Sister

His fingers stroked my palm, gently; too softly at first for me to believe that this was really a gesture of attraction. But as he continued, I knew, hardly believing it, that there was no mistake.

I took my hand away from his. His face looked disappointed, but his voice sounded kind. “I’m not a very good bet, am I?”

Still astonished, and more than flattered, I went to the door.

Why did I leave that room, with its possibilities? Because even if I could ignore the morality of his being married—not insurmountable, I realized—I knew it wouldn’t be long-term or secure or anything else I wanted and needed. It would be a moment of passion, nothing more, and afterward a heavy emotional debt would be exacted from me. Or maybe it was simply him calling me Bee. A name that only you used. A name that made me remember who I had been for so many years. A name that didn’t do this.

So I closed the door behind me and stayed wobbling but still upright on my narrow moral tightrope. Not because I was highly principled. But because I again chose safety rather than risk short-term happiness.

On the road a little way from the hospital I waited for a night bus. I remembered how strong his arms had felt when he’d hugged me that time, and the gentleness of his fingers as he’d stroked my palm. I imagined his arms around me now and the warmth of him, but I was alone in the dark and the cold, regretting now my decision to leave, regretting that I was a person who would always, predictably, leave.

I turned to go back, even started walking a few steps, when I thought I heard someone, just a few feet away. There were two unlit alleys leading off the road, or maybe he was crouching behind a parked car. Preoccupied before, I hadn’t noticed that there were virtually no cars on the road, and no one on the pavements. I was alone with whoever was watching me.

I saw a black cab, without a light on, and stuck out my hand, praying he would stop for me, which he did, chastising me for being on my own in the middle of the night. I spent money I no longer had on him driving me all the way home. He waited until I was safely inside the flat before driving off.

Mr. Wright looks at me with concern, and I’m aware of how ill I feel. My mouth is as dry as parchment. I drain the glass of water his secretary has left for me. He asks if I’m okay to carry on, and I say yes because I find it reassuring to be with him and because I don’t want to be on my own in the flat. “Did you think about the man following Tess?” asks Mr. Wright.

“Yes. But it was a sense of someone watching me, and a sound, I think, because something alerted me, but I didn’t actually see anyone.”

He suggests we get a sandwich and go into the park for a working picnic. I think it’s because I’m becoming groggy and inarticulate, and he hopes that a spell outside will wake me up. He picks up the tape recorder. It never occurred to me that it might be portable.

We get to St. James’s Park, which looks like that scene from Mary Poppins, all blossom and buds and blue sky with white meringue clouds. Office workers are splayed over the grass, turning the park into a beach without a sea. We walk side by side, closely, along a path looking for somewhere less crowded. His kind face is looking at mine, and I wonder if he can feel my warmth as I feel his.

A woman with a double stroller comes toward us and we have to go single file. On my own for a few moments I feel a sudden sense of loss, as if the warmth has gone from the left-hand side of my body now that he isn’t there. It makes me think of lying on a cold concrete floor, on my left side, feeling the chill of it go into me, hearing my heart beat too fast, unable to move. I’m panicking, fast-forwarding the story, but then he’s beside me again and we get back in step and I’ll return to the correct sequence.

We find a quiet spot and Mr. Wright spreads out a rug for us to sit on. I am touched that when he saw blue sky this morning, he thought ahead to a picnic in the park with me.

He switches on the tape recorder. I pause a moment while a group of teenagers walks past, then I begin.

“Kasia woke up when I got in, or maybe she’d been waiting up for me. I asked her if she could remember the doctor who’d given her the injection.”

She pulled your dressing gown around herself.

“I don’t know name,” she said. “Is there problem?”

“Was he wearing a mask; is that why you don’t know?”

“Yes, a mask. Something bad? Beata?”

Her hand moved unconsciously to her bump. I just couldn’t frighten her.

“Everything’s fine. Really.”

But she’s too astute to be fobbed off so easily. “You said Tess baby not ill. Not have CF. When you came to flat. When you ask Mitch to get tested.”

I hadn’t realized that she’d really understood. She’d probably been brooding about it ever since but hadn’t questioned me, presumably trusting me to tell her if there was something she needed to know.

“Yes, that’s true. And I’m trying to find out more. But it’s nothing to do with you. You and your baby are going to be fine, right as rain.”

She smiled at “right as rain,” an expression that she’d recently learned, a smile that seemed forced, on cue for me.

I gave her a hug. “You really will be all right. Both of you. I promise.”

I couldn’t help you and Xavier, but I would help her. No one was going to hurt her or her baby.

A little way away the teenagers are playing a game of softball, and I wonder for a moment what the person who listens to these tapes will make of the background noises of the park, the laughter