2 comments/ 6805 views/ 0 favorites Tennessee By: gothic_Swimmer_1990 Chapter 1 I had just turned the ripe age of 18 when it all started. My father always busy because of his job, he was an advocate, his cases mostly with men or women who were antagonist. With my father gone I had no one who I could turn to for guidance. My mother was a painter and she spent most of her time in her studio. She had bought me some aquatic colors for my birthday because I, myself loved to paint. But sadly, my brother had gotten into the paint and ruined them by mixing them together. The thought of my family filled me with anger, I peddled my bicycle with more force as tears burned my eyes but the thought my brother who was half a year younger then I was still remained. Oh how I despised him! Despised all he'd done to me touched me in unspeakable places in unspeakable ways no one believed me though no on cared. As I rode on I turned my thoughts to his greatest fears SPIDERS an evil grin spread across my angelic face. He hated spiders with a passion. Once I'd found a spider, put it into a jar and showed him, he ran to mom screaming and crying. Honestly I'd thought it was funny to be scared of something so small, later that day my mom had brought me aside and explained to me that he had a fear of spiders called arachnophobia. Of course as normal I'd get into trouble, while he came out top prize as though he were really their son. He was the innocent, the untouchable, the one who never got blamed for anything; a priceless position to be exact. The first time he'd done anything to me I'd gone crying to my mother and she looked at me in discussed, for me to even think he would do such a thing and sent me away, forever looking at me like a slut, a whore... a disgrace. I'd stopped my bike at the top of a hill. A zephyr lifted the strands of hair that had escaped my pony tail around my face. The skirt I was wearing fluttered against my thighs. I dropped hard to the ground with a thud; I took my backpack and placed it in front of me. I was secluded in the waist high grass. An unexpected flash blinded me. There in front of me, my camera sat facing up; it had fallen out of my backpack. "Damn," I whispered to my self. "Another picture ruined!" I was the only one who'd travel to this particular spot, during the beginning of spring. My shoulders slumped and I fell back in frustration. Frustrated with my father for never being there, frustrated with my mother for never caring and frustrated with my brother because he wasn't even my biological brother. He was my aunt's child, but he didn't know. I myself wasn't supposed to know but when I was younger I'd heard my mother and father bickering about my brother. They didn't know I knew nor would they ever. The crisp breeze grew stronger but the tall grasses protected me from the chill. Closing my eyes against the sun, I thought to myself what it would it be like to be an only child, my brother ruined everything. I couldn't take some of my friends with me on vacation, because of him. He wouldn't listen, I'd known he had ADD or ADHD because of his actions but my mother wouldn't get him tested. She was very sure he was fine but no matter what she did she couldn't control him. My eyes opened and I sat up as I let my hair down. My slightly curly hair wavered in the breeze. Oddly enough I hadn't found as much comfort in the area as I once had; nothing in my life seemed to be going right. I stood up my things packed in my small backpack, a few extra clothing articles, a hair brush and a teddy cat my ex-boyfriend had given me. I looked down at it as my eyes filled with tears it had only been a few months since we'd broken up and I was still holding on to him with everything. He'd already found some one new. I'd tried but could never get past the first date because none of them measured up to him. "I shouldn't bring this," I wiped my eyes and hesitantly put the teddy on the ground. "Just bad memories..." I'd got on my bike and looked back at the teddy, biting my lower lip I got off my bike and hugged it once more and stuck it in the deep grass. I was as upset with myself as I gathered my belongings. I'd looked at my camera once more, wind wrapped around me like a strong confuting blanket the rustling sound of the sea before me, the tall grass around my body calmed my worries. "Sarah..." The water called in a rushing whisper as the wind swiftly surrounded me. "Sarah..." it called again. Before I knew it my now bare feet touched the icy cold water; a shiver went up my spine as I continued to the depths of the salty water. Standing it no longer I plunged into the water, it refreshed my body and my mind. My grandfather always said I would have been happier as a fish than as a human, maybe he was right. My head and shoulders hit the surface of the grayish blue water, my clothes stuck to me like they were apart of my own flesh, slowly I made my way to shore riding on the powerful waves. Looking up as I rose out of the water I saw a glow around my bike standing there like a safe haven. I climbed the dune and mounted my bike thinking all the while of what was to come...a fresh start...a new life... Chapter 2 Terrified I ran up the stairs, "Sarah!" My brother yelled sounding much older then just 14. I shuttered and ran to my room climbed inside of my closet and hid deep within the furthest corner in a ball. "Sarah show yourself! You know you can't hide from me," His voice bellowed loudly. He was right, he'd always found me; I had the cuts, scares and memories to prove it. In