Chapter 4

Jenny awoke with a start early on Sunday morning, a loud ringing sound cutting into what was a deep, peaceful sleep - a rarity in Jenny's life nowadays. She lay on her front for a few seconds, groggy, before she actually realised that it was her house phone that was ringing. Entangled in her duvet, she reached for the phone on her bedside table, not bothering to sit up as she clumsily held it up to her ear.

"I hate you," she grumbled into the mouthpiece, not caring who it was - she felt very rough from the night before, and she could have happily stayed asleep for a a good few hours longer.

"What's wrong with you?" Nick's voice said, sounding amused.

"Oh, it would be you wouldn't it," she mumbled, flicking her hair out of her face as she rolled onto her side. "What up?"

"Clearly not your mood," he replied in the same annoyingly upbeat voice.

"You're a funny, funny man," she said sarcastically as she sat up carefully.

"You a bit hungover?" he asked, his voice laced with false sympathy.

"Just a tad," she said, wincing as her head throbbed painfully. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to tell you I'm taking Ben to the park soon, if you want to pick him up there instead? It's closer to you anyway?"

"Yes, that sounds fine," she said, resting her tender forehead in her cool palm. "I'll see you at eleven?"

"Aye," he said with a sigh. "See you then. Bye."

"Bye," she said, hanging up and replacing the phone on the receiver sloppily.

She lay back down with a groan, pulling the duvet back over her pounding head. So not only did she have the hangover from hell, but she had to show her face in front of her ex-husband looking as rough as she felt. Great. Just what she needed. Although she had to admit, she was glad to finally be picking Ben up. She'd missed him like crazy; she always did when he was at Nick's for the weekend. The house felt empty without him.

A few hours later, Jenny had parked up near the park and was scanning the play area, hoping that Ben would be ready to go straight away so that she wouldn't have to spend any more time with Nick than was necessary. At long last, she spotted him on the jungle-gym, grinning from ear to ear. Nick was sitting on the bench on the other side of the play area, watching his son with a smile. Jenny walked over with her hands in her coat pockets, trying to keep her eyes on the ground until she reached him, taking a seat on the bench by his side.

"Only you would choose to meet in a park on the coldest day of the year," she stated, pulling up the collar of her coat to keep the chill off her neck.

"I think it's nice," he replied, not looking around at her. "And I've wrapped him up, don't worry," he added, nodding over to their son who was wearing his wooly hat and gloves, as well as his thick coat and wellies.

She didn't reply, but crossed her legs, wishing that she had worn pants instead of a skirt to protect her from the cold. They both watched Ben swinging happily from a bar in silence, a few other kids and their parents dotted were around the otherwise deserted park.

"You look tired," he remarked, glancing at her briefly.

"Oh thanks very much!" she chuckled, masking her annoyance that he had actually commented on her less than fresh appearance.

"I didn't mean it like that," he corrected himself. "I just meant that it looks like you had a good night last night, that's all."

"Hmm," she nodded, staring resolutely ahead of her.

"I took Ben to Pizza Hut last night," he said in a strange voice after a few moments silence.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "And we saw someone there. Ben said he recognised him. Said you'd brought him round to the house a couple of times?"

His tone was casual, but Jenny could hear the seriousness behind it.

"What was his name?" Jenny asked innocently, although she knew very well who he was talking about.

"Glen-something," Nick said bitterly, for the first time meeting her in the eye."Why, how many men do you bring round to the house?"

She tutted at him, but didn't answer, not knowing what to say. Glen was a colleague of hers that had given her a lift home a couple times when her car had broken down, or she had run out of petrol. As a thank you, she had invited him in for a coffee. That was it - end of story. There was nothing even remotely romantic going on. Not that she would give Nick the satisfaction of telling him that. He was clearly not put off by her silence, however, and continued to grill her.

"Are you dating him or something?" he asked in a small voice.

"That's none of your business," she said coldly.

"You're my wife," he snapped, his temper clearly rising.

"We're separated," she reminded him icily, jiggling her foot up and down with impatience. "Remember?"

"So this is how it's going to be?" Nick asked in a strained voice. "I take care of our son all weekend so you can sleep around with whoever you want?"

"Yes, I guess so," she spat untruthfully, all attempts at civility forgotten. "What did you expect, that I'd just turn into a bloody nun?"

He gapped at her for a few moments before laughing in disbelief and getting to his feet. "Will you just tell Ben I had to leave and that I'll see him soon," he said shortly, before storming off.

Cursing inwardly, Jenny rolled her eyes. "Nick, wait!" she called him back, looking around to make sure Ben wasn't listening.

He stopped and turned, looking at her coldly.

