Please Forgive Me (20 page)

No, she and Adam would have to get this straightened out and soon. OK so she knew coming into this that it would be slightly more challenging than a relationship with someone with no other commitments, but she loved Adam with all her heart, and knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

‘I understand that Andrea made a lot of sacrifices in raising Suzanne,’ she conceded. ‘But Adam, I think you forget sometimes that you did too, and whereas you’re still making them – financially and otherwise – Suzanne is no longer such a burden on her mother’s time. She’s now old enough for Andrea to live her life pretty much how she likes. Don’t you feel that it’s perhaps time for her to contribute in other ways too? Especially when you’ve always done so much for her…’

‘Lee, what I did was ruin her chances of having a normal life, or any semblance of a carefree youth,’ Adam interjected, and she could see it his eyes that he was absolutely convinced by this. ‘Andrea could have done anything she wanted, gone to any college in the country, walked into any job. But thanks to me, she was robbed of that bright future and ended up chained to the kitchen sink with a baby in tow.’

While he painted a very convincing picture of Andrea as the innocent victim, Leonie couldn’t help thinking that surely there were two of them in it back then – unless there was something he wasn’t telling her, she thought worried now, perhaps something more sinister?

‘Of course, I’ll admit that I was taken aback when I found out she wasn’t on the Pill like I’d thought,’ he went on, looked a bit uncomfortable then, as if suddenly realising the discussion might be a little bit too intimate for Leonie. ‘But it doesn’t really matter how or why it happened, does it? Suzanne was the end result and that’s something I’ve never regretted, not for a single second. She’s my daughter and I love her, so how can I begrudge her a bit of pocket money?’

Now Leonie felt that by raising the issue it was like
she
was the one begrudging the girl her dues, and by the way Adam was talking she knew she was fighting a losing battle.

The mother of his daughter had a very firm hold on her fiancé, one that Leonie knew she’d be an absolute fool to try and loosen.

My darling Helena,

I just wanted to let you know I’m still thinking about you and hope you’re OK.
 

I hope too that you don’t mind me writing to you still; if you do, I’ll stop.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I keep writing these letters, although I guess it’s because it helps sometimes to get things off my chest.
 
And as you know, I’ve always been able to talk to you about things I could never share with anyone else and it’s a hard habit to break. There are things happening here that I wish I could share with you too, but I won’t. Some things you just don’t need to know.

Besides, time just seems to pass by so slowly these days. In this place, sometimes it’s like time almost seems to stand still.
Well it does for me anyway, I guess it might be a little bit different for you.

So how is everything? As I say, I hope you’re OK and I especially hope that husband of yours is treating you well. I know I said at the beginning that you deserved someone better, someone who would give you the world and for a while, I thought I might have been that person.
 

I guess I was wrong about that too.

Please Forgive Me.

Nathan.

Leonie raced down to Alex’s place, excitedly waving the letter over her head. ‘You’re not going to believe this!’ she said when the other girl opened the door.

‘What?’ she asked, standing back to let her inside.

‘Helena was
married
!’

Alex was unmoved ‘So what?’ she shrugged, going back into the kitchen to resume making a tuna sandwich. ‘We already figured they were married.’

‘But according to this, not to Nathan.’

That got her attention. ‘What?’ she repeated. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Nope,’ Leonie perched on the stool in front of Alex’s breakfast bar. ‘It’s all here in this letter. I don’t know why I always assumed that they were married to one
another
; I never for one second thought that were having an affair!’ She looked at Alex. ‘So now we know we’ve been wasting our time. There was never any point in looking for Nathan Abbott because Abbott has to be
Helena’s
name. And before you ask, I have no idea what her husband’s first name is, he’s just referred to in the letter as ‘that husband of yours’.’

Alex cut the sandwich in half. ‘Well I guess that’s it then, isn’t it?’ she said airily. ‘Mystery solved.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I guess that’s what Nathan’s so sorry about. Sorry for making her cheat on her husband.’