fact I had a bruise that was now a yellowish green color on my stomach from the last time we'd had stayed home alone together. "SARAH!" I jumped at the sound of his voice, closer now. My heart leapt to my throat, he was on the stairs by now by how loud his voice was. I ran to the window and opened it, staring down at the ground from the second story window, I was scared of falling, but anything was better then touched by him again. The door rushed open just as I saw a car driving up the long driveway. His eyes were hungry for me, I could tell, because it was the same look he'd gotten every time he'd tried to force himself on me. I was finally ready to jump as my brother came not even 2 inches from grabbing me. He caught my foot and tugged me back to him. I saw my mom getting out of the car, eyes wide staring at her only daughter about to jump, out of her window. Feeling the heat of my brother close behind me I vowed that I wouldn't let him touch me this time...not this time...I flung out the window head first, as my mother started to run towards the house. "DON'T SARAH!" her screams filled the air... Chapter 3 My mother's voice echoed in my head as I woke up from the nightmare, well it wasn't really all nightmare it was the truth, I'd only gathered a broken arm from the fall; It healed quickly, my family were all convinced my falling was childish stupidity . I shivered from the cold my cloths were still damp from the swim from yesterday and I was getting wetter by the second. Getting on my bike I'd headed into Baltimore where I'd been getting a bus to go to Philly. After an hour of traffic and horns and smoke and exoste fumes I'd finally reached the bus station and as I walked in a bus from New York pulled up. I went to the bathroom locked the door and slowly undressed it'd been a few days now since I'd had a shower so I washed my body best I could. Walking out of the bathroom I felt more refreshed I held my head high and with weak legs started walking slowly towards the desk I was just about to the desk when I'd walked into a tall man, I had mumbled that I was sorry and I kept walking managing only a few inches when I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. "Sarah?" I panicked when I heard my name on the unfamiliar mans tongue but instead of fleeing I slowly turned to face my fears... I looked up into piercing blue eyes studying him, his mischievous grin startled me. I knew that grin though it had been months since I'd seen it. "Carron..." The name drifted off my tongue my voice in a shaky whisper. "What...who...how," so many questions fluttered into my mind to where he'd gone; he'd up and left me with out a word I never knew what had happened to him and till now I hadn't wanted too. "Shh my love," he placed his index finger lightly to my lips. "I've missed you." He brought me to him in a swift pull, kissing my lips longer then he should have. My heart beat fast as though a humming bird was locked in my chest trying to get free from its cage. He whispered as my gaze lifted "We are what we repeatedly do so excellence my darling is nothing more then a habit." His English tone soothed me to nothing. "Hmm?" I questioned. "Aristotle; you must know him by now," he looked at me mockingly. "You are an evil think carron!" I pushed him away lightly. "So what are you doing here?" His curious tone startled me in a way never before. "Ah my dear curiosity killed the cat, but I should be the one to ask that very question should I not?" He'd lived here for about a year so far but his accent still showed in his voice as though he arrived from England yesterday. "So are you going to answer me?" I questioned. "Are you going to answer me?" He poked my nose playfully and then in a whisper. "Ok, I give I was going to go to New York; I'm going back to London." "And you weren't going to tell me?" My lower lip popped out and started to tremble as her eyes started to water. "No id sent you an offline a time or two." "Take me with you!" I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to me. "Please that's why I'm here...to run," I could tell he was thinking he always got that look on his face when he was thinking hard, I wasn't sure if it would work but god I just needed to get out so he'd decided to take her along. It hadn't taken long for the bus to New York to come but it had taken about an hour to get another ticket to go to New York. As I waited to getting on the bus my mind flew to what if's. People started to board the bus and I stopped before the opened doors, carron urged me forward onto the bus but I didn't budge. Frowning I turned to him, he had a huge grin on his face but I couldn't help but frown. "I can't go," was all I could say if he'd said anything I hadn't heard it, I ran back into the depot and up to the information desk. "Would I be able to return this ticket?" My voice was urgent and the woman behind the desk knew it. It had taken 5 minutes to change the ticket from New York to Memphis, Tennessee. I waited the long, pitifully slow hour till the bus arrived. Finally I got onto the bus walked to the back sat down on the window seat and placed my bag of things on the seat beside me, I comfortable as I possibly could on the lightly cushioned seats. I tried to rest my head against the seat. A woman a little older then I probably in her early 20's walked to the back seat and asked with a Boston accent. "Hey doll can I sit here everything else is taken up?" I looked at the woman her looks defiantly didn't fit her accent she looked like a girl from the mountains. Short