‘Mhmm … I think you call Jake, and I think you brush your teeth and comb this hair and wash your face too.’
‘Okay, Coach.’ Ella tried to make her lips smile, and then discovered the smile wasn’t so hard to find because Erik mattered too, and always would.
* * *
The whole thing struck Jake as remarkably like a séance. Any second now someone would light the candles and they’d all join hands around the table and perhaps they’d see if they could raise the ghost of Sam’s father because they couldn’t produce the real one.
Not that he was wishing death on Marshall Wentworth.
Well, not really.
Jake sat across from Erik with Ella on his left and Sam to his right, and so far no one had said a word.
It would be a pretty sad séance, all things considered, if it came to joining hands. Erik only had one hand to bring to the mix, and one of Sam’s was in a cast.
Ella’s were under the table, no doubt wringing in her lap.
‘I’m so sorry, Sam,’ Ella said, and Jake could have sworn all four of them sighed with relief that someone got brave enough to make a sound. ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about your real dad, and that you had to find out the way it happened last night. That was really unfair on you. It was awful for you.’
Sam’s gaze stayed on the fruit bowl in the centre of the table. All that was in there were four lemons.
Ella filled her lungs with new air. ‘You can ask me anything you want to know, Sam, and I’ll tell you, okay? Give me a clue about where you need me to start.’
Sam said nothing.
‘Come on, mate. You can’t count lemons forever,’ Jake said, leaning over to nudge the boy’s shoulder.
‘Okay then,’ Sam said, chin jutting forward, blond hair scrambling across his eye, ‘I want to know, who is my real dad? I know he’s a swimmer. Is it Kieren Perkins?’
Ella’s hands danced out from her lap to alight like butterflies on the table. ‘No. Not Kieren, Sammy.’
‘Well, who then?’
‘Do you know Marshall Wentworth from the telly? When we watched the swimming at the Rio Olympics, he had the microphone a lot of the time. He was commentating.’
‘Maybe.’ Sam screwed up his face in concentration. ‘Not really.’
‘Marshall and your mum were members of my swimming squad when they met,’ Erik said.
His comment surprised Jake because till then the big German had sat there like a block of granite, except when he looked at Sam or at Ella. Then the granite softened and he could have been butter.
Ella seemed surprised to hear from Erik too.
‘Did you love him?’ Sam asked Ella. ‘This Marshall guy … my dad … did you love him?’
‘Yes. I thought he was great,’ Ella said. ‘He was an amazing swimmer. He could swim like a fish. He was very tall and handsome.’
A jealous spike snuck through Jake’s guard, and his gaze cut to Ella’s face. Then he felt better, because it was clear Ella was using language geared to make sure Sam understood. Then Jake got it, too, as clear as if someone had shouted it in his ear. Ella wasn’t going to run Sam’s dad down. She wouldn’t do that, no matter what Marshall had done to her then, or how much he cost her now.
‘Why didn’t he want me, Mum? Why did my dad go so far away?’ Sam burst out with so much anguish that when Jake looked at Ella and Erik, leaning forward towards their boy, eyes wet with tears, damned if he didn’t feel a prickle up the top of his nose too.
‘It wasn’t you Marshall didn’t want, Sam. It was me,’ Ella said. ‘Your dad didn’t want me. Not you.’
‘We both love you, Sam, me and your mother,’ Erik said. ‘I wish and wish and wish every day that you would be my real son. I think of you like you are my real boy always.’
‘Erik was with me in the hospital the day you were born, Sammy,’ Ella said.
‘It is the very best day in my life,’ Erik vowed.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? If you told me, I could have written Dad a letter. I could have told him where I was and he could find me,’ Sam said.
Ella leaned across the table, reaching around the four lemons in the fruit bowl. It was like watching a snail strike out for the south pole—Sam could have been that distant. Jake wasn’t sure if he’d leave his hand where it was or snatch it away.
He left it there, and Ella’s fingers clasped his.
‘If you want to see your dad, I will do everything I can to make that happen, Sam, okay? As long as I can get through to him—and you need to be patient because he’s a famous man and it might take a while—’
‘Erik is famous,’ Sam said belligerently. ‘You were famous.’
‘Your dad is a bit different kind of famous, Sammy,’ Ella said, not letting go of Sam’s fingers, ‘and it is a long time since I spoke with him, okay? You know how sometimes if you don’t see a friend in school for a long time, you can think sometimes that they aren’t your friend anymore, and you might not know what to say to them? I will just have to work out what I can say.’
‘Can’t I write to him? Couldn’t I Skype him?’ Sam asked.
Ella nodded. ‘You can write to him. You could maybe draw a picture? We could send some photos of you as a baby and growing up. But, Sam, first I will write to him, okay? To explain who you are so he knows. And there is something they do these days called DNA—’
‘Like in mosquitos in Jurassic Park,’ Sam interrupted.
‘Kind of like that. We might do that for you too. Your dad might like to have that.’
Jake didn’t think Sam understood DNA, beyond the mosquitos and the dinosaurs, but in the
