She felt tears sting her eyes as the anger drained out of her, leaving her feeling weak and vulnerable.
‘I didn’t realise that Jessica had already been in touch with you. I came round to—’ Lewis started to say.
‘To tell me what happened. To crow over me—’ She didn’t try to keep either the pain or the distaste out of her voice.
‘That’s unfair and untrue,’ Lewis interrupted her immediately. ‘When have I ever—?’
‘Hurt me?’ Lacey gave a shaky smile. ‘Do I really need to answer that one?’
‘Lacey, please. I just wanted to talk to you…to see if we couldn’t find a way of—’
‘Of what? Sharing Jessica? She’s a bit too old for that now, Lewis. I can’t stop her from seeing you…and even if I could…’ She turned to look at him. ‘Don’t you think I don’t know how she must be feeling? What it must mean to her? How potentially damaging it could be to her even now if either of us…either of us tried to make her feel guilt over what she’s doing? I grew up as an orphan, remember. I do know how it feels.
‘I don’t need you to explain to me Jessica’s motivation for seeking you out. I’ve known her all her life, remember. But what I do need to know is why you’re encouraging her.’
‘She’s my daughter,’ Lewis reminded her huskily.
‘She’s been your daughter for the last nineteen years.’
It was unfair of her and she knew it as she watched him wince and the colour burn up under his face, but she couldn’t afford to let her emotions sway her now.
‘You told me you thought she ought to consider being sterilised,’ she reminded him.
He looked at her, his eyes shocked and growing hard. ‘And you think that that’s why—’
‘You’re encouraging her…allowing her to believe you genuinely want to develop a relationship with her. I think it’s part of it, yes.’
There was a long pause when the expression in his eyes both hurt and confused her. He was looking at her almost as though she was the one who was guilty of trying to hurt Jessica, when in fact…
‘And if I was to give you my word that all I want is to have a chance to get to know her, to allow her to get to know me? She’s not a child, Lacey, as you so rightly said. She’s a young woman. Do you honestly believe that she’d allow anything I had to say on so important a subject to sway her judgement, especially when she only has to look at you, her mother, to see what joy and happiness having a child can bring? Have you really so little faith in the way you’ve brought her up?’
He was being unfair now and he knew it. She shook her head despairingly. ‘Normally, no. She is very strong-minded, very independent…but…’ She bit her lip and then dropped her guard completely, abandoning her pride, as she stepped towards him and begged pleadingly, ‘Don’t you see, Lewis? At the moment you’re so new to her…so special. It’s like…it’s like a teenage infatuation…a first real love-affair; your views…your feelings will be so important to her. Please…please don’t try to persuade her to do something she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life.
‘You’ve made your decision. Please allow Jessica the right to make her own…for herself.’
‘As you’re doing?’
Lacey bit her lip a little bit harder and bowed her head. ‘If she should actually decide that she wanted never to have any children because of the risks involved, I wouldn’t try to persuade her to change her mind. Not if I was convinced that that was genuinely what she wanted. At the moment I think she’s too young—for all her maturity—to make that decision.’
There was another long pause, and then Lewis said slowly, ‘And I agree with you.’
When he turned to look at her there was a haunted, bitter look in his eyes, and she wondered painfully what had put it there. Having seen Jessica, did he perhaps wish he had had other children…other daughters…children by a woman he had genuinely loved?
She could feel tears gathering at the back of her eyes and fought to blink them away.
Lewis looked tired, drained; he looked the way she felt, she recognised. He looked as though he wanted to sit down somewhere and close his eyes and let whatever it was that was weighing so heavily on him slip from him, freeing him from its burden.
Just for a moment she hesitated, torn between wanting to reach out to him, to nurture him in the same way as she instinctively nurtured everyone around her, and then she remembered the past, her pain, and all the reasons why she must keep him at a distance.
She glanced down at her stained clothes, and then looked pointedly at him and said quickly, ‘Well, you’ve made your point now, Lewis, and I really must get on. I’m rather busy, as you can see.’
‘Got the boyfriend coming round later, have you?’ he asked her harshly.
She turned to stare at him, her eyes rounding as she demanded sharply, ‘What boyfriend?’
‘Jessica seemed to think that Ian Hanson has a bit of a thing for you.’ He said it carelessly, derisively almost, causing her face to burn with angry colour and her small fists to clench.
‘Ian happens to be a very good and a very dear friend. I am a mature woman who considers herself well beyond the age of having “boyfriends”, but even if I did have I hardly think it would be any business of yours.