She took a deep, frustrated breath, annoyed that she had to justify herself. "I'm not seeing anyone," she informed him in a low voice that wouldn't carry over to Ben.

He stared back at her for a moment, seemingly torn between leaving and staying. Eventually, he walked back and sunk onto the bench next to her.

"Well, I can't say I'm not relieved," he began, rubbing his hand over his creased forehead. "I thought that . . ." he trailed off, looking upset.

"It doesn't mean that we're getting back together," she stated, wanted to make it clear that a reconciliation was not a possibility. "Not after - "

"I know," Nick mumbled.

They both busied themselves with watching Ben for a while. He was on a pole that was rather high up for Jenny's liking, and she watched apprehensively as he swayed haphazardly on it.

"Ben, be careful!" she shouted over to him, unable to stop herself voicing her concern.

"He's fine, stop mollycoddling the boy," Nick said, rolling his eyes at her.

"Just because I don't want him to fall doesn't mean I'm being overprotective," she sniffed, relaxing back into the bench.

"Kids need to explore, push their own boundaries," he pointed out.

"Where the hell did you read that? The lazy mans guide to parenting?"

"No, it's just common sense," he said patiently. "Look, Jenny I've been wanting to talk to you about something."

She glanced around at him, an eyebrow raised questioningly.

He took a deep breath before speaking. "I want to see him more."

"Nick - " she sighed, looking away in frustration.

"Please Jenny," he said, a clear hint of desperation in his voice.

"We agreed that shuttling him back and forth between us all the time would be no good for him," Jenny reminded him.

"But I miss him so much. It's so hard to go from seeing him every day to only having him two weekends a month. How would you feel?"

"It's different with me, I'm his mother," she snapped, jiggling her foot more and more.

"Well, I'm his father," Nick retorted. "I love him just as much as you do."

"Nick, I carried him inside me for nine months and gave birth to him. It's completely different."

"It's just that . . ." he said, trying a different tact. "You don't cash any of the cheques I send you - "

"I've told you before that we don't need your money. I can afford to pay for everything he needs."

"But that, and the fact that I don't see him much," he paused, rubbing has hand over his forehead. ". . . well . . . I'm starting to feel like a deadbeat dad or something."

"Nick - no one, not me or anyone who knows you could ever accuse you of being a deadbeat. You're a brilliant farther."

"Well I don't feel like one," he replied glumly, staring at his hands. "And so I've decided that if you don't let me see him more . . ." he paused again, as though bracing himself, and let out a deep sigh. "I'm going to sue you for joint custody," he blurted out quickly.

Her head snapped round at him, her blood running cold.

"You wouldn't," she said numbly, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"I have to," he replied quietly, not meeting her in the eye.

She stood up abruptly, breathing hard to try and stop herself from screaming at him in such a public place.

"Now you listen to me," she whispered venomously. "I've always been more than generous letting you have him for the entire weekend. And if you try and take my son away from me, I guarantee you that you'll regret it."

"Jenny - "

She put up her hand to silence him. "I'm not messing around Nick. So help me god, if you back me into a corner on this, I'll stop you seeing him all together and tear you to pieces in court."

"You can't do that - "

"Try me," she breathed, giving him the dirtiest look she possessed before turning on her heel and walking away, seething.

"Come on Ben, we're leaving!" she shouted to her son, her voice quivering.

When she and Ben got home, she set him up in his play room, for once unable to muster up the energy to entertain him herself after Nick's little bombshell. Still bubbling over with rage, she walked back downstairs and pressed the play button on her answering machine harder than was really necessary. With a jolt of surprise and annoyance, Nick's voice filled the room.

Look Jenny (the machine said) I'm so sorry about this, but what else can I do? I just want what's fair. I want to be a bigger part of his life, and I want to support him financially. Surely you can understand that -

With a groan of frustration, she slammed her hand down on the delete button, unable to hear the message through to the end, or else she would probably end up smashing the answering machine against the wall. How dare he! He was the one who screwed everything up between them, and now he was the one making the demands and the threats! Well so help her god, she was not going to make it easy for him. She was going to hire the most expensive lawyer she could and shred him in court. This was the last thing she wanted, which was why she had agreed to the two weekends a month thing in the first place, but now he had pushed her too far. He couldn't expect her to just sit back and do nothing when he threatened her. And in any case, most courts sided with the mother; what on earth was he playing at?

In an attempt to calm herself, she opened the door to her garden and stepped out onto the patio, bunching slightly in the shock of the cold. She lent against the wooden decking and looked out onto her massive back garden, her thoughts running a mile a minute.

How had it all come to this?