shorts, a tan along her legs, arms, stomach and chest, her plaid button up shirt only buttoned in two spots. Her breasts practically falling out of her tight shirt with the bottom tied together. "Sure no problem," I moved my bag to the floor and with a half smile turned away looking out the window again. "Hey suga what's wrong with you? Cat got your tongue?" "Nah I just don't wanna talk bout it," I shrugged and kept my eyes on the window. "That's aight honey I'm not much for talking either but I do know that I've been in your shoes a time or two wither you admit it or not." She looked at me with a kind smile and I could not help but smile back half way then frowning, again I look out the window, "You don't know the half of it." "Alright Hun if you say so." she reached down into her own worn bag and pulled out a magazine crossed her legs and started skimming over the pages, "so you gonna spill or not?" I debated on telling her about it I mean why should I tell a complete stranger my life story? Tennessee Waltz I thank my LadyCibelle and Techsan for their patience, proof reading, editing skills. Clarification: - Quite often in the UK, when someone refers to their local pub, they aren't necessarily talking about a public house that is nearest to where they live or work. The pub they mean is the one they feel at home in; they usually drink there and are well known by the staff and regulars. It can be some way away from where actually they live or work. Oppo = A Colleague or friend. CSA = Child Support Agency, in theory a government agency who were charged with getting child support payments from absent biological parents. They've made a complete cock-up of most of it and as I haven't heard them mentioned by the media lately, I have to wonder whether they are still operational. Maybe they've just got their act together at last. But as they are civil servants, I somehow doubt they have done that. Any organisation in which its members are shielded by the 'Official Secrets Act' just doesn't need to worry about what gets fucked up. If no bugger can discover just who made the bloody cock-up in the first place, why should any of them care? * I was enjoying a quiet pint in what had become my local pub. I'd found the Fisherman's Arms - that was tucked away, some way off the beaten track - by chance just after I'd moved into the village, about three years previous. In the height of the summer season some holidaymakers found the pub, but not very many; so the place tended to cater more to the regular locals. On this evening, there couldn't have been ten people in the place, so it was nice and quiet, just how I liked things. It was so quiet in fact that I was almost dozing, as I stared into the flames of the fire burning in the big grate. I was so lost in the way the flames flickered and curled that I didn't notice the two rather large strangers enter the bar and buy their drinks. The first I was aware of their presence was when one of them slid into the seat opposite me, blocking my view of the fire. "Mo Clarke?" the guy asked, his accent telling me he came from back home, or that general area anyway. "Who's asking and why do you want to know?" I replied. Whoever this guy was, I didn't want to speak to him. But I was just a little curious as to why he'd come looking for me. Look, the Fisherman's Arms ain't the kind of place strangers find by chance. "My name's John Caldwell, and I'd like to have a word with you about Sarah, if I may," the man replied. The name Caldwell, let alone Sarah, was enough for me to begin to rise from my seat. I could remember that Sarah had mentioned a cousin called John Caldwell a few times. I think I recalled that he was supposed to be a military policeman or something. I began to slide along the bench I was sitting on so that I could get out from behind the table. But the other large man - whose presence I was still not aware of at the time - sat himself on the end of the bench, blocking any further progress on my behalf. "Hold on a minute please, Maurice; we just want a little chat, that's all," John Caldwell said. "I've got nothing I wish to talk to any Caldwell about. Especially if Sarah's concerned." "Aren't you just a little curious about the baby, at least?" John Caldwell asked. "No. Why should I be? It's got fuck all to do with me." "That's not what Sarah says, Mo!" "Look, this has all been settled by the courts. No matter how much she claims otherwise, I ain't the father of Sarah's kid; so it holds no interest for me whatsoever." "Sarah claims that there was no one else who possibly could be the father, Mo." "Look, John or whatever your name is, we went through all this at the time. The DNA tests proved that there was no chance in hell that I was the kid's biological parent. If I had been, I would have gone through with the wedding as we had it planned. But I ain't! And there was no way I was going to marry a bitch who'd been shagging other guys behind my back. And I definitely ain't bringing up some other guy's brat as my own. So you see we've got nothing to talk about." "Hold on a minute please, Mo. Young Maureen is very ill with leukaemia and she needs a bone marrow transplant pronto." "So, what the fuck has that got to do with me? I can't help the kid; we're not related in the slightest," I blustered. I was sorry to hear about the child's illness, but there was fuck all I could do about it. "Mo, Listen to me for a few minutes, will you? I know that all those tests you had done apparently proved that you aren't the father of Maureen. Oh