Alyssa couldn’t even respond to that.
She had no idea how long they’d sat in silence, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, because all she could do now, in this moment, was stare straight ahead. It felt surreal. Bizarre. Like an out-of-body experience. Bloody. Actual Fuck.
Finally, time and reality kicked in, and she found her voice.
‘Stan, does Jessie know about… you and my mum?’
‘To be honest, I wasn’t aware that she did, but she told me tonight that she knew all about it at the time, and decided to overlook it for the sake of our children. They were only young at the time. Like me, she didn’t know there was any possibility that you were my daughter though. We only found that out when your mother told us tonight.’
Alyssa couldn’t even imagine how difficult that must have been for lovely Jessie. His comment made her mind pivot to another thought.The sake of their children.And that came with the newsflash that if Stan was her dad that would mean Georgie and Grant were her brother and sister. Her brainflicked up photos of them both and she automatically began trying to identify any similar features. They were both a few years older than her, but it wasn’t out of the question. Ginny would have to lie down in a dark room if she heard that she wouldn’t be the only sibling with presents under the tree at Christmas.
Actually… She asked Stan the question that had just occurred to her. ‘What about Ginny? Could she be yours too?’
‘No, like I said, it was a brief affair and we were long over by then. The point that I want to stress again, though, Alyssa, is that I had no idea there was even a possibility that you were my daughter. I don’t get involved in village life and I didn’t even know your mother was back here or had children until years later. I might have put two and two together if I had. I’m sorry. I know that makes me sound like the worst kind of person…’
‘It doesn’t make you sound great,’ she conceded. But then, Georgie always talked about how lovely her dad was, so maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt.
‘I see that. But for what it’s worth, now that I know it’s a possibility, I’d like to take responsibility for what happens next. That’s why I’m speaking to you now and why I didn’t want you to hear about this without me here. You mother is suggesting we do one of those DNA tests.’
Her mum immediately became animated. ‘We could apply to do it on that TV show that reunites families.’
‘Mum, no! Oh God, I can’t do this…’ Alyssa put her head on the table in front of her, left it there until she had the strength and fortitude to lift it again. ‘Okay, first, Stan, yes – I think we should do a DNA test. I don’t know how that works or what we’d need to do, but I think it’s important to find out for sure.’
He nodded his agreement to that plan, so Alyssa moved on.
‘And, Mum, no, we are not doing it on the fricking telly. Andjust so you know, a heads-up about this at some point in the last twenty-seven years would have been tickety-bloody-boo.’
Dorinda’s cherry red lips formed into a petulant pout. ‘I was protecting you, darling.’
‘From what? The only thing you were protecting me from is your past. Did you ever wonder how I would feel? Or what would be best for me? Or… Forget it. Of course you didn’t. Why tell me now? Tonight? What were you thinking?’
‘Well, he’s about to swan off to the sun tomorrow and who knows if he’ll ever come back. Why should he have this easy life and I’m still stuck here? I should be the one doing that. I deserve it, not him and Jessie!’ The venom in her voice said so much more than her words and Alyssa understood it all. Same old story. Jealousy. Self-obsession. Bitterness. A chronic need for attention. Dorinda couldn’t bear that someone else was going to be happy, when she was so fricking miserable with her own life. And, of course, her mum’s vitriol and the nastiness always escalated when she was wasted. Alyssa and Ginny had watched her in drunken rants all their lives. That was the mother Alyssa had always known, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. However, Alyssa was cut from a different cloth, one that cared about other people too.
She turned back to Stan. ‘As I said, I’ll do the DNA test, because I’d like to know for sure – but I’ll only do it if it’s okay with Jessie.’
‘I’m right here, Alyssa,’ said the woman who had just appeared in the doorway, the one who was standing there now with the most shocked and horrified expression.
Alyssa watched as Jessie’s eyes threw daggers at her husband. ‘Stan McLean, what are you doing here?’
Her mum answered for him. ‘We’ve told her, discussed it like adults and they’re going to do a DNA test.’
There was something in her mum’s expression, a littletriumphant sneer, almost smug, and Alyssa wanted to put her head back on the table. It was so damned obvious. The reality had been there right in front of her the whole time. The reason she’d sensed her mother and Jessie couldn’t stand each other was because of this. Jessie knew about the affair. And her mother hated that she hadn’t won Stan.
Whatever the undercurrents between them all, Jessie was now furious. ‘In the name of all that is holy, why would you choose here and now, after all these years, to share that information?’ she blazed to the two people on the other side of the table. ‘You’re a pair of clowns, you really are.’
As she approached the table, she focussed on Alyssa and her whole demeanour changed.
‘Alyssa, I’m so sorry for all of this. Sorry too that I never realised, because if I had… well, you know we love you, whether we realised you were family or not.’
For the first time since the beginning of the conversation, Alyssa felt her bottom lip start to quiver. Stan’s shock hadn’t moved her. Her mother’s attitude hadn’t cracked her shell. But this? Jessie being kind and thoughtful and loving was about to make her dissolve into a puddle on her freshly mopped floors.
Alyssa managed to get out a strangled, ‘Thank you.’
‘I mean it, love. And crazy as it sounds, after everything you’ve just heard, none of that is the reason I came in here.’
A fear of what was about to come gripped Alyssa. What else could there fricking be?
‘There will be plenty of time to discuss that when you’re ready, but I know you had another bombshell today. Kayleigh told me what happened with your lease, and I think I might have a solution. I know there isn’t another available shop in Weirbridge that would be big enough, but how would you feel about moving over to the salon?’
