Twenty years later

"Have you heard?" Janie sounded out of breath as she stormed into my flat.

My heart sank.

'Please, don't let it be my Dad!' I prayed silently.

It wasn't unusual for Janie to turn up unannounced, although it meant a thirty-minute drive for her to get to Blue Church. But she wasn't usually prone to theatrics.

"Are... Are my parents alright?" I stammered.

Janie squeezed me so tight, I felt my ribs protest.

"Of course, they are, stupid! I wouldn't invade your abode in this unabashed manner if they weren't!" Her long blond hair was doing a great impression of a flying saucer as she shook her head. "But... da da da dum... Are you ready for this? Clayton has snuffed it. He is dead. All very sudden, too."

Janie had become a journalist. Her original dream involved the national newspapers, but marriage and children had shifted her priorities, and she now enjoyed the much quieter life of covering the local news. But those weren't just about the next meeting of the local rabbit breeding club or church events. Janie knew everything that happened in a 50-mile radius, often before it had even happened. This time she seemed to be certain that the event had actually taken place.

"Clayton Bowers is dead?" Despite knowing that I had been told on good authority, I couldn't believe it. "I saw him on TV just yesterday. Something about the law and the papers harassing his family. The usual. But he looked healthy like a horse."

"Like I said, very sudden."

"A competitor, maybe?" I asked.

"You and your imagination!" Janie laughed. "It'd be great if the world worked like the novels and had meted out retribution to good old Clay. But in all likelihood, it was a heart attack that took him out rather than a bullet." Then she sobered. "Will you tell Hayley?"

I sank onto my settee, thinking back to that fateful day I found out Hayley was on the way. Twenty years had passed since then.

I had been lucky. My family had supported me from day one. I don't know why I had even questioned this for a second. Still, it had not been an easy ride, and it had left its mark on my daughter Hayley and me.

"Why would I, Janie? She doesn't even know that he was her grandfather."

"She suspects, though. I am sure of it. And she has a right to know." Janie's voice became very gentle.

Janie had always disagreed with my decision to keep my daughter in the dark about her father. But she also knew how I had struggled with Jaxson's absence before and after Hayley's birth despite my family's support, something for which I will be eternally grateful.

Audrey and my mother had taken it in turns to watch Hayley while I had studied to become a teacher. Audrey had married a great guy and had had two amazing boys not too long after Hayley had been born. Lamonte and Nolan had adopted Hayley as their big sister and the three were closer than ever now that Hayley had moved away from the much smaller community of Blue Church to Newbridge where she studied law, where we both originally came from and where all our family lived.

"The commute is too much, Mum," she had announced three months ago. "Lamonte is flat-sharing with three other students. They still have one room available. Please, Mum, can I move in with them? The local supermarket has offered me a part-time job, so I can pay the rent. And I can go and see Nan and Papa all the time and make sure that they are okay."

I had known she had been buttering me up, but it had worked. My father was getting a little frail a little too early, and Hayley loved him to bits. She'd make good on her promise, I knew that. Plus, Hayley was old enough to start into her life on her own. Unbelievably, I had already been a mother when I was her age.

I had also known the real reason Hayley wanted to get away from Blue Church. She hated it here, away from the family that she loved so much. What Blue Church offered her instead, were suspicions about her parental family line.

As I said, so far, I hadn't had the heart to tell her about her father, but my inquiries about Jaxson's whereabouts here in Blue Church years ago had given rise to suspicion and had been powering the rumour mill in certain circles of this place ever since.

Just a few days before she moved in with her cousins, Hayley had freaked out because a friend of a friend had suggested there might be blood ties between her and the local mob.

"I have nothing to do with those bloody people, Mum! I mean, I'm a Winters, not a Bowers. I wasn't even born in this freaking town. I don't understand why people would say these things about me? I've never been in conflict with the law and I have never even met any members of the deplorable Bowers clan."

My heart had broken all over again, listening to her rant. I had always wanted Jaxson to be in her life, now I shuddered to think what would happen in the unlikely event that he would ever turn up again.

"You're right, Janie, as always," I conceded. "But I know that she'll hate me if I tell her the truth now. I lied to her, Jane. Not just little white lies, but big fat ones, about not knowing who her father was, about the reason why we even moved to Blue Church, about her not being related to the local mob."

To Janie's credit, she did not come out with the Told-you-so's. Instead, she answered, "Hayley will come around again in the end, believe me. She might sometimes seem a little stand-offish, but she loves you, babe. She told me that just the other day, I swear, and about how much she respects you for all the things you've achieved as a single parent and the sacrifices you've made because of her. Maybe it is that lie that stands between you two. Who knows?"

I nodded, thinking about what to tell my daughter and hoping she'd understand what I had done. I prayed she would see that ignorance can really be bliss.

I thought that maybe I could start by trying to make her see how much her father had meant to me, even if it sounded like a sordid whirlwind romance to the rest of the world. I could tell her that I had gone to Blue Church after I had found out about my pregnancy despite my family's warning not to stir up the hornet's nest because all I had wanted was for Jaxson to realise what a mistake he had made when he had let me go. But my hope had been crushed, when I had turned up in his hometown to find out some troublesome news.

The first thing I had learned was that Jaxson had disappeared. He was gone. Apparently, he had been there the one day, gone the next. Poof! He hadn't left a letter or told anyone where or why he was leaving.

The second thing I had learned was that Jaxson's family was deep into local organised crime, with his father being the right-hand man of a weapons-running and drug-dealing monster called Jeff Peinelt, a man who controlled half the town. I had also learned that Jaxson and his older brother and younger sister had been used as errand boys and girl for the very illegal business Peinelt & Those-in-his-Pocket from the time they were able to walk on their own. They had done mostly small-time stuff, which had occasionally turned into big time, violent, I-have-a-gun-in-my-face stuff. In Germany, I had seen what looked like a nasty knife wound on his chest but in my naivety had believed he had been involved in an accident of some sort. 

