A Night, A Secret...A Child

Serina just shook her head. She could already see that Nicolas was not about to change his mind. And she couldn’t trust herself to speak.

‘I have to go, Felicity,’ he said, and gave his daughter a quick hug. ‘I’m needed back in New York. The show must go on, sweetheart. Look after your mother for me. And give my regards to Mrs Johnson.’

Felicity waved him off from the front porch, her goodbye smile fading once he was gone.

‘I don’t see why he had to go back to New York in such a hurry,’ she grumbled whilst Serina set about feeding a noisily complaining Midnight. ‘Unless, of course, he does have a girlfriend back there. Did you ever ask him, Mum, if he was dating that Japanese violinist?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘He said he wasn’t.’

‘I didn’t think so. Kirsty and I reckon he’s still in love with you.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘The way he kept looking at you.’

‘What way is that?’

‘Like he adored the ground you walked on.’

Serina swallowed the great lump in her throat, then forced out a small laugh. ‘You two girls. You’re just like Allie and Emma, incorrigible romantics. If he adored the ground I walked on then what’s he doing going back to New York? Look, could you put this cat food away for me, love? I have to go to the bathroom.’

She just made it into the bathroom before the tears came.

It was not the first time she was to cry uncontrollably during the following few days.

She cried when the mobile phone arrived for Felicity, posted from Sydney airport. Then again when she had to go into Port Macquarie to buy Christmas presents. And again when she passed the spot where Nicolas had pulled the SUV off the road and kissed her.

She dreaded Christmas, fearing she would not get through the day without breaking down, especially since that year they were holding their family celebrations at the Harmons, in the house where Nicolas had lived. Serina managed to keep it together till Felicity’s grandparents requested Felicity do an encore of the medley she’d played at the talent quest…on Nicolas’s old piano, no less.

Serina started weeping shortly after her daughter started playing and she just couldn’t stop.

Fortunately, Greg’s parents didn’t connect her distress with Nicolas. They thought she was still grieving for their son.

In the end, Serina had to go home where a very upset Felicity demanded to know what the matter was.

‘It’s Nicolas, isn’t it?’ she said when Serina didn’t enlighten her. ‘He’s broken your heart again like Grandma said he did once before. You still love him, don’t you?’

Serina just couldn’t bring herself to lie.

‘Yes,’ she confessed brokenly. ‘Yes, I still love him.’

‘But he doesn’t love you?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, he does. Very much.’

‘Then why did he go back to New York?’

Serina looked deep into her daughter’s eyes.

‘Because I asked him to go,’ she admitted.

‘Mum! But why?’

‘Because I was afraid…’

‘Afraid of what?’

Serina’s face twisted, her courage failing her once more. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Of course you can, Mum. You always say that we can tell each other anything!’

‘If I tell you, you might hate me.’

‘I would never hate you, Mum. You are the best mother in the whole wide world.’

‘Oh. Oh, dear…’

‘Mum,’ Felicity said firmly. ‘You have to tell me what’s making you so unhappy and we’ll work it out together.’

Could she really tell her? Dared she?

Serina thought of Nicolas, all alone in New York and wanting so much to be a part of their lives. And then she thought of herself, living the rest of her life the way she’d felt this past week. Not just lonely, but horribly guilty. More guilty than she’d ever felt when she’d been married to Greg.

No more guilt, she decided. No more secrets.

Serina said a little prayer first, then started talking….

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE snow had stopped falling by the time Nicolas alighted the cab outside his apartment block, but the air was bitterly cold.

‘Don’t know how you stand it, Mike,’ he said to his favourite doorman as he hurried up the front steps.

‘I’m used to it, Mr Dupre. But then I’m a New Yorker. Not an Aussie like you. Better get yourself inside now, before you catch your death.’

An Aussie, Nicolas was thinking as he stepped into the invitingly warm lobby. He’d actually stopped thinking of himself as Australian. Till his recent return to the country of his birth.