‘No, no, that couldn’t be it.’ Leonie shook her head defiantly. ‘Here, read the letter yourself.’

Alex picked up the page and quickly scanned the text, while Leonie waited.

‘Well he doesn’t seem to think much of the husband, does he?’

‘I’d say neither of them do,’ Leonie said confidently. ‘Now,
I
think the marriage was in trouble even before Nathan came on the scene, because it doesn’t sound as though Helena felt any way guilty about it…’

‘Leonie, remember we’re only hearing all this from Nathan’s point of view.’ Alex pointed out. ‘And whatever way you look at it, I think we can both agree that the guy seems pretty infatuated. So maybe he just wants to believe that Helena didn’t care about the husband?’

‘I know that, but something tells me she didn’t care about him as much as she did about Nathan – at least up until it all went wrong.’ Leonie was convinced this was the case. ‘Why else would he want her forgiveness so badly?’ She set the letter down on the countertop. ‘So here’s what I think. The couple who lived upstairs weren’t Helena and Nathan but Helena and her husband. And he was the creepy guy who looked you up and down.’ Leonie was much happier with this explanation; she was never able to visualise Nathan as that kind of man, so to think it was the husband made a hell of lot more sense.

Alex nodded. ‘OK, that’s certainly a possibility. And if they weren’t getting on it would certainly account for all the shouting,’ she added wryly.

‘Exactly. So now we know we’ve been barking up the wrong tree entirely. Problem is we’re still nowhere nearer to finding out how to reach either of them. That woman from Monterey didn’t call yet, did she?’ They were hoping that the Helena from the art gallery – if she was the one they were looking for – might have had a chance to think and would make contact again out of curiosity about the letters. But the weekend had long come and gone and they’d heard nothing, which could only mean that it wasn’t the right Helena after all.

‘Nope, not a sound. It’s still early days yet though and I’m sure she’s still a little taken aback by two complete strangers turning up out of nowhere and asking all those questions.’

‘I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.’ Leonie wasn’t convinced though. What woman wouldn’t be curious about a pile of letters in her name? Especially when Alex had made a point of mentioning they were love letters. No, if this was the right Helena they would have heard from her, no question.

She picked up the new letter again and showed Alex something else she’d noticed. ‘Look at the bit where he says ‘there are things happening here that I wish I could share with you.’ What things? And where is here? Sound to me like he’s moved away from this area or
-
’

‘Oh, Leonie, I don’t know,’ Alex interjected tiredly with a shake of her head. ‘I wonder if this is getting kind of out of hand.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well we really don’t know
anything
about these people other than what we can try and guess from the letters, and we made one major wrong assumption already – Nathan’s surname. Who’s to say that we’re not just reaching here?’

‘I still don’t understand…’

‘If you ask me, there’s probably a very good reason Helena hasn’t answered those letters. Who knows, this guy could be some kind of psycho stalker, and she had to move out to get away from him.’

Leonie’s face fell. ‘I seriously doubt that. From his letters, you can tell that he really loves her and more than anything else, wants to make things right between them. And how could he possibly be some random stalker when they spent time together in that apartment? She must have loved him just as much as he loved her, Alex.’

Alex gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Look, I know you’re only trying to help, but maybe we should just stay out of this. Who knows what kind of stuff we could be getting mixed up in here? Things aren’t always what they seem. Yes, I agree Nathan’s letters are romantic and charming, but that doesn’t mean they’re genuine. Take Seth for instance,’ she said, with a roll of her eyes. ‘That guy could convince Satan he’s as innocent as pie, when the reality is he’d do anything to turn a situation to his advantage.’

‘It’s not the same, I know it’s not.’ Leonie felt almost injured on Nathan’s behalf. Clearly Alex’s recent run-in with her ex was now colouring her thinking.

Alex looked at her. ‘Seriously, Leonie, what are you really hoping to achieve here? You don’t know these people, and let’s face it, if anyone other than you had found those letters they would have dumped them weeks ago. Why are you taking it upon yourself to be this guy’s saviour when you’re not even sure of the circumstances?