A resident of Blue Church close to Jaxson who wanted to remain unnamed told me that Jaxson had hated the family and the family business, that he had wanted out for a long time.

"Peinelt and his crew aren't exactly receptive to letters of resignation. Ex-employees usually wind up missing a head or missing a torso or missing altogether, even if good old Daddy is part of the leadership team. Peinelt's got people firmly embedded in all the institutions here in this miserable place, and Jaxson knew this, too. What was he supposed to do?" this source had asked. "Phone social services?"

"Where is he then, now?" I had insisted on a concrete answer.

The man had shrugged and answered, "In the ground, I guess."

And that was exactly what most people in Blue Church who had known Jaxson believed had happened. They were sure dear old Daddy had found Jaxson's letter of resignation and dished out the appropriate punishment, even if that didn't fit in with the mob's narrative.

Jaxson had disappeared not long after his return from Germany. Nobody had known anything, and the police, some of its members deep in the pockets of the local crime boss, had not investigated. After all, they had argued, Jaxson was old enough. He could go where he pleased, even if none of his possessions or money was missing and a rumour was going around that blood had been found in his room.

So, the consensus of the grapevine in Blue Church was that Jaxson had gone to hell. The mob had done away with the problem child that refused to toe the line. The local organized crime scene was selling it as a voluntary move to greener pastures on behalf of the family business, though. Not that Mr Bowers had a legitimate family business, but it was better for everyone's health not to question Peinelt and his cronies, I had soon learned.

When I told her all this, Hayley would see that there had been nothing in Blue Church for me, apart from the sad reminder that my daughter's father had likely left this world before she had even drawn her first breath and that the rest of this side of her family was best left alone. She would understand that I hadn't moved her here to take her away from her beloved relatives and torture her. She would agree that it had been better for her not to know about her blood connection to the Bowers family.

I can't even remember myself exactly how I had ended up in Blue Church. But when Hayley was eight years old, I had applied for and eventually been offered a teaching position in one of Blue Church's primary schools. I had had other interesting offers, too, and Jaxson had never reappeared. But for some reason, I had felt an odd pull towards his old hometown.

When I had been driving back from my first job interview at the school in Blue Church, Mandy had come on on the radio. I hadn't heard that song in years and told myself that it was a sign, maybe even from Jaxson himself, telling me that Hayley should have the chance to see life through her father's eyes, if she couldn't experience those eyes directly herself. Of course, I had been lying to myself. This had had nothing to do with Hayley, but everything to do with my broken heart. Even after all this time and in spite of the fact that my involvement with Jaxson had lasted less than a week, my heart had refused to give up on him. So, I had decided to accept the offer and move to Blue Church. After all, it wasn't that far from Newbridge, and we could always visit.

Unfortunately, Hayley hadn't seen it that way back then, and I think she had never been able to forgive me for taking her away from my sister and her two boys. My daughter had always been closer to them than to me, a fact that I had never wanted to admit to myself because it hurt too much. After all, Hayley was the most precious gift I had ever been given. She was funny, compassionate and intelligent. A truly amazing daughter. Then there was the fact that every time I looked at her, my heart swelled. Every time I saw her face, I was reminded of the days that created her. Besides a few brittle photos, she was all I had left of Jaxson.

I know that Hayley had spent so much more time at my sister's house while I had been studying or working than she had done with me while she had been growing up. Being a single parent and hardly a grown-up yourself is tough. When the day was done and I had picked my daughter up from my sister's place, I had been exhausted and not a lot of fun to be with. Our little flat had been quiet and grey, while my sister's house had been full of life and colours.

Don't get me wrong, my daughter didn't hate me but there was a strange wall between us that I couldn't seem to crumble, although I kept trying to chip away at it.

Strangely, the spatial distance between us had brought us closer together for the first time. Hayley now phoned up every time something exciting or sad happened in her life and shared these events with me, whereas before all I ever got was "whatever". Maybe it was just her growing up or it is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Our relationship was not perfect, but on solid ground now. And Janie did have a point; Hayley had a right to know about her roots.

To steel myself, I nodded again in response to Janie's suggestion.

"Hayley is a smart girl. You're right, Janie. She'll be hurt, and she has every right to be. But we'll get through this as well. We've scaled much higher mountains."

Janie slapped me on the back.

"It's the right thing to do, Tess. Anyway, I'm also here to kick your lazy bum into gear. Minh and Ayla are already waiting at the Blue Bell. So, jump into your sexy black T-shirt and the skinny jeans and let's roll!"

I sighed. My newfound freedom gave the few friends I had a new purpose: play matchmakers. They insisted that I could not hide behind my maternal duties any longer and that I was practically still a spring chicken who should be roaming the three pubs and two bars of Blue Church, taking part in the weekly mating rituals happening there.

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Pint's waiting!"

This seemed to be enough of an answer to my query in Janie's eyes. And truth be told, a pint and the company of  good friends, what more can a girl ask for? Yes, okay, maybe a girl could ask that not every male between 25 and 65 coming into the pub would be catalogued, price-tagged or prize-listed and ogled in the most embarrassing manner.

"If you so much as mention me and another patron in one sentence, I will sacrifice even the nicest pint of beer and chuck it all over your cute little crop top, darling, and if you ask anyone's phone number on my behalf, I will smash the empty glass on your hard head and kick you in the shin at the same time on top of that. Just a fair warning!"