Free The Summer of Secrets by Alison Lucy Page A

telling you this if there was any way I could do all of it without you knowing? I’m not proud that I don’t really have anywhere to live, that I still depend on you both, but I’m proud to respect my father’s beliefs, I’m proud to be dealing with this like an adult and not sticking my head in the sand or going behind your back. And when someone who wants a baby gets mine, then maybe I will be proud of that too. I’ll be sure to let you know.’
    ‘Whose is it?’ asked her mother. ‘Do you even know?’
    ‘Of course I know,’ said Lucy. ‘But he’s irrelevant.’
    ‘Charming.’
    ‘I don’t mean it like that, it was just that he and I...’ How could she explain how things had been left between them, how some of the sweetest days of her life had soured overnight so badly that it had come to this?
    ‘Does he know?’ said her father.
    She shook her head. ‘He told me that he never wanted to see me again. He told me to forget he existed.’
    ‘Who is this person? Nobody talks to you like that, I don’t care how you behave.’ His face flushed and he gripped the stem of his wineglass so tightly that his knuckles were white and shiny.
    ‘Patrick, calm down.’
    ‘Daddy, it wasn’t like you think. I broke his heart.’
    ‘You should tell him.’
    How could she tell him when she didn’t have anything for him except a last known location? She couldn’t call him, or write him a letter. There were no postmen or telephones on the island. Cancun was thousands of miles from where they were now. There was only one way she could think of but she wasn’t prepared to go back. She never wanted to see the island again for as long as she lived.
    ‘He’s irrelevant,’ she said firmly. ‘I know what I want to do.’
    Her mother looked strangely gleeful as if pleased that her wayward daughter had finally got herself into a mess, but her father looked very sad. She had prepared herself for his anger, but not for this hangdog expression that was as wistful as it was miserable.
    ‘Daddy?’
    He was twisting his hands around the spot where his wedding ring used to be. ‘I would help you,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I would help you to raise the baby, the child.’ He spoke with purpose, this wasn’t a casual offer. Lucy didn’t know what to say. ‘He, or she, is a part of this family, our family, not some other family,’ he continued. ‘And as dysfunctional as our family might be, we have the money, plenty of money, and surely between us we can muddle though the know-how. I would help you, that’s all, if things changed.’
    ‘She’s made up her mind, Patrick.’
    ‘She has...how long do you have, Lucy? When is the baby due?’
    ‘In the summer. July’
    Her mother sighed deeply, no doubt imagining the disruption this scandal would cause to her summer season.
    ‘She has seven months to think about it,’ he said. ‘We all do.’
    ‘I won’t change my mind,’ said Lucy.
    ‘We’ll see. Now, let’s order some champagne. We should be celebrating.’
    ‘I can’t drink!’ said Lucy, and she smiled, just a fraction. ‘The baby.’
    ‘You do care a little then?’ said her father. ‘You do care a bit?’

Esmeralda
    Esmeralda’s mother, Catalina, came to Cancun looking for love, but the train journey there alone almost killed her. In the cramped train carriage she clutched her little boy, Ray, close to her and prayed that by the time they reached the edge of the country they would both still be alive. What little air there was to breathe was damp with sweat and the stench of chicken shit was overpowering. One of the chickens had died in the wooden crate near her feet. The others had started to peck at it but there was little that either she or the old man who owned the chickens could do. It was two days now since Veracruz, a journey so beset with delays that she had prayed many times to San Cristobal for their safe passage.
    Ray whimpered with thirst and she pressed a bottle to his lips, aware that