After what felt like hours, he peeled himself away from Erin. Her sobs had subsided, and Jay thought she was falling asleep on him. Her breathing had slowed and she was lethargic.
Jay got it, he thought he understood. Not exactly why she'd kept Daisy from him, but telling him now he knew she'd be exhausted. He needed to let her rest up before he asked her any more questions. Now wasn't the time for that: he craved his answers, but thought it best to leave Erin for a few hours. Whether she was tired, or pissed at him for being pissed at her, Erin wasn't in any frame of mind to answer any questions he had tonight.
He moved slowly to get up from the couch, taking his hand back for himself. Erin stirred a little, but made no effort to get up as well. The room was silent until he got the door, then she whispered out to him.
"Jay, the spare room. Please, just take them."
He knew automatically what she was referring to: the items in the room he had been forbidden to go in. The personal memories, ones Erin had obviously kept to document the life of her – their- daughter. He gently nodded at her, and started to climb the stairs. Before he went into the room, he paused. Now that he was allowed to go in, he found himself not wanting to. He was standing there in the silence, and tiny footsteps padded the carpet behind him unbeknown to Jay.
"What are you doing here, Mr Jay?" Daisy appeared round the corner of her bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes with a small scrunched up fist. She looked confused in the darkness, and Jay was temporarily frozen.
The last time he'd spoken to her, she was his ex-partner's daughter. Now he was talking her with the discovery she was his. His feet seemed to be stuck into the carpet, but he could still make out Daisy's small silhouette in the darkness. Her little bare feet were moving towards him and he tried his best to start up a conversation with her.
"Hey, Daisy." It was all he came up with at first, waving a hand to accompany his words even though he wasn't sure she could even see it in the dark.
Before long she was standing right in front of him. She tilted her head to look at him when she reached his feet. The darkness was set in all around the house, but a single frame of light fragment from the ajar room shone onto her face.
Jay took in a sharp intake of breath. Even more so in this strange light, she was the double of her mother. And it hadn't registered in his mind before, but he thought she had his nose. Everything about her was Erin, except her nose. It was his nose.
Daisy seemed oblivious to the fact Jay was staring at her. She continued to question him, in a tiny whisper.
"What are you doing here, Mr Jay? Did you bring Daisy here to play?" Jay watched as she suppressed a yawn, clearly not wanting him to know she was tired.
Jay crouched down to her level and laughed. "I'm afraid not, sweetie. Besides, aren't you sleepy? Don't you want to go back to bed?"
He looked at the little girl as she tried to fight the sleep away from her face. Her eyes were dropping but she still shook her head fiercely. Jay wanted to laugh, he'd seen this kind of stubbornness from somebody else lately. Hannah had been right, Zoey had got her stubbornness from him. Because Daisy had inherited it too.
He slowly rose back up to normal level, reaching out to take her hand in his own. Daisy didn't hesitate to take his grip, her teeny fingers fitting into the crevices of his palm. Together, they walked back to her bedroom.
It was almost as though Daisy knew she shouldn't have been out of bed, her little body scurried back into the covers. Jay moved to walk back out of the room when she spoke.
"Can you tuck me in, Mr Jay? Please?"
The intonation of her questions were vaguely familiar too, and Jay couldn't deny doing what she wanted when he heard it. He padded slowly back into the room and leant across to pull the covers over her.
"Did you fight with my Mommy because you went into that room?"
Jay froze, when Daisy had caught him he thought he'd managed to get away with it. Clearly she was cleverer than she appeared, and the question caught him off guard. He pulled away from her, to look at her. She looked so small and tiny in her bed, the covers wrapped all the way up to her chin. It was just enough for him to see her face, and she was pouting, waiting for her answer.
"What? No, sweetie. We weren't fighting, we were just talking." He couldn't come up with an argument as to why he was there so late, so he hoped she wasn't going to ask.