notice the name Sarah gave her; it was the closest to Maurice that she could come up with. But leaving that aside, don't it seem just a little strange to you that with her child's life at stake, Sarah would still insist that you were the only possible man who could be Maureen's father." "Look, the woman's probably nuts or something. We went all through this at the time, the tears, the swearing on the bible. You say it and Sarah tried to pull it on me. But those DNA tests don't lie, not once but twice the tests were done and they proved that I was not the father of that baby." "So it would seem at first sight, Mo; but would you do me a little favour. You know I'm a policeman?" "Yeah, MP or something." "Yes, I was, I'm out of the service now. I work for the Home Office," John explained. "So!" "Well, I wasn't around when all this happened, so I never did hear your side of the story. Would you mind telling me all about it? Why you suspected that something was wrong in the first place. Christ, you and Sarah had been an item and shacked up together for years. Suddenly Sarah gets pregnant and you get suspicious. What made you postpone the wedding until after the baby was born and have those DNA tests done in the first place?" "Look, mate, this was all over and done with three years ago. It hurt me emotionally a lot at the time and I really don't think I want to go through it all again." "Please, Maurice. Look, there's a very sick little girl whose life might depend on this. Just tell me the story from your side." I could see that the guy was pretty concerned about the kid by the expression on his face. Whatever Sarah's motivation was in still insisting that I was the child's father, I couldn't understand. But I assumed that John Caldwell had set himself the task of finding a bone marrow donor and he was trying to track down the kid's biological father first. Well, if I helped him put me completely out of the frame, then maybe he could talk Sarah into telling the truth. Although with the way Sarah had acted at the time, I was pretty well convinced that Sarah was one of those people with multiple personalities. Maybe the personality that I fell in love with was someone completely different to the slut who went out and got herself knocked up. In Sarah's mind, that is. I picked up my pint and emptied the glass. "George, let's have another HSD?" I called to the barman. +++++++++++++++++ I'd first laid eyes on Sarah Caldwell at college. Well, to be honest it wasn't me who spotted her first; it was my buddy and prowling partner, Ralph Bilger. At the time Ralph and I were what you might call a couple of 'Jack the Lads' when it came to the girls, that is. When we were together we were good at chatting them up. I don't know, we complemented each other I suppose when we were spouting all that bullshit to the women that would often lead to us scoring. Anyway one day Ralph told me that there was a new girl in one of his classes, and she was something special. I'm pretty sure that Ralph tried to chat her up on his own but -- reading between the lines -- he got no further than sharing her table in the cafeteria. That's where I found them together one day and quickly realised that Sarah wasn't someone I just wanted to shag a couple of times. I'll be honest, I hadn't spoken more than a couple of words to Sarah before I knew that she was that special person my mother had told me that I'd find one day. It took me the best part of six months to talk Sarah into going out on a date with me. Even then it was a double date with Ralph and some tart that he'd found who'd let him bang her at the drop of a hat. I'd didn't even get as far as a kiss on that first date. Sarah let me hold her hand for a while and that was about it. On the second date a week later - with just the two of us -- I got a kiss goodnight. Hey, yeah, music, bells and a very light headed feeling. You know all the metaphors. Anyway that kiss led to another and if Sarah's father hadn't put the outside light on, I think we would have been there all night. On our third date we went to the cinema, but didn't see the film. You know the idea. That was it. From then on, Ralph and chasing other birds went off the curriculum. Every spare moment I had, I spent with Sarah. We even went to the same university together. Sarah studied philosophy and I read marine engineering. We talked about marriage a lot, but for some reason, we didn't get around to naming the actual day. I think we were both too busy with our studies to plan that far ahead. Sarah was of course wearing my engagement ring by then and we were sharing a flat -- and bed - together all through UNI. We graduated at the same time and moved into a flat in town. Sarah had been offered a good job working in the office of one of her university professor's relatives. Kind of the old boy network sort of thing; but far too lucrative for either Sarah or I to even contemplate her turning it down. Okay, we were a long way from the sea. But I managed to find a job in the offices of a marine design company in town. It did call for me to do some travelling a couple of days a week, but once I got into it, I enjoyed it quite a lot. So life settled down for a while. Ralph turned up after a year or so; he'd been studying chemistry or something and found himself a job in one of the big companies. Not that he stayed there long. Ralph was still a bit of a ladies' man and I do believe he shagged himself out of a couple of good jobs. I know I heard sexual harassment mentioned as the reason he got fired from at