The Secrets She Must Tell - Lucy King Page 0,20

response to how she’d looked walking into the kitchen this morning, all warm and flushed and tousled, was anything to go by.

Finally achieving the impossible and sticking the nappy tabs in the right places and then somehow managing to guide two wriggling legs back into a pair of tiny trousers, Finn lifted Josh off the table. As he did so their eyes met and held, and as they stared at each other, stock still and fascinated, he felt something deep inside him twist. The physical similarities he and his son shared were startling. He hadn’t resembled either Alice or Jim at all. And suddenly he wondered, did he look like either or both of his biological parents? Did he have his father’s nose? His mother’s eyes? A grandparent’s mouth? Would he recognise them if he ever had the chance to meet them? Would they have the same connection he felt with Josh?

Would he ever find the answers he sought?

‘How did you get on?’ said Georgie, coming into what was now the nursery and snapping him out of his impossibly frustrating thoughts.

‘It’s harder than it looks.’

‘You’ll get the hang of it. If I can, anyone can.’

Hmm. ‘Did you want something?’

‘The rest of my things have just arrived. I was wondering if you’d like to see the photos of Josh that I took while we were in hospital.’

‘I would.’

She took a couple of steps towards him until she was closer—too close—and shifted her glance from him to Josh. ‘He looks so like you,’ she said, her voice filled with warmth and softness.

He took a step back, his pulse skipping a beat. ‘Yes.’

‘Maybe we could compare pictures. Of both of you as newborns.’

Impossible. There weren’t any of him at that age. When going through his father’s attic he’d found a few photos of himself at six months old, and endless photos of himself older than Josh was now, but none younger, which he’d wondered about until he’d found the certificate of his adoption and it all made sense. ‘Another time.’

‘All right.’

‘I’d like you to talk me through Josh’s routine,’ he said, carrying his son out of the nursery, which was far too small and claustrophobic with Georgie in it too, down the stairs and into the sitting room.

‘To be honest, he doesn’t really have one.’

‘Do you want him to?’

‘More than anything. What do you think?’

‘I’m as big a fan of structure as you are.’

‘Be still my beating heart.’

And, as his gave a great thud in response to the smile she flashed at him, Finn set Josh gently on the mat on the floor and thought that the least said about that particular organ, beating, thudding, lurching or doing anything else for that matter, the better.

The following morning, Georgie stepped through the front door of the apartment and dropped her bag on the console table. The therapy session she’d just had had been a mixed bag, as indeed had the last twenty-four hours.

On the one hand, as she’d told the therapist, she was now glad Finn had made her tell him some of what had happened to her. If she did inevitably have the odd day when things got a bit much, and her anxieties descended, it would come as no surprise to anyone, which in turn would ease some of the stress of it.

Furthermore, she’d discovered that a problem shared was literally a problem halved. Not that Josh was a problem, of course, but undoubtedly, on a practical level at least, parenting with Finn was a whole lot easier than doing it on her own. She hadn’t realised how much she’d relied on the support of other people when she and Josh had been in hospital or how stressful she’d found having to be constantly on the alert without it.

And, although it was early days and she couldn’t be certain the novelty might not wear off, Finn certainly seemed to be reliable. Last night he’d told her he’d take the night shift, since a grizzly Josh had a tooth coming through, and this morning at dawn she’d gone through to the nursery to find him sprawled in a chair with their son, arms out, draped across his chest, both fast asleep. One big hand had lain splayed on Josh’s back, protective, warm and secure, and the sight had melted her heart.

However, warring with the feelings of relief, gratitude and warmth were the resentment and jealousy that she’d experienced over breakfast yesterday and which hadn’t entirely ebbed. To her shame, despite Finn’s generosity and