Page 77 of Storm in a D Cup

What else did I expect? Of course he had to adopt her. She was his kid. ‘OK,’ I said. As if he’d asked for my opinion. Which, I believe, he should have, even if in the end he was going to do what he wanted.

‘Not OK,’ Julian corrected me. ‘Genie Stacie is making it very difficult. She says that unless I move back to Los Angeles, I won’t be a present father figure to Joey, so I might as well forget about seeing her, which would only upset Joey.’

The right royal cow. ‘So now what happens?’

‘I’ve no choice. On Monday I’m going to follow Genie Stacie and Joey back to the States – and get myself that lawyer. I can’t not see my daughter, Erica.’

‘Of course. I’m behind you all the way. You have my full support. I promise you that, Julian.’

‘Thank you, Erica,’ he whispered, but neither of us could bring ourselves to hug the other. It was much too awkward, now.

*

Even if Julian hadn’t confirmed it officially to the world, Terry’s advice was a terse ‘No comment’. No comment? I wished it had been that easy for me. Or that it would be for the kids. Because if Warren had accepted the news serenely enough, Maddy was completely shocked.

‘What?’ she’d shrieked as the tears immediately formed in her eyes. ‘Dad, she’s lying. Genie Stacie’s lying! She must have slept with hundreds of men. Joey’s dad could be anybody!’

‘Honey, there’s no mistake. I took a DNA test,’ Julian whispered, taking Maddy’s hands as I wiped my eyes in silence. This was something he had to do on his own, for once.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she screamed flinging his hands off, and flew out of the room.

‘I’ll sort her out,’ Warren offered when I made to go after her. ‘For what it’s worth, Dad, finding out you got your girlfriend pregnant, I understand how you feel.’

‘Thanks, son. I appreciate it.’

‘Us guys have got to stick together. There’s no telling what the opposite sex will pull on us, right?’

Ha. That was rich. But as promised, I kept out of it all.

As Warren went to check on Maddy, Julian glanced at me miserably. ‘I fucked up,’ he whispered.

Oh yes you did, was my first reaction. But I clamped down on it. He didn’t deserve it, really, did he?

‘It’ll be OK,’ assured him. ‘She’s just a bit shell-shocked. But she likes Joey. She’ll come round.’

‘You think?’

‘Just give her some time. Give us all time.’Like, maybe, a million years or so.

Because I thought it would be OK. I said it would, to Julian. I’d told him I’d support him. It had taken a huge chunk out of me to make myself OK with it, when really, I was full of doubts. Was it Genie Stacie’s existence that made it all impossible? Because if I could have Joey under our roof, I’d do my best to help her. And despite my kids’ sense of loss right now, I knew that they would rally and form a protective shield around Joey. She would no doubt become one of them. But Genie Stacie? Genie Stacie was a different proposition. I could never accept her. Not in a million years. But for Julian’s sake, and for my kids’ sake, I would make it easier on all of us.

A few days later, Maddy seemed to have calmed down. She no longer burst into unexpected tears out of the blue as she had until now, and instead was subdued, responding softly to Julian’s approaches, as if she was afraid to lose him completely despite his assuring her that she would not. Which would be interesting to see how he was going to do that all the way from L.A. while tending to his new-found daughter.

But when a few days later Maddy missed her curfew, Julian went into a panic.

‘I should have found a different way to tell her,’ he fretted. ‘I should have assured her more. God knows where she is, if she’s OK…’

‘She’s fine. She’s just doing this to piss you off.’

‘You think?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Because it’s getting late. It’s not enough to know where she is; she needs to come home when she’s told. Maybe we should retract this lenient parenting style…?’

Oh, so all of a sudden he was an expert in this field? I bit my tongue. No, I would take the high road.

‘Julian, you have to give her some slack. Up until yesterday she was your only, beloved daughter and now she sees her position being threatened.’ How good was I at analyzing everyone else around me? ‘I mean, even… IVF. Do you think they were happy about that? And that was just an idea, a germ of a kid, as opposed to Joey, a fully fledged person that you can’t ignore or deny.’

Julian stopped and his eyes narrowed in an uncustomary expression of… almost animosity. ‘Well, I can’t throw my only blood daughter out the window, can I now?’

My head snapped back at his stance. I understood he was still in shock too, but really? Was this the way he wanted to go? Because it wasn’t leading anywhere good.

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