least one job. Not that I ever discussed it with Ralph personally. Ralph would turn up at our flat quite regularly for the next year or so, nearly always with his latest bit of stuff on his arm. I'd sometimes come home from my trips and find him in the flat with Sarah, but I never had cause to worry about anything because, as I said, Ralph always had a woman with him. There were nights when Ralph and I would go out together for the odd drink and it was on one of these evenings that my world began to fall apart. Just a day or so before, Sarah had announced that she thought that she might be pregnant. When I told Ralph about the pregnancy, a strange look came over his face. "Oh, shit!" was his first comment. Then he said, "What are you going to do? Is Sarah getting an abortion?" For the life of me, I couldn't understand why Ralph would say that. "What, are you insane or something? No, Sarah and I are going to get married ASAP," I replied. Ralph just sat there and stared at me for a few seconds. I could see that something was going around in his mind. "Fuck, oh shit!" he eventually exclaimed. "What's got into you, Ralph? Everyone knows that Sarah and I would get married eventually. When we got around to it." "Oh, bugger!" Ralph said, then sat back in his seat and stared down at the table. After another protracted wait, he spoke again. "Mo, we've been friends since forever, haven't we?" he said. "Yeah, since our school days," I replied. "Look, Mo, I don't know how to say this, but..." Ralph's voice trailed away to nothing. "Say what, Ralph?" I demanded. "Damn, shit, look we've been friends for a long time and I don't want to break up that friendship." There was another break in Ralph's conversation. "Fuck, you're my best friend, but I gotta say something. Fuck, I should have told you the moment Claire told me." "What the fuck are you going on about, Ralph?" I demanded. Ralph looked me straight in the eyes. "Mo, you remember that little blond I was knocking off last month." "Yeah, the bit that went to the gulf," I replied. "Yeah, that's the one. Anyway she told me that... Oh, bugger, you ain't going to be happy about this. Look, Claire told me that she saw Sarah with some guy at a party." "The girl was obviously mistaken, Ralph." "No, she wasn't, Mo. Claire worked for the same company as Sarah before she got that job out in Qatar or wherever it was, somewhere in the Middle East anyway. Claire told me that Sarah had been getting laid by some guy on the top floor for the last year or so." "I don't believe a word of it!" I shouted at Ralph. "Damn it, Mo, it's the truth. Why would Claire want to lie about something like that?" I must have been very angry with Ralph. But then there's an old saying about shooting the purveyor of bad tidings and that came to mind as I crashed my hand down on the table so hard that both of our drinks glasses jumped into the air and crashed to the floor. Ralph took up a defensive pose. "All right, Ralph, don't panic. I'm angry, but not at you. I have difficulty in accepting what you tell me. I love Sarah and I believe that she loves me." "Damn it, Mo, do you think I wanted to tell you. I've been in a quandary ever since Claire told me. Christ, I'm as attached to Sarah almost as much as you are. You'll never know how many times I almost challenged her over it myself. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it; she could have done or said anything to make you believe I was lying. ----------------------- "Just a minute, Maurice," John Caldwell interrupted my diatribe. "This is Ralph Bilger you're talking about here?" "Yeah, why?" I replied. "Have you seen him since you moved away from town?" John asked. "No, I haven't seen anyone much from town, since I moved down here. I was in a bit of a state after all that hoo-ha. I didn't want to be reminded about any of it." I noticed that John looked at his oppo with a strange expression on his face. Obviously something passed between the two men, but god alone knows what. "So you don't know that Sarah got married then?" "Yeah, I heard about that. Some guy we vaguely knew in town, brought his boat in with engine problems a year or so back. His wife recognised me and mentioned that Sarah had married, but she didn't know who to." "And you haven't seen Ralph Bilger since you moved down here? So you don't know where we could find him." "Haven't got the foggiest idea. I wasn't what you might call a nice person to know after I found out the truth. And, Ralph, well they said don't shoot the bearer of bad tidings. But saying and doing are two different things, aren't they? Why are you so interested in Ralph anyway?" There was a slight but discernable pause before John Caldwell answered. "Oh, we're not really. But if we can track him down then maybe we could find this Claire woman." There was another slight pause before John Caldwell added. "Sarah still claims that you are Maureen's father. The Claire woman can point us in another direction then perhaps we can get to the bottom of this all the sooner. Time is of the essence here. Now Ralph had just told you about what Claire had told him." --------------------- "Yeah, I went home that night, determined to challenge Sarah over what Ralph had told me, but she was in bed asleep. For some reason I didn't wake her; by the morning I'd calmed down a lot. Look, I still had trouble believing it was true. Slowly over the next week or so I pushed it to the back of my mind as much as I could. But it sat there and niggled away at me. "You know it had shaken my trust in