Public Secrets

family now, Emma.”
When he walked inside, still carrying her, he heard Bev’s light, quick voice.

“I think the blue, the plain blue. I can’t live with all these flowers growing on the walls. And those beastly hangings have to go. It’s like a cave in here. I want white, white and blue.”
He turned into the parlor doorway and saw her sitting on the floor, dozens of sample books and swatches around her. Part of the wallpaper had already been stripped, part of the replastering was finished. Bev preferred tackling a single job from a dozen angles.
She looked so small and sweet sitting amid the rubble. Her dark cap of hair was cut short and straight to angle down toward her chin. Big gold hoops glinted at her ears. Her eyes were exotic, both in shape and color. They were long-lidded with gold lights flecked in pale sea-green. She was still tanned from the weekend they had spent in the Bahamas. He knew exactly how her skin would feel, how it would smell.
She had a small triangular-shaped face, and a small angular body. No one looking at her sitting cross-legged in snug checked pants and a tidy white shirt would suspect she was two months pregnant.
Brian shifted his daughter in his arms and wondered how his pregnant lover would react.
“Bev.”
“Brian, I didn’t hear you.” She turned, half rising, then went still. “Oh.” Her color drained as she stared at the child in his arms. Recovering quickly, she stood and signaled to two decorators who were bickering over samples. “Brian and I want to discuss our choices a little more. I’ll call you by the end of the week.”
She hurried them out, making promises, flattering. When she closed the door on them, she took a deep breath, holding a hand over the baby growing inside her.
“This is Emma.”
Bev forced a smile. “Hello, Emma.”
“’Lo.” Suddenly shy, she buried her face in Brian’s neck.
“Emma, would you like to watch the telly for a while?” Brian gave her bottom a reassuring pat. When she only shrugged, he went on, desperately cheerful. “There’s a nice big one in this room over here. You and Charlie can sit on the sofa.”
“I have to pee,” she whispered.
“Oh, well …”

Bev blew her bangs out of her eyes. If she hadn’t felt so much like crying, she might have laughed. “I’ll take her.”
But Emma clung tighter to Brian’s neck. “I guess I’m elected.” He took her to the powder room across the hall, sent Bev a helpless look, then closed the door. “Do you, ah …” He trailed off when Emma pulled down her panties and sat.
“I don’t wet my pants,” she said matter-of-factly. “Mam says only stupid, nasty girls do.”
“You’re a big girl,” he said, stifling a fresh flow of rage. “Very pretty and very smart.”
Finished, she struggled back into her panties. “Can you watch the telly?”
“In a little while. I need to talk to Bev. She’s a very nice lady,” he added as he lifted her up to the sink. “She lives with me, too.”
Emma played with the running water a moment. “Does she hit?”
“No.” He pulled her into his arms, holding tight. “No one’s going to hit you again. I promise.”
Torn, he carried her out, past Bev, to a sitting room with a cushy sofa and a big console television. He switched it on, settled on a loud comedy show, and said, “I’ll be back soon.”
Emma watched him walk out, relieved when he left the door open.
“Maybe we’d better go in here.” Bev gestured to the parlor. Inside, she sat on the floor again and began poking at samples. “It seems Jane wasn’t lying.”
“No. She’s mine.”
“I can see that, Bri. She looks so much like you it’s scary.” She felt tears well up and hated herself.
“Oh Christ, Bev.”
“No, don’t,” she said when he started to slip an arm around her. “I need a minute. It’s a shock.”
“It was one for me, too.” He lit a cigarette, drew hard. “You know why I broke things off with Jane.”
“You said it felt like she could eat you alive.”
“She wasn’t stable, Bev. Even when we were kids, she was never quite right.”

She couldn’t look at him, not yet. She reminded herself that it had been she who had pressured him into seeing Jane again, into finding out the truth about the child. Folding her hands in her lap, Bev stared into the dusty marble fireplace. “You’ve known her a long rime.”
“She was the first girl I ever slept with. I was barely thirteen.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes, wishing it