To Make a Marriage(31)

He gave another deep sigh. 'It's been buried inside me for so long-! Would you like to sit down again?' he invited.

Maybe she had better; she didn't want to fall down!

'There,' she told him once she was back in her chair, looking up at him expectantly.

'Right. Well. To start at the beginning, we have to go back thirty-five years-'                       
       
           



       

'Thirty-five years?' Andie echoed incredulously. 'But you would only have been four at the time!'

'Yes,' he agreed, no longer looking at her, no longer looking at  anything it seemed, his expression blank, his thoughts all inwards.

If this thing-whatever it was-went back to when Adam was four, then this  couldn't possibly be anything to do with her mother. Or Glenda Howarth  either, that Andie could see … ?

'I was four,' Adam confirmed gruffly. 'And so was my-my brother. Harry.'

Andie had never known he had a brother, let alone-

Twins! If Adam and Harry had both been four, then that meant they had to  be twins. The twin connection in Adam's family that he had told her  about.

But where was Harry now?

Adam looked at her with pained eyes. 'Harry is dead.'

Andie's gasp of dismay caught and held in her throat at Adam's next comment.

'And I killed him.'

She stared across at him with incredulous green eyes. He couldn't have  just said- He had been four years old, for goodness' sake!

'Oh, not with my own bare hands,' Adam assured her bitterly. 'But I was still responsible for his death.'

Andie swallowed hard, shaking her head. 'I'm not sure a four-year-old  has enough awareness of life to be held responsible for anything, let  alone-let alone-Adam-'

'No, don't touch me!' he instructed harshly as she would have stood up and gone to him.

Andie subsided back into her chair. But only because he'd asked her to.  What she most wanted to do was cradle him in her arms while he told her  the rest of what he felt he had to say.

Adam turned away, swallowing convulsively. 'Harry was my identical twin  to look at, but we were completely different in personality. I was the  extrovert, the outgoing one. Harry was shy, liked to sit quietly looking  at books. But at the same time, he would always follow where I led. My  mother-our mother,' he amended, 'was twenty when we were born. We never  knew our father. They were married, but he-he walked out when he found  out they were expecting twins. Too much responsibility, I suppose.' Adam  took a gulp of air. 'By the time we were six months old our mother had  begun to go out in the evenings. She couldn't afford to pay for  babysitters,' he added bitterly as Andie would have spoken. 'By the time  we were three, she was out almost every night. I was left in charge,  because I was the oldest-'

'By how much?' Andie gasped, horrified at what he was telling her. She  had read about things like this in the newspapers, of course, but had  never guessed that this could be Adam's childhood.

'Five minutes,' Adam answered flatly. 'Anyway, one night, when we were  four, our mother had gone out as usual, and-the money ran out in the  electricity meter.' He moistened dry lips. 'I couldn't find any money to  put in it, so I-I lit a candle in our bedroom. Harry had never liked  the dark, and I-I fell asleep!' he continued emotionally. 'The candle  must have fallen over, caught the curtains alight, and within minutes  the place was an inferno. I couldn't find Harry amongst the smoke! I  looked and I looked, but I couldn't find him. Then a neighbour burst in  and carried me out. I never saw Harry again.'

Andie's sob caught in her throat. How horrible. How absolutely, heartbreakingly horrible. For Adam.

'By the time my mother returned from her evening out, our apartment was  burnt beyond recognition. And Harry was dead,' Adam said numbly.

A sudden-shocking!-truth hit Andie like a lightning bolt. Glenda  Howarth, still beautiful but older than she actually looked, was Adam's  mother!

Andie didn't know how she knew, couldn't even have said where the idea had come from. But she knew it with blinding certainty.

Andie stood up, determined to go to Adam now whether he wanted her to or  not, putting her hand tentatively on the rigidness of his arm. 'Glenda  Howarth is your mother, isn't she, Adam?' Andie said evenly.

His mouth twisted with distaste. 'She is,' he confirmed. 'And I've hated her from the day Harry died.'

Andie felt choked. She understood his feelings, even while she ached with the pain he must have suffered at his twin's death.

