside the safety railing next to Richard’s forearm, which lay poker straight by his side, and fumbled around in her pocket for a tissue.