"But I heard my mommy crying. And I heard you say a swear." Daisy spoke under her breath, as if she knew she shouldn't have been listening. She looked at Jay directly in the face, as if he was under interrogation. And he felt like it, having to answer all of her inquisitive questions.
Jay grimaced knowing that, if she was anything like Zoey, she wasn't going to drop the subject quickly. In fact, knowing what they were like, he was fairly certain of having to live this down for the rest of time. Once you were caught cussing by a four year old that was it.
"I'm sorry Daisy, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry if you heard that. But your Mommy is okay. I think she'd sleeping now."
His reply seem to satisfy the little girl and she slowly rolled over to go to sleep. "Goodnight Mr Jay," he heard her whisper as he padded across the carpet towards the door.
"Goodnight Daisy." He found himself whispering a reply to her, even though she probably didn't hear.
Seeing her just a short while after being told she was his, hit him harder than he thought it would. It was almost as though he didn't know what to say to her even though, in her eyes, nothing was different. Of course it hadn't been the right time or place to tell her the truth, Jay knew that, but it felt strange to him that the conversation had been strained.
He had two daughters. His thoughts were whizzing around his brain as he walked back down the stairs. And he had absolutely no idea how he was going to tell them.
And tell his wife. Oh god, Hannah. How was he going to break the news to his wife? The better part of him didn't want to tell her yet, without a doubt their relationship would be over. He didn't want to break up his family unit, they were good together. They had a home, two good jobs and a stable life for Zoey. He'd have to think of a way to break this news gently, if that could be done at all.
He jumped out of his skin when he saw Erin at the bottom of the stairway, half expecting her to still be asleep on the couch. Instead, she was leaning against the doorframe watching as he reached the last step.
She'd sent him upstairs for the things in the spare room and he was only noticing now that he was coming down empty handed. And it was clear she noticed as she studied his bare hands behind his side. She looked confused, he'd been up there a little while and didn't come down armed with the book or any photographs.
"I.. I guess I couldn't go in," he shrugged, knowing it was a piss excuse because he had been fine the last time. "I ran into Daisy-" He looked at Erin as her eyes went wide, and he knew what she automatically presumed. "Don't worry, I didn't tell her."
Erin exhaled loudly, the shaking still evident in her breathing even though she hadn't spoken yet. She nodded her appreciation. "Thank you," she whispered.
Jay moved quickly towards the door, scared he would say something he didn't mean to say. He was still mega pissed but he knew Erin didn't need to hear that tonight. He took the door off the latch and walked into the cold air outside.
"Jay," he heard from behind him. "What does this mean for us?"
He swallowed. "I don't, I don't know Erin." And it was the truth, he didn't have a clue how he was going to deal with the actions of his past. "Zoey will be looking forward to her play date though, so I guess I'll be back tomorrow. I can't disappoint my daughter."
"Are you going to tell her?"
"She's going to have to know, Erin. Hell, she'll probably be ecstatic at the thought of a big sister. I just don't know what I'm going to tell my wife." He found the will to turn around to her, and watched as she welled with tears again. He couldn't do anything about it this time and he got into his car and slowly backed off the driveway.
Jay could hardly concentrate on the drive home. He tapped his foot and scratched his head and fiddled with the knobs on the radio but didn't turn it on. He just didn't know what to do with himself. The thought had entered his mind previously that he could be Daisy's father but he thought it was just a theory. He never thought he'd be returning to his family home with the fact he had two daughters, and perhaps about to break up his marriage. Hannah had to know, he couldn't deny it. As he continued on the road, he contemplated whether to tell her tonight or tomorrow.
He settled on tomorrow, knowing if he went home and broke the news to her in the middle of the night she might kick him out of the house.
He finally reached home and got out of the car. When he reached the front steps, he saw that the lounge light was still illuminated. Jay thought nothing of it: Hannah usually fell asleep in front of the TV for a few hours before heading up to bed. He tiptoed through the passageway and into the lounge, where he was met with a cushion thrown at his face.