She also understood now why he was so determined to be a good and loving  father to his own children. Even if he couldn't love their mother, he  would love and take care of his children.



Adam looked searchingly at Andie. He knew she was tender-hearted enough  to empathise with his trauma at Harry's death. It was his mother that  was the real skeleton in his cupboard. After all that had happened, all  the years of hating her, she was still his mother. Much as he hated it,  her blood ran in his veins.                       
       
           



       

He had decided very early in his life that he would never love anyone  again. When his mother had come back into his life fifteen years ago, he  had known it was the right decision; how could he ever offer any woman  Glenda as a mother-in-law? Certainly not Andie, who had only ever known  love and sunshine in her own life.

He grasped Andie's arms now, putting her firmly away from him, still not  sure how this conversation was going to turn out. 'It was so hard for  me to believe Harry was really gone. He was the other half of myself.'  His expression softened. 'You would have liked him, Andie-'

'Don't!' she choked, tears glistening on her lashes.

'No,' he accepted heavily. 'It doesn't help, does it? I go to his grave  sometimes, talk to him, but that doesn't help, either.' He swallowed  hard.

'I'll come with you next time,' Andie told him huskily.

'We can tell him about our own twins. He would probably like that.'

She understood that, at least! He had hoped that she would, but been so afraid that she wouldn't … !

'It's been so long since I was able to share Harry with anyone,' he admitted, his own throat choked with tears.

'Your mother understood, but-'

'My mother?' Andie repeated. 'She knew about all this?'

'I told her,' he admitted, sensing a sudden distance widening between  Andie and himself. A distance he didn't understand. 'Your mother was one  of the most beautiful people I have ever known, gave me back my belief  in human love and kindness, a belief that had been missing from my life  for so many years-'

'Adam, I don't want to hear how you felt about my mother!' Andie protested emotionally.

He blinked his surprise at her vehemence. 'But-'

'If we're to stand any chance of building a future together, Adam-and I  believe from this conversation that you still want that-then it has to  be with no emotional baggage,' Andie told him firmly. 'Oh, I don't mean  Harry,' she assured pleadingly at his pained frown. 'Losing Harry, an  identical twin, must have been like losing half of yourself.'

'Worse,' he confirmed bleakly. 'We were so close we could finish each  other's sentences, read each other's minds. After Harry died I  completely withdrew into myself, refused to speak. To anyone. There was  an inquest on Harry's death, of course, a social services report on my  mother.' He looked steadily at Andie. 'The report showed that my  mother's evenings out were spent with a number of different men. Men who  gave her money.'

He watched as the truth dawned on Andie, the absolute horror on her face.

His mother, selfish, irresponsible, totally incapable of caring for  anyone but herself, had been little better than a prostitute!

Oh, no one had actually used that word at the time, and Adam wouldn't  have understood what it meant if they had, but he hadn't even been in  his teens when he had worked out for himself that was what his mother  had actually been. There was no denying the fact that the men his mother  had seen had been on a regular basis, but the plain truth of the matter  was, his mother had taken money from those men. Which made her only one  thing in his eyes.

In Andie's eyes too … ?

This was what he had dreaded Andie finding out: the horrible truth about his mother …

He was unable to look at Andie now. Frightened of what he might see in her face!

'The authorities decided that Glenda wasn't a fit mother to look after  me. But with typical selfishness, my mother refused to even think of  agreeing to adoption, so I was put into care-'

'No!' Andie protested brokenly.

He gave a humourless smile. 'It was the best thing anyone could have  done for me. Away from her, from the place where Harry and I had known  such unhappiness, I at last began to respond to people, to talk again.  On the few occasions when my mother came to visit I refused to see her.  Her birthday and Christmas presents were always sent back unopened,  until she finally stopped sending them.' He at last explained the lack  of them in his childhood; it had been an act of deliberate denial on his  part! 'In fact, I didn't see her again until I was twenty-five or so.  When I had begun to make a name for myself-and obviously money, too!-as a  film producer,' he explained bitterly.