My face drops but I quickly recover and smile. "Great, I will look forward to it."
Four o'clock and I am dreading the coffee date like the plague. Margaret smiles like a Cheshire cat on heat as she walks down the corridor toward me.
"Hello, thank you for agreeing to meet me," she purrs.
My skin prickles in contempt. "I'm only here for Joshua, Margaret. It has nothing to do with you," I snap. I inwardly cringe because that came out harsher than I intended it to.
She nods nervously. "Right," she replies. "There is a café across the road. Would that be ok?" she asks. Why in the hell is she being so nice? It's giving me the creeps.
I nod and we walk to the café in uncomfortable silence. "Max, can you wait outside the café for us?" I ask. He nods and takes a seat on the sidewalk.
Ten minutes later we are seated and waiting for our order without speaking. I have nothing to say to Margaret. Last time I saw her I nearly slapped her face off. I can't believe I actually hit her. What in the hell is going on with me and the bitch slapping lately? I frown as I try to forget the disturbing thought. Margaret grabs my hand over the table and I bite my lip to stop myself from speaking.
"Natasha … can we please call a truce … for Joshua's sake."
I force out a nod. "Margaret, I have never wanted to fight with you. You are the one who hates me."
"I have never hated you dear. Please understand it from my point of view. My nineteen-year-old son comes home and tells me he's fallen in love with his seventeen-year-old first cousin. That he has been having sex with her every day for a month and that he is going to marry her."
I look down and smile as my heart melts. "He said that?" I ask. "He said he wanted to marry me?"
She sits back and frowns. "From that whole sentence that's the only information you took."
I nod, embarrassed. "Sorry, carry on."
"And then, not two weeks later, she sleeps with someone else and breaks his heart and I have to put him on a plane to go to the other side of the world alone … and devastated."
I swallow the lump in my throat as the horrible taste of guilt rises from my stomach. I look her in the eyes. "I never slept with another man, Margaret. I lied so that Joshua wouldn't throw his life away on me. I knew he would never let me leave him unless I told him that and it has haunted me ever since. To this day, I have never had sex with another man."
She goes silent and sits back in her chair in shock. "What, never?" I shake my head. Her face drops.
"I know this sounds strange to you, but Joshua and I are truly in love and you have made us miserable with your venom. Joshua should never have to choose between us Margaret. It is just not fair to put him in that position. I would never do that to him but you seem to do it easily."
She drops her head. "I know."
"And then you come to me after I let my father die telling me that we are not even related, when you have hated me for all these years. How do you expect me to react?"
She tears up as she looks at me. "Natasha … I'm so sorry. I felt you were dangerous to Joshua. His love for you is all consuming and I know that in all honesty if you left him again it would break him … and I was right. He took a cocaine overdose. But in the end when I saw him so miserable I couldn't do it to him any longer. I had to tell you the truth."
I sit back in my chair. "Tell me, are you going to tell your son the truth about his paternity?" I ask as I raise an eyebrow in contempt.
Her face drops. "Natasha, please don't judge me. After I had Scott," she looks around the café to make sure nobody is listening, " Robertwas working all the time and lost interest in me sexually. I was only twenty-two years old. He was away three weeks out of four and I was pretty sure he was having an affair. I was miserable." The waitress arrives with our coffee. Margaret stops talking immediately. "Thank you," she smiles. "We had a friend that used to come to the house regularly to check on me and Scott, at Robert's request. He was my only friend at the time and I came to depend on him. His marriage had temporarily broken up and we leaned on each other for support. We talked a lot, and often he would come over and then stay for dinner. We were both very lonely. One night after a few wines he told me that he used to fantasise about me … sexually… when he was alone in bed." My eyes widen as I imagine the situation she is setting for me. "I was totally shocked and asked him to leave immediately. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. It haunted me, Natasha. I was in my sexual prime and I was married to a man who saw me as a mother to his child and nothing more. It was a very difficult time for me."
"I can't imagine what it would be like to be married to someone like that," I whisper. She smiles. "You will never have to worry about that. The chemistry you have with Joshua runs too deep." I give her a thankful smile, she didn't have to say that. "Anyway, I thought about it for two whole months and in the end I was fantasising about him in my bed as well. I wanted to feel wanted, I wanted to feel desired. Robert went away for four months and as usual our friend would call daily to check on me. The sexual tension between us became unbearable and one night he kissed me on the lips goodnight. I got nervous and asked him to leave, but he didn't. He stayed out in his car for four hours while I paced inside, distraught at what I was about to do. When he knocked again at two in the morning I didn't have any resistance left. I broke Natasha, I gave into temptation. We made passionate love every day and night for a month. I fell totally in love with him and when Robert was due home in a few weeks I told this man of my intentions to leave Robert so we could be together." I sit back in shock, this is not the story I expected. "He told me to not be a fool and that he was going back to his wife." She tears up at the memory. My stomach drops and I actually feel … pity for her. "He told me that we could never be together and that he would not choose me over his friend and that if I told Robert he would make my life misery. I was heartbroken-how could I have been so stupid. I threw away my marriage vows on a man who was using me for sex." She wipes her tears with a tissue and takes a sip of her coffee. "When Robert got back he was different. The man I married was back and he admitted that he had in fact had an affair and wanted us to start again. To try and be a family unit for Scott's sake. How could I say no when I had been just as deceitful. I jumped at the chance to stay with the man who I had previously been deeply in love with." She wipes her eyes again with her tissue. "Anyway to cut a long story short I found out two months later that I was pregnant but I didn't think the child could be through the affair as we had always used condoms. And, besides, Robert and I had fallen back in love and a child was a blessing. My beautiful Joshua was a gift. He brought me so much happiness and I thanked god every day that I had been given a second chance at happiness."