***
It is truth universally acknowledged that the worst possible thing to face is your own mirror image, which is why I know, as I climb into the driving seat of my car, watching her throw herself into the passenger seat, an obstreperous expression on her face that this is not going to be easy.
The pout, a horrible trait that she inherited from me, is in place, and where once, when I was giving it not on the receiving end, I found it to be the best of all the facial expressions, right now I'm sorely tempted to slap it away, and indeed would do so were it not for the tears, recriminations and threats of calling Childline that I know would follow.
To begin with, I concentrate on the road, wanting to lower my own anger levels before I can trust myself enough to speak. Finally, as we leave the leafy commuter town where my daughter has been attending boarding school and hit the motorway towards Holby, I finally confront her.
"Why?"
Out of the corner of my eye I see her shrug like none of the whole affair doesn't matter which is as far away from the truth as things can possibly be.
"Cos I stole tuck from Josie and no one cared. So I bent Millie's fingers back and no one cared. Because everyone just 'wanted to help me' especially Mrs Jones."
"So you cut off her daughter's ponytail?!" I can't keep the incredulity out of my voice, remembering the crooked mess that was the hair of Grace's Housemistress's 3 ½ year old daughter, revealed to me some 50 minutes earlier.
She shrugs again, "It'll grow back."
Her voice is so cold and callous that she gives me, in my worst moments, a run for my money. If I wasn't driving I think I'd actually vomit, but instead I drive on, my eyes on the road.
"Why?" Same question, second time. The answer doesn't get any better.
"Because it was a rubbish school and I wanted to leave. Now I can."
I think back to the little girl, her teary face, not to mention that of her mother, a kind woman, a House Parent, who has done nothing but try to support Grace during her time at the exclusive prep school I had placed her in on our return to Holby. I think of their turmoil and I blame myself. I am after all the one who dumped her in boarding because it was easier for me. Because it was more cost efficient .
Because it was easier than dealing with the truth.
"If you didn't want to board you could have said." I say, sounding so much calmer than I feel, "You didn't have to prove how angry you were by cutting a 3 year old's hair off."
I feel a frosty glare come in my direction, "It wasn't about boarding." At her words I know what's coming and my heart goes cold in anticipation. All the same, when she continues, when she tells me she misses our home in San Francisco, I try to kid myself, I try to make it all OK…
"It was just a town, Grace. Just like Holby."
But I'm kidding myself, her response proves that,
"San Fran wasn't just a town. San Fran had James."
xxx
Somehow, I don't crash the car. I don't vomit. I don't cry. I don't do any of the thing I long to do. Instead I drive, on autopilot, as my heart breaks.
It's only when we arrive home that I allow myself to look at her, pout still in place, looking so much older than her 7 years, as indeed she now is, at least inside. I reach for her hand but she snatches it away, which hurts, and then speaks, which hurts even more.
"I loved him. Why did you take me away?"
Why?
A million different reasons and they were all for her sake, not that I'll ever make her understand that. I did what any good mother would have done, if she'd allowed herself to get into the same wretched position in the first place.
"It wasn't a good thing for you."
The pout becomes harder, colder, "Says who? You?" And then, the ultimate knife to the heart, "You're just jealous… because he wanted me, more than he wanted you."
I can take no more; I bolt from the car, the bile already rising in my throat. Of all the situations I ever imagined I'd face in my life, this was never one of them. I never thought my daughter would end up viewing me as a sexual rival rather than a mother. My seven year old daughter. My baby.
I don't make it upstairs, instead stumbling into the downstairs cloakroom, vomiting into the sink as the world begins to spin. Bam, up comes lunchtime's Brie and Parma Ham Ciabatta, hastily joined by 11am's coffee and 8am's cereal bar.
I retch, again and again, until there's literally nothing left. A mouthful of mouthwash later and I turn to find her standing there, her expression cold and unimpressed, and when she speaks her tone far and away beyond her innocence and years.
"Truth hurts does it?"
And then, she's gone.
xxx
Exhausted from vomiting, I drag myself to my study, and having retrieved a bottle of Scotch from a filing cabinet in the corner of the room slump into my desk chair, before pouring myself a large measure of liquor. I neck it, hating myself for the defeatist nature of the action, but needing to do it, needing to feel something. I've felt numb for way too long.
Since that first night in fact, back in San Fran. I'd been doing some locum work in an ER, enjoying the experience, liking the renewed learning curve of doing something different. James, my then partner and fuckbuddy, had agreed to mind Grace, not for the first time, whilst I was at work because my sitter was irritatingly unreliable.
I'd wrapped up my shift, taken myself home, gone straight to my bedroom to head to the ensuite to wash off the grime of the night shift.
That was where I found them. Asleep in my bed. Not a stitch of clothing between them.
I was incandescent . His actions, no matter how innocent he claimed they were, were a long way from appropriate. Yet still, I let him smooth talk me. Let them both smooth talk me. He said they'd just dozed off after a swim. He said it was an accident. She confirmed it, I believed them.
I even let him screw me to prove it.
But it niggled. I felt reluctant to leave them alone together, and when that made Grace angrier and angrier, my concerns grew. Because she wanted him there and hated me for denying her.
So, needing answers, I hacked into her Skype account. The virtual networking tool I installed on her laptop so she could keep in contact with her father, so she could have what other children have. A 24/7 Dad.
Instead it became the virtual networking tool James used to abuse her. Where he'd carried on abusing her after I'd put a stop to their private time together.
Where the abuse became mental rather than physical.
My world, my life as I knew it, in the second that I found those messages, videos and photos, was over.
Logic, grown up logic, told me what to do next. Call the police, the Feds; have the disgusting pervert thrown into prison where he belonged. But yet…
I'd invited him into my home. He stayed over at my instance. We'd been sleeping together for months, and above all I'd left her with him. I'd let him do what he did.
I was humiliated, embarrassed, and terrified that Sam would find out and take her away from me. Quite rightly, I mean, he's a good father, he loves Grace. He'd have every right to want custody. To fight to have her with him.
So instead, I ran away. I picked up the phone to Guy Self – an old friend from my days in the UK and begged him for any job he could give me. Within 48 hours of finding the evidence on Skype, we were on a plane 'home'. Within 7 days Grace was enrolled in boarding school, out of sight and out of mind except for weekends, when most of the time I was working anyway and the Nanny took over.
I was busy, I had a new empire to conquer; work to throw myself into. I was meant to forget that James Allen ever existed.
I should have known it was never going to be that easy.
Grace wasn't going to forget him. Wasn't prepared to forget him.
And therefore, neither could I.
xxx