"Where the hell have you been?! What the hell Jay?" Hannah shouted with full force from the opposite side of the room.
"Hey, what? I've been at…"
"And don't' you dare say you were at Molly's. I spoke with Kevin. Where the hell were you?" The anger was clear in her face and in her tone: she was pissed. And this was even before he'd told her where he'd actually been. He was temporarily stunned, Hannah wasn't usually this feisty unless she'd had a drink.
Jay edged nearer to her, trying to figure out if she had. It was difficult whether she was swaying so much because she was pissed or because she was wasted. And it wasn't like her to have a drink through the week, she usually saved it for the weekends. With each step he took towards her, her eyes seemed to narrow more. Clearly she wanted to know badly where he'd been.
"Well? Are you going to tell me?" Her hands had gone to her hips now.
There was no point in lying to her, even though he'd kept a massive lie from her that he'd just remembered tonight. "I've been at Erin's,"
"Erin as in Daisy's mom? What the hell were you doing there?" If it was possible, she was still getting angrier and Jay immediately regretted telling her the truth. He could have easily fabricated where he had been, especially if she was drunk because she wouldn't even remember in the morning.
Okay now was definitely not the right time to tell her. "Daisy picked up something of Zoey's at school. I went to go and pick it up."
Hannah sank down onto the chair, and Jay thought it was a sign she believed him. "I hate this, I hate this Jay. I feel like we never see each other anymore. I feel like when you're here I'm not and vice versa. It's like we co-parent Zoey and don't do anything else. You don't look at me anymore, you don't touch me anymore."
Jay noticed she had been drinking because she wouldn't talk like this sober. But, drunk words were sober thoughts. It was obvious these feelings had built up inside his wife and now they were erupting. And he didn't know what to do about it.
"Hannah, you're drunk. Let's go to bed and we can talk in the morning." He wasn't in the frame of mind to argue, nor did he want to hear what he was afraid would come out of Hannah's mouth. He'd had enough news broken to him tonight, and he didn't need any more.
She seemed to agree with him and followed Jay out of the lounge and up into the bedroom. They both quietly undressed and got under the covers and Hannah turned her back on him before he had the chance to say anything to her.
Jay was so busy wallowing in what had happened in the last few hours. He felt like such a bad person tonight, for remembering the fact he'd slept with Erin not only that but did it behind Hannah's back and he had another daughter whose life he hadn't been part of. Both discoveries killed him inside: he wasn't a bad person, he wasn't. It was completely out of character for him to cheat on somebody he loved and the fact that it was with his partner made it a hundred times worse. He loved Hannah but perhaps this told him he couldn't hide any feelings he had towards Erin too. But Erin had kept a daughter from him, and consequently he'd missed so many milestones from the first four years of her life. He'd missed her learning to walk, talk and start school. He'd missed her first tooth, her first curl and the moment she stopped using diapers. He'd missed her first giggle, her first fall and hadn't been there when she'd been in floods of tears. When she'd needed her Daddy.
He thought back to when those memories happened with Zoey, it was special. It felt amazing that he was a father, he never thought he'd have the opportunity. And Zoey seemed to worship him sometimes, the same way as he worshipped her. Now there was somebody else- two other people- in the picture and he didn't know how he was going to handle his new reality.
Jay vowed in the morning he was going to tell Zoey. He knew the story was going to make him sound like an ass, but she deserved to know the truth. And so did his wife but Jay had a feeling that she wouldn't take it as well as their daughter; it made him feel slightly sick that his marriage could be over in a matter of hours.
It seemed like his thoughts were taking over his brain and he tried hard to fight them so he could get some sleep. He then noticed that Hannah seemed to be talking in her sleep, although he didn't realize she was asleep at first.
"What did you say?" he found himself talking, she was mumbling and he couldn't quite work out what she was telling him.
"I slept with the yoga instructor."
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