Sarah. If I challenged her, what we had would have fallen to pieces. So instead I decided I'd spy on her somehow and find out what was going on myself, not that I had much luck. "I discovered that she went to lunch with several different guys from her office. But from what I could see, never alone; always with a bunch of friends. "When I was away Sarah would stay on after work with a crowd of fellow workers and go for a drink, although she only ever drank non-alcoholics drinks, because she was pregnant. She'd sometimes dance with some of her work colleagues, but no one in particular. "Ralph suggested that having got a bun in the oven, she wasn't taking any chances of getting caught. "Somehow whenever the subject of naming the day came up, I managed to change the subject. I know that Sarah got suspicious as to the reason why, but she never voiced those suspicions to me. "We thought..." ------------------------ "Who's the we?" John Caldwell interrupted again. "Ralph and me!" I replied. "Okay, but did you discuss your suspicions with anyone else?" "Yeah, some guy that Ralph knew. Supposed to be a detective, but he couldn't come up with anything more that I had either." "Okay, carry on." ------------------------ "Well, we thought that Sarah was in denial. Whatever she had been getting up to she was pretending that it hadn't happened. Who knows? Perhaps she convinced herself and that's why she insists that I have to be the baby's father, even with all the evidence to the contrary. "Anyway if we were wrong and I was the father of the baby, I'd look pretty stupid, wouldn't I? Look, all I had at the time was the word of one of Ralph's tarts, who I'd never personally spoken to about Sarah's fidelity. It could have been that she'd made a mistake anyway. So Ralph came up with the idea of the DNA test. He was a chemist and had contacts in the laboratories that do that kind of thing. "The day the baby was born Ralph came to the hospital and took a swab on the QT. Then he took a sample from me and, hey, presto! Two days later I knew that the baby wasn't mine. "Sarah wouldn't have it though. Ah, shit, the next month or so was fucking murder. Sarah demanded to know where I got the DNA test done, but I never told her. She demanded another test and that came up with the same result as the first. "Ralph tried to talk her into telling me the truth but she wouldn't have it, so in the end I upped sticks and came down here. "The old CSA folks came after me and a court ordered me to have yet another DNA test, but that must have come up with the same result. And, well ... I've really heard virtually fuck all since. Until you walked in here this evening." ------------------------------ John Caldwell looked at his oppo. "Get the drinks in, Paul. You want a scotch, Maurice? I think you are going to need one." "No, thanks, I'm a rum man." "Sorry, most of you nautical types are." Then he turned back to his friend. "Make it a rum for Maurice, a big one!" John Caldwell put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together in front of his face, rubbing them together slowly. I got the feeling that he had something to tell me but he was waiting for the drinks to arrive first. "Mo, can I ask you some questions?" he eventually asked, when the drinks arrived. On second thoughts he might have been waiting until his friend arrived back at the table as a witness. "Sure!" "When you and Ralph Bilger first met Sarah, did he ask her to go out with him?" "I'm sure he did, but I gather she always turned him down." "Did she like him?" "Well, I think so. Ralph was one good looking fella, and he had the gift of the gab." "Do you know why Sarah never went out with him?" "Not really, probably his reputation I should think. That was always Ralph's big failing back at college; he liked to brag about his conquests. Never did do any of his ex-girls' reputations much good. Maybe Sarah had heard about him. Christ, when he first met her he was telling me he was going to shag the arse off of her." Tennessee Waltz "And he didn't?" "No chance. That was Ralph's problem. He often bragged about what he was going to do before he'd got to first base," I informed them. "But he was sweet on her?" "Oh, yeah, but Ralph had a soft spot for any pretty woman." "And when you finally challenged Sarah about the baby's parentage, did you tell her that Ralph had not only helped you get that DNA test done, but it had been him who had tipped you off about Sarah's so-called indiscretions." "No. We thought it would be a good idea for Ralph to pretend he was neutral and trying to get us back together. We thought there was a chance she might admit it all to him." "And did she?" "Nope. Ralph said she cried a lot, but he always thought that there was something she wouldn't tell him." "And what about what he never told you?" John's friend suddenly asked. "What do you mean by that?" I asked, taken aback that this other guy had entered the conversation. John Caldwell reached into his inside pocket and pulled out some papers. Slowly he unfolded and sorted through them, eventually laying two sheets on the table before me. "You know what these are, don't you, Mo?" he asked. "Sure do; they are DNA results. I should imagine the ones that prove I'm not the baby's father." "Yeah, that's right. But do you know what this is?" John said, placing a further piece of paper in front of me. I looked at it closely. It appeared to be a page from a medical report. Eventually I realised it was part of the medical I'd had when I'd got my job in town. "How did you get hold