Not My Daughter

Four years later

* * *

I see a flash of golden hair across the park, and I stop running. I double over to catch my breath, my hands on my knees,

my gaze scanning the path. Could it be…?

But then the little girl comes into view, and I see that she’s too old. Seven or eight, at least. It’s not Alice.

Four years on and I can’t stop looking for her. I can’t stop grieving, even though I’ve done my best to move on with my life. And I have. In so many ways, I have.

After I walked out of Matt and Milly’s house, I paced the streets for hours, oblivious to the freezing cold, my mind buzzing, buzzing, looking for solutions. I rang the lawyer again, who basically told me to stop thinking about a custody case, now that Milly was home. I heard pity in her voice, and it felt like a slap. Was it really that impossible? Why did it all feel so unfair?

Then, that evening, Jack came by. He looked both guilty and accusing, as if he couldn’t decide who to blame.

‘I just wanted to see if you were okay,’ he said, standing in my hallway; I hadn’t invited him in any farther. ‘After everything that happened…’

‘You think I’d be fine by now?’ I retorted with a harsh laugh. ‘A bit rough there this afternoon, but it’s all okay now? How could you, Jack? How could you betray me in that way? What I said to you… and what about what you said to me? “This is us”,’ I mimicked savagely. ‘What about that?’

He hung his head like a little boy. ‘I’m sorry, Anna…’

‘You had no right.’ My voice vibrated with pain. ‘No right at all, to barge in and tell Milly and Matt what I was considering – what we were considering, but you didn’t mention that, either, did you?’

‘Anna, I was never considering it.’

His words made me reel back. ‘Yes, you were. A little—’

‘No.’ Firm now, with a shake of his head. ‘No, I wasn’t. It was… it was fun to pretend, for a bit, that we were… a family, of sorts. I admit that.’

‘Fun to pretend?’ I couldn’t believe he was eviscerating our dream so completely, even as I was unsurprised. All along, Jack had been playacting at a real relationship. It was why we had never got more serious, why I’d had to push him into making some sort of declaration in the first place. I’d always known, deep down, that we weren’t going to last, but it still hurt to hear him say it so plainly.

‘I don’t mean it unkindly, but I would never have… I would never have fought for Alice, Anna. I should have made that more clear when you suggested it to me. I’m sorry.’

He never would have fought for Alice, and he never would have fought for me. ‘Yes, perhaps you should have,’ I managed to get out. ‘And perhaps you should not have told Milly and Matt about it all, when there was no need.’

‘You weren’t there – you were missing, and I panicked—’

‘Missing? I left them a note. I’d gone out to give them a bit of time to settle, readjust.’ I shook my head, incredulous. ‘What, you thought I’d kidnapped Alice?’

Jack looked shame-faced as he met my gaze. ‘It crossed my mind.’

And, I didn’t admit to him then, it had crossed my mind as well. I’d stayed out so long because I hadn’t wanted to go back and face them. I’d even fantasised about getting in my car with Alice and just driving, never coming back. I wasn’t so gripped by my obsession to have actually done it, but yes, I did think about it. ‘If I’d talked to them in my own way, on my own terms,’ I told Jack as steadily as I could, ‘things might have been different.’

Now he was the one to look incredulous. ‘You think they would have given Alice to you, just like that?’

‘No, not just like that. And perhaps I wouldn’t have talked to them at all. Perhaps I would have realised there was no point, but you didn’t even give me that chance, you blew it all up into a huge storm when it didn’t have to be, and it’s cost me everything.’ My voice choked as I swung away from him.

‘I thought I was doing the right thing…’

‘For whom?’ I shook my head. ‘For Matt and Milly, obviously, because I’m no one to you.’ And, in the end, I’d been no one to them, as well. That hurt almost as much as losing Alice. All it took for me to disappear from their lives was one firm push. ‘Go away, Jack,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing you can say that will make me feel better, and you’re only here to make yourself feel better, anyway. So go away.’

Jack hesitated, and I saw so clearly in his eyes the battle between doing what I asked – what he wanted – and trying to be the good guy. ‘Anna, look, I don’t like leaving you on your own…’

‘Trust me, I’d much rather be on my own than with you.’

‘What about us?’ He wasn’t asking because he wanted to stay together, I could tell that much. He was asking because he wanted to be in the clear.

‘We’re over, Jack,’ I said tiredly. ‘You know that as well as I do.’