There was something defensive in her reply, as though she expected me to have an opinion about her already. I recognised her shift in attitude. It was the same one I felt when someone said to me, ‘Ah, you’re Nico’s wife…’ ending the statement with a little gasp of relief that they’d managed to omit ‘new/second/latest’ from the sentence.
I stood there for a moment, my brain like a pinball zinging around the machine, triggering a raft of bonus points. I knew why I thought I recognised Ben. He was the spitting image of Massimo. I pursed my lips together to stop that particular thought blurting out into the air before I’d had time to process it properly. But not before I’d glanced over to where he was walking up the steps to the cafe, the very set of his shoulders, the way his arms swung at his side, a smaller, slighter version of Massimo.
A look of weary resignation passed over her face. ‘He told you I didn’t want children, didn’t he?’
I didn’t want to be disloyal to Massimo with a woman I’d only met for five minutes, even if her natural warmth made me think that in other circumstances we could easily find ourselves comparing how many men we’d been to bed with over a few vodkas and lemonade.
While I stood there trying to field an answer that kept family loyalty intact without telling a fat lie, Dawn’s eyes filled with tears.
She swiped at her face. ‘Sorry. I should never have come over. I couldn’t resist it when I heard Francesca’s name. I’m my own worst enemy. I keep thinking that it can’t get to me any more.’
‘I assume Ben is Massimo’s son?’
Dawn gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, there’s a bit of a family resemblance, isn’t there? Right chip off the old block.’
‘Does he know he has a son?’
The woman’s face twisted into something harsh. ‘Of course he knows. If he’d had his own way, he wouldn’t have one, but he does. Not that he’s ever had anything to do with him.’
‘I thought Massimo was desperate for children,’ I said, thinking back to every conversation I’d had with Lara about how quickly she’d got pregnant after they got married, how much Massimo wanted a second child.
‘Massimo did want children. He insisted on me having a private scan early before we told anyone I was expecting.’
Sam’s dad had handed me a hundred quid in grubby ten-pound notes, saying, ‘Up to you what you do, but I’m not really father material,’ before he disappeared off.
I was just thinking I would have loved someone to be interested enough to pay for an early scan when Dawn said, ‘The scan showed a high probability of a heart problem so he made me swear to keep my pregnancy a secret. He didn’t want a “defective” child, as he put it. I wanted to keep the baby no matter what, but he was furious, insisting that I’d have to have an abortion if the twenty-week scan confirmed the problem.’
I didn’t want to believe her. Massimo – the man who taught Sam new football tricks, who got up early to give Francesca extra swimming training before he went to work – forcing his wife to abort their baby? It was like she was talking about someone else entirely, not the man who waved me in for coffee, who greeted me with extravagant kisses on the cheek, who always asked about my latest tailoring commissions, one of the few people who didn’t treat my sewing business as something I dabbled in when I had a spare moment or two.
‘But Ben’s okay, isn’t he?’
Dawn’s face softened. ‘He is now. He had several operations when he was little.’
‘So Massimo came round to your way of thinking?’ I felt as though I was trying to jam the last piece of a puzzle into the only remaining hole yet finding that it didn’t fit. I couldn’t remember anyone, ever, mentioning that Dawn had been pregnant. I sieved through all those conversations, with Massimo, with Anna, with Lara. I could only recall the phrase: ‘She didn’t want children.’
A fresh tear trailed down Dawn’s face. ‘He was so adamant I’d have to get rid of the baby that I walked out the day before the next scan. He’d have got his own way in the end, no one can stand up to Massimo. I just kept driving. We ended up in Newcastle. I decided he wouldn’t be able to find me there until after the baby was born.’
My head filled with images of Massimo sneering at any mention of Dawn, always pointing out how selfish she was. But here she was, right in front of me, telling me how she fought to have that baby, walked away from her life out of fear that Ben might be taken from her before he was even born.
She paused, emotion clouding her face. ‘Massimo’s not the sort of man you can have a sensible discussion with. He wouldn’t accept a child who wasn’t perfect. His way or the highway. Just like that mother of his.’