of this?" I asked. "Illegally, John, I can assure you. But I'd like to draw your attention to this line here. What does it say?" "AB negative," I read out. "And this line here, on this DNA report." "O," I replied. "Here, someone's fucked up somewhere. My blood group can't change." "No, it can't Mo, and that's the point. Now take a look at this piece of paper," John said, passing me yet a fourth sheet. "What is it?" I asked. "A blood donor's record of contributions. What group does it say the donor is?" "O," I read from the sheet. John Caldwell moved his thumb so that I could read the donor's name. I think my eyes almost popped out of my head. I know suddenly I was having trouble breathing. "And just to put the icing on the cake Mo. Sarah married Ralph Bilger three months after you did your disappearing act. She'd always liked him, but she assures me that she only married him because she wanted Maureen to have a father." "But!" was all I could manage to say. "At the time Ralph Bilger was working in the DNA lab. Once he faked the first test, it was easy for him to intercept the other two and switch the results. The clown switched your sample for one of his own. Worked fine until he got pulled over for drink driving." "But how," I was trying to say. "Well, when the CSA demanded another DNA sample from you, you got shirty about it and the police were called in to take charge, remember?" "So!" "Well, following that little altercation, although you weren't charged with anything, your DNA profile went into the police system. But as he was working in the lab that the police use, Ralph Bilger had managed to switch the sample yet again. So when he was nicked for drink driving and Bilger's DNA sample turned up as a match in the system. But confusingly with your name on the top of the sheet; that caused someone to start asking questions. Eventually and completely by chance I got to hear about it. My department looks after security in those laboratories. Of course the name rang a bell straight away." "Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?" "Yes, I believe I am, Maurice. You have a daughter who needs a bone marrow transplant and we need you to allow the doctor here to take a sample to see if you are a full match." Epilogue It was with some trepidation that I knocked on the hotel room door. After his doctor friend had taken smear and blood samples to see if I was a good match for Maureen's bone marrow. Surprisingly it was an activity that appeared to be totally ignored by the other patrons of The Fisherman's Arms. John Caldwell informed me that Sarah was waiting in her room in the Cliff Head Hotel. He suggested that I might want to go and see her. "Jesus, John. She'll probably want to castrate me!" "Yeah, well, she could react that way, but I don't think so somehow. Do you think she'd bother to come all the way down here and then sit patiently waiting in that hotel room until after I'd spoken to you if she was that angry with you? She could have stormed in here and made you look a complete arsehole by shoving that paperwork under your nose in front of all of your friends." "But I," I began to say, but in truth I could not figure out exactly what it was that I wanted to say. "But what? Look, you aren't the first guy in the world to have been taken by a good con artist, Maurice. Maybe you could have been more suspicious of Bilger, but he sounded pretty convincing to me in the interview room. "You've nicked him?" "Too bloody right I have! Interfering with police evidence to start with and we are looking for what else we can throw at him. Sarah kicked him out, of course; she's trying for an annulment. "What? She's divorcing him?" "No, she's trying to get the whole damned marriage annulled and the adoption squashed. Bilger was in the middle of an application to adopt Maureen. Look, Mo, Bilger's a pretty good con artist. He conned Sarah into marrying him for Maureen's sake. Got pretty annoyed when she insisted that your name stay on the birth registry as well, I'm told. That's what originally convinced me that you had to be the father of Sarah's child, no matter what those tests said. Sarah was sticking to her guns, on that one!" "So what do I do now?" I asked no one in particular really. I think I was just voicing my thoughts. "That depends on whether you still love Sarah, Maurice. If you do, get your arse up the Cliff Head and start eating humble pie. Believe me, Sarah still loves you even though she married Bilger. It ain't going to be easy by a long chalk, what with Maureen's leukaemia, but Sarah needs someone to lean on and it strikes me that you're the best candidate for the job." It was sometime before the door opened just a little and two eyes that I didn't recognise appeared around the side of it. "Maurice?" the woman asked. "Yes," I affirmed. "Wait in the lounge, Sarah will come down. Maureen's just got to sleep; we could do without you two waking her up." Then the door closed again. I walked back along the corridor but didn't enter the lift. The lounge, I thought, was a little too public for Sarah and my first meeting. So I sat myself on one of the chairs by the lift's entrance. Maybe five minutes later I heard a room door open and close, then almost immediately Sarah walked into the lift area. She stopped the instant she saw me sitting there and stood staring at me. Sarah was as beautiful as she had always been, although her eyes looked somewhat sunken, most probably with worry about Maureen's health. I got up, trying to think what to say to her as I did so. All