The Liar Next Door by Nicola Marsh

Forty-Four

Frankie

THEN

I never envisaged having kids like many girls do. I remember some of them as seniors in high school, pointing out the cute jocks and imagining what their babies would look like if they got together. Back then, I couldn’t think of anything worse. Which is ironic, considering I got married at eighteen and if I hadn’t been vigilant with contraception I might’ve been a young mom.

It saddens me to remember that Walter’s keenness for a baby ultimately ended us; that the day we argued about it at the beach cottage was the day we both admitted we were done. Choosing not to have children with Walt had been a conscious decision because I’d been too young and increasingly unsettled in our marriage, craving an escape I didn’t know I wanted until it crept up on me.

Now, I think I’m ready. As ready as any woman can be with an unplanned pregnancy. I’m happy about it overall, but I’m also scared, and my fear has to do with more than the trials of a natural birth.

I’m terrified my baby’s paternity may be in question.

Getting pregnant doesn’t make sense. I’m on the pill, and when I had sex with Walter we also used a condom. This baby has to be Andre’s. But that niggle of doubt is there and my indiscretion dogs me throughout the pregnancy, my fears growing until I’m perpetually stressed; my blood pressure shoots through the stratosphere and my ob-gyn orders me to be on complete bed rest for the last few weeks of the pregnancy until it’s under control, making me feel helpless and frustrated.

Sadly, all the lying down in the world can’t fix my blood pressure. Only one thing will do that, and it involves a paternity test after the baby’s born.

While I suffer extreme stress through the pregnancy, Andre takes to impending fatherhood like a champion. He scours countless parenting sites online and continually quotes pregnancy facts, he buys birthing books and reads them every night, he thrives in every Lamaze class. He becomes so baby focused I can’t imagine what he’ll be like after the birth, and I send countless prayers heavenward that this baby is his.

I can’t lie to him if it isn’t. The guilt will consume me and I’ll be a bad mother because of it.

The birth passes by in a blur of drugs and pain, with Andre by my side the entire time. I even relent and allow him to contact my folks so they can visit their granddaughter at a later date. That might’ve been the drugs.

But when I see our baby girl’s face for the first time and she snuggles into my neck, I know whatever happens I’ll protect her with every fiber of my being.

It takes five weeks until I can get the test done, without Andre hovering over every visit to the doctor or hospital for check-ups because I’d lost a lot of blood and had an episiotomy. I ask for the results to be emailed to me and now, as I sit with a sleeping Luna in my arms—we’d called her that because she’d been born on the night of a full moon—my cell pings with an incoming email and I know.

This is it.

The email that may change my life; and the life of my precious, innocent daughter.

I hate myself for potentially putting her through this. She’s blameless. Whereas me… I’m the most horrible person on the planet for what I did and what it may result in.

Not only will our lives be upended but what of Walter? He deserves to know the truth if he’s Luna’s father and the thought of having that conversation… my skin pebbles as ice trickles through my veins.

I cradle Luna close as I tap the email icon on my cell and the new email that just landed.

My pulse skips a beat as I scroll through the email, the breath I’ve been inadvertently holding whooshing out in a rush as Luna’s paternity is confirmed.

Luna lets out a little whimper and in that moment, as I gaze down at my beautiful daughter’s face, I know what I have to do.

We need a fresh start.

Far from the memories of the past.