‘I don’t know.’ Marcy had asked her pretty much the same question, and Leonie still couldn’t truly explain to herself, much less to them the real reason she was so interested in reuniting this couple.

There was just something about Nathan’s words that resonated with her. Something in his voice and the way he sounded so heartfelt and honest in his attempts to atone for what he’d done had really captured her imagination. Yes, Alex was right; none of them had any idea why he was so desperate for forgiveness or why.

But more than anything, Leonie wanted to help him get a second chance. Everyone deserved that, didn’t they?

It was only six months till the big day and Leonie was feeling on top of the world.

She’d since pretty much learned to put aside her early misgivings about Suzanne and what sometimes felt like the girl’s continuous drain on her and Adam’s finances. At the end of the day, she was Adam’s daughter and Leonie’s soon-to-be stepdaughter, so she’d just have to try and get over it.

And in fairness, it wasn’t entirely the teenager’s fault; long before Suzanne was even born her mother had nurtured in her such an innate sense of entitlement that she just didn’t know any different.

So Leonie was fine with Suzanne these days and apparently realising that Leonie wasn’t going anywhere, the teenager in turn also seemed to have softened her approach.

But it was a different story altogether when it came to Andrea.

In all the time that she and Adam had been together, the two woman had never met, and as far as Leonie was concerned this was fine by her. She could quite happily live her entire life without meeting Andrea; it was bad enough having to listen to her whiney (but for Adam’s benefit, studiedly sugar-coated) tones over the phone.

So when one morning over breakfast, Adam casually suggested they should pay Andrea a visit, she tried not to spit out her coffee.

‘I know she’d really like to meet you,’ he said, and Leonie wondered when exactly Andrea had expressed such an interest. Was it when she’d phoned wanting Adam to cough up for Suzanne’s guitar lessons, or one of those times she needed an ‘emergency’ donation to her household expenses? It never failed to amaze her how Adam didn’t stop to question why a woman whose lifestyle he’d chosen to support was (according to Suzanne) swanning around in the latest designer labels, while his own fiancée generally made do with the sale rail.
 

‘You should see her handbag collection,’ the younger girl gushed. ‘Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Zagliani – you know the snakeskin ones they inject with botox?’ she continued, while Leonie tried to figure out if such a thing was included in the ‘essentials’ Andrea insisted she needed. Suzanne held up her own ‘beginner’ designer Juicy Couture handbag for examination. ‘I’m a long way off having a collection like that, but Dad’s promised to get me a Balenciaga for my birthday so I’m sure I’ll catch up.’

When Leonie had picked her jaw up off the floor, she made a mental note to discuss with Adam the wisdom of encouraging a designer handbag fetish in a fourteen-year-old girl. At this rate, Suzanne would be expecting head-to-toe Chanel at sixteen! But even worse was the fact that by virtue of their engagement, Leonie had little choice but to contribute to this extravagance, despite the fact that she and Adam really couldn’t afford it.

So to say that she wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to come face to face with the root of all these frustrations was an understatement.

‘Yes, she was only talking about it the other day,’ Adam went on, and Leonie couldn’t help but recall how insistent he’d been too in the beginning about Suzanne dying to meet her. That hadn’t turned out so well, had it? And not for the first time, she was forced to wonder that for such a bright and mature guy, sometimes Adam seemed patently oblivious to the simplest of things.

‘I can’t really imagine why Andrea would want to meet me,’ she replied, taking a bite out of her toast. ‘I mean, what do we have in common, apart from you – and Suzanne of course.’

‘Well I think it’s only natural that she’d want to meet Suzanne’s future stepmother, don’t you? Obviously Suze would have been telling her all about you so…’

Leonie could only imagine what the teenager had been saying to her mother about her. ‘I guess she’s sort of OK-looking but in a dowdy kind of way… she badly needs a makeover …and could do with losing a few pounds but honestly, can you believe she doesn’t own even
one
pair of Choos!’