I managed to come up with were the three words, "I'm sorry, Sarah!" In the time I took to say them, Sarah closed the gap between us, threw her arms around my neck and began sobbing pitifully on my shoulder. "It's me who should be sorry. I betrayed you when I married him," she sobbed out. I suppose I took Sarah's statement as a 'get out of jail free card.' "He conned the pair of us, Sarah. You can't blame yourself for anything that happened." Luckily I managed not to add "and neither can I blame myself." I have no idea how long we stood there, just holding one another. It was only when the lift arrived and John Caldwell got out of it that time appeared to mean anything at all. "The Lounge bar is pretty empty. Why don't you two go down there and talk?" John suggested. "Or you can have the key to our room." I discovered later the 'our' he was referring to was his wife, whose eyes had appeared around Sarah's bedroom door. Sarah and I entered the lift with our arms around each other's waists. Not something I did consciously, something that seemed to happen automatically, just as if we hadn't been apart for nearly five years. We found a quiet corner of the lounge, where we sat and talked. Not about ourselves; about Maureen, her illness and what the doctors thought they could do about it. We must have talked for an hour or so before John put in another appearance. During that time Sarah mentioned Ralph just a couple of times. Once to say that she thought that he genuinely cared for Maureen and that he'd gone very quiet for some time when bone marrow transplants were first mentioned. Sarah had gotten the feeling that he'd wanted to say something when they'd been told that a near relative was the best chance of a match. The day John had finally turned up at the house to challenge Ralph, he'd come straight out and admitted what he'd done. The big question was would he have done so if John hadn't found out about the switched DNA samples. The question crossed our minds that the drink-driving episode could have been staged on Ralph's part; it would have saved him having to admit his deceit outright to Sarah. But how could he be sure the police would have spotted the deception. Anyway John had arrived to inform us that my presence was being demanded in Sarah and Maureen's room. I gently tapped on the door; John's wife opened it and gestured for me to enter. She must have left as I did so; I walked in to see a very pretty little girl sitting up in one of the beds. "Hello, daddy!" Maureen said, as the door closed behind me. That took me by surprise. Sarah had obviously told her they were coming down to the coast to find her father. But for Maureen to immediately refer to me as daddy took me completely off guard. "Hello, young lady. How are you feeling?" I answered, probably a little formally. "Come and sit here on my bed please, daddy," the child said. That word daddy again, I can tell you it really pulled at the old heartstrings. I sat on the bed wondering just how I'd walked away from the precocious and beautiful young child in the first place. In a manner remarkably like her mother had done to me so many times over the years, Maureen's arms snaked around my neck and she snuggled against my chest. "Are you coming home with mummy and me, daddy?" she asked. "Well, I hope your mother and I can settle our differences and we can get back together, Maureen. But life can't always go as we would wish." Look, damn it, I had little or no experience of young children. I can't help how I spoke to the child that first night. "Oh, please, daddy! Mummy loves you so much," she replied. "Maureen how do you know what your mother feels towards me. After all, I walked out and deserted the two of you," I tried to explain. "You were tricked, by Ralph. Mummy and Uncle John told me all about it. And mummy has always loved you." Maureen extracted herself from my arms long enough to reach for a picture that was beside the bed. "Look, mother has one of these beside her bed as well; she's always had it there even when he was in the house. That's how I knew who you were." The picture Maureen handed me was of Sarah and me together at Uni. I could remember the picture but couldn't recall when it was taken. "Mummy always told me that my daddy was in the photograph, Ralph was her husband. Well, Ralph's gone now so you can come back and be mummy's husband, can't you?" Okay, what do you say to that? A child's logic is very simple. Anyway that isn't exactly how things worked out. Sarah and Maureen came to live with me eventually. There were some issues but they appeared to sort themselves out remarkably quickly. At the time Sarah and I were too busy worrying about Maureen. Anyway later that same evening when Sarah climbed into my bed with me, I do believe most of the important issues solved themselves straight away. God, Sarah nearly killed me with love that night, but that's a story for somewhere else, not here. For those of you wondering, I wasn't a good enough match for Maureen's bone marrow transplant. But my sister's fifteen-year-old daughter was. Maureen is giving birth to her first child herself in a couple of weeks. Let's hope none of her children have the same problems with their family as she had in her childhood. Sarah and me? Well, it was her who insisted that I get around to writing this lot down, as a warning to others. Evidence of any kind, is only as good as the people whose hands it passes through. So make sure that you can trust anyone who comes into contact with any that you rely on. Life goes on.