Jenny was balanced on a stool haphazardly, trying to put some of Ben's baby toys that he had outgrown into boxes on top of the wardrobe. Thinking about it, she should have brought the boxes down first, put the toys in them, and then put them back up, but it was too late now; she might as well get on with it. Most of the toys were balanced in the crook of one arm, whilst she placed them in the box one-by-one. She was almost done when, unexpectedly, Ben's shouts echoed into the room from the baby monitor; he must have fallen over in his room or something. Jenny jumped violently, her hand knocking over two teetering boxes that crashed heavily to the floor and spilled out their contents everywhere.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath as she hopped down off the stool.

What a mess! Still, it would have to wait - if she let Ben cry for more than a minute by himself, he would enter into tantrum mode. After she'd settled him down, she re-entered the room to clean it up. Bending down with a groan, she began to pile all the junk back into the boxes. However, as she did so, a photograph caught her eye. It was small, and looked like it had been ripped up and taped back together again. She raised it to her face to take a closer look.

She nearly dropped the picture in shock.

It was a photograph of her. But it wasn't her! She knew that because the woman in the picture had red hair, not to mention that she had no recollection of it being taken. But she was identical to her; same face, same eyes, same everything.

Her hand shaking, she slid down the wardrobe onto the floor. She knew who this was. It was Claudia Brown.

Later that day, she sat on the breakfast table numbly, waiting . . . waiting . . . she had dropped Ben off with her parents a couple of hours ago, knowing how this conversation was going to end, and not wanting her son to be there to witness it. At long last, she heard the key turn in the front door, and a few moments later, Nick was striding into the room. He grinned at her in way of a greeting, but she returned it with a stony look of her own. She saw his smile falter slightly.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking a little on edge.

She didn't reply, but instead silently slid the picture she had found forward on the table.

"Care to explain this?" she said, struggling to keep her voice steady.

He glanced down at the photograph, his expression turning from bemused to downright shocked.

"Jenny - " he began in a pleading voice.

"No actually, don't bother," she interrupted in the same hollow voice. "I already know who this is."

"Okay, before you freak out, I need you to listen to me," he said, taking a seat next to her and leaning forward.

She looked up into his pleading eyes that were willing her to let him speak, and despite the screaming protests in her head, she remained silent and allowed him to try and explain himself.

She listened, desperately trying to keep her face impassive, but every word he spoke felt like a knife to the heart. Claudia Brown had in fact existed, and was not the figure of his imagination that she had assumed she was. They had met, they had flirted, they had kissed, they had danced around each other for months . . . and then she had disappeared when he had returned from the Permian anomaly, only to be replaced by Jenny herself. All of a sudden, everything seemed to slip horribly into place in Jenny's head; so that was how he had known so much about her . . . that's why he had been so infuriating the first few months after they had met.

Unable to cope with hearing any more of it, she stood up and walked over to the fireplace, turning her back on him so he couldn't see that her face was screwed up to stop herself from crying.

"So," she began, her voice cracking. "Everything we have - everything between us is a lie?"

"No - "

"What was it? You missed Claudia, so you thought you'd settle for the second best option?"

"It wasn't like that - "

She turned to face him, unable to control her anger.

"Well you explain it to me then, because right now, I'm not feeling exactly wanted."

"It's complicated - "

"Complicated?" she repeated with a cold laugh. That's it - her temper was lost."YOU'VE JUST TOLD ME EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I WAS . . . EVERYTHING I'VE DONE IS A LIE!" she exploded, shaking from head to toe. "AND ALL'S YOU CAN SAY IS IT'S 'COMPLICATED'!"

"Jenny - "

She turned, rage getting the better of her, and swept most of the photographs off the mantle piece so that the frames smashed loudly onto the floor.

"NONE OF THIS MEANS ANYTHING ANYMORE!" she screamed so loud that she felt like her throat would tear.

"It does!"

"Really? What?" she said sarcastically, picking up the only remaining picture. "Like this photo of our wedding? ONLY IT WASN'T ME YOU WANTED TO MARRY WAS IT!" she yelled, flinging the frame against the wall.

"Look, just calm down!"

"I shouldn't even be here," she cried, rubbing her temple as she fully realised the depths of his confession. "The only reason I am is because you screwed up something in the past!"

"No," he shook his head, his voice cracking.

"Your words Nick," she sobbed, tears cascading down her cheeks.

"I just wanted you to know what it was like for me," Nick explained in a quivering voice. "Help you understand - "

"Oh, I do understand," she breathed dangerously. "You erased this woman you loved from existance and accidently replaced her with me. And because I'm the image of her, and lets face it, I'm sure that's all the man in you is interested in, you married me."

