That last came out almost accusingly as Sidonie recalled how persuasive he’d been and how easily she’d capitulated.
‘I knew my aunt was okay—she was on holiday with a group she travels with every year...’
Alexio’s voice was hard. ‘My solicitor put the seed of suspicion in my head. I refused to believe the worst, though. I told him that. I was angry with myself for even asking him to investigate you.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I went looking for you. I was going to confess what I’d done and ask you about it...and that’s when I overheard part of your conversation.’
Sidonie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her for a moment at hearing this. When she could speak she admitted, ‘I can appreciate how damning that conversation must have been to hear, but my aunt was in hysterics. Someone had fed her with horror stories of being repossessed and worse. I knew she wouldn’t feel placated with any reassurances that I’d be there to take her burden. You’ve met her—you can see for yourself what she’s like. I knew she’d only understand something emphatic like someone else saving us. She wouldn’t have believed that I could get jobs and pay off the debts over time unless I was physically there to reassure her.’
Sidonie cringed when she thought of how she’d told her aunt He’s crazy about me and looked down.
‘I panicked and said the first thing I thought of.’
She looked up and Alexio’s face was unreadable. Sidonie hated the suspicion that he still didn’t fully believe her. But then he came and sat down on a chair near the couch and looked at her.
‘Will you tell me what happened with your mother?’
Sidonie was about to blurt out that it was none of his business and then she felt those delicate flutters in her abdomen again. Their daughter. He had a right to the full story.
She sighed deeply. She’d never told anyone about this before. Feeling it might be easier to talk without Alexio’s cool gaze on her, Sidonie stood up and went to the window, arms hugging her midriff.
‘She was born in the suburbs. She and my aunt had an extremely impoverished upbringing. Their father ran out on my grandmother, leaving her to raise two daughters on her own—one with special needs My grandmother had drink problems...mental health issues...depression. Neglect was a feature of their lives. She died when my mother was about seventeen. She had to look after Tante Josephine full-time then...which she resented. She was young and bright. Beautiful. She craved opportunities beyond the grim reality of the suburbs.’
Sidonie turned round.
‘My mother never told me much, but Tante Josephine’s told me enough for me to know that it was pretty tough. When my mother was twenty she won a local beauty competition. Part of the prize was a trip to Dublin for the next round. She went and never came back, leaving my aunt to fend for herself on social protection in their mother’s flat. That’s why my father bought her the apartment when he could. He always felt sorry for her—for how my mother had treated her...’
Shame rose up within Sidonie but she forced it down and kept looking at Alexio, determined not to allow her mother’s shame to be her shame.
‘My father was the married man my mother had the affair with—not the man she ended up marrying. He owned the language school where she’d signed up to do an English course with the prize money from the competition. When he found out she was pregnant he dumped her. She never forgave him for it. My stepfather met my mother around the same time. He was crazy about her and stepped in and offered to marry her.’