"That's not it!"

"Oh come on! The only reason you looked at me twice was because of her!"

"No," Nick shook his head again desperately. "I love you. I love YOU Jenny; I wouldn't have married you if I didn't."

"And I wouldn't have married you if you would have told me about this years ago!"

Silence followed her words, Nick looking more upset than she had ever seen him before. In an attempt to calm herself, she paced up and down, running her hand through her hair, trying to get her head around it all. But whatever way she span it, the terrible emptiness in her stomach wouldn't leave.

"When were you going to tell me?" Jenny asked eventually. "Or weren't you going to bother?"

"I did tell you!" he shouted, his temper obviously rising. "You didn't believe me!"

"Then why didn't you show me that photograph?" she pointed out coldly.

He sighed deeply and ran his hand over his forehead. When he spoke next, it was in a quiet, gentle tone.

"When we got together, I was glad you didn't believe me about Claudia when we met," he answered. "Why would I want to hurt you like that? Why would I make you question my feelings for you? I never wanted you to find that picture."

"Oh, is that why you hid it in the invisible box on top of our wardrobe?" she laughed sarcastically.

He opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again almost immediately, obviously at a loss for what to say. Another dense silence followed as she turned away from him again, looking anywhere but his face.

"So," she began, hating how scratched her voice sounded. "Every time we're together, are you mentally comparing us. Claudia and I?"

"Don't be stupid," he said sharply.

"Am I as good in bed as she was?"

"I never slept with her!"

She turned back to him, genuinely surprised. "But you were in love with her?" she probed, not sure that she wanted to hear the answer, but knowing that she needed to.

"I - I don't know . . . maybe," he finished lamely. "But my feelings for her have nothing to do with my feelings for you."

"Except that you only went after me as a replacement for her!"

"Okay, that's exactly what it was!" he bellowed unexpectedly, starling her so that she actually stepped back a few paces. "You want the truth Jen? If I could have erased you from time to get her back, I would have done. I felt nothing for you. In fact, I hated you. You were just this person living the life she was supposed to live, ruining everything for me. Is that what you want to hear?"

She slapped him across the face hard, feeling a fury like she never had before, the pain of his words so all-consuming.

"Get your stuff, and get out!" she spat venomously, purposely barging past his shoulder and storming off up the stairs.

"Jenny, I'm sorry!" he shouted after her desperately; his anger had obviously left him after the slap.

She blocked out his words, slamming the bathroom door shut, and sinking to the floor, the pain too much to take . . . too much to process . . . she put her hands to her mouth and sobbed harder than she ever had done before in her life.

Not long after, she heard him creaking up the stairs after her, and pause outside the bathroom door. She felt the door bang slightly, telling her that he must have slid down the other side of it himself.

"Jenny?" he said in a small voice that was so un-Cutter like.

She didn't answer, but leant her head back to rest on the door, drawing her knees up to her chest and hurridly wiping the tears away from her cheeks.

He sighed deeply, the sound audible even through the thick wooden door. "Jenny, what I said back there was true. But that was a long time ago. Before I got to know you. Before I let myself get to know you. But it wasn't always like that," he paused, as though considering how much to say. "I remember the day it changed," he continued wistfully. "It was about two months after you'd started, and we were all just milling around the ARC. And Connor said something stupid - I cant remember what now it was that long ago - and you laughed. That's it. You just threw back your head and laughed, and you let the whole cold, unemotional facade fall away, and I really saw you for the first time. You were beautiful. And for the first time, I saw you as someone different to Claudia. I saw you as someone I could fall for separately."

He paused again, obviously wanting her to speak, but when she didn't, he continued. "I still told myself I hated you. But I didn't hate you - I hated the fat that you were engaged; that you had this whole new life that I wasn't a part of. And then you told me about your fiancé . . . about how he didn't take any curiosity in your work, and a small part of me thought 'this is it . . . this is my chance'. And . . ." he paused again and let out a long sigh. "You've made me the happiest man in the world. I love every moment I spend with you . . . you've gave me a son . . ." he trailed off and sniffed, as though he was crying himself.

But it didn't matter what he said - the empty hole that the discovery of Claudia had opened in her stomach refused to leave. The tears wouldn't stop. Nothing could take things back to how they used to be - she knew that. That's why she didn't reply to him, but cried silently in the bathroom, even when she heard him get to his feet.

When she finally came out of the bathroom, Nick was gone.

Jenny squeezed the wooden planks under her hands hard as she doubled over, tears running down her cheek, and she screamed, letting out all the frustration that had been bottled up inside her since that terrible day.

How had it all come to this?