‘And he’s…’ I swallowed. ‘You named him after me? Flynn?’
She nodded. I held her gaze. ‘I named him after his daddy.’
Images flashed through my mind like old video footage; the one night Emma and I had together; the day I knew she’d found out something bad about my future and I walked away from her; the letter she left me; the spiralling after I opened the letter; the day of the crash, and Andy dying; the last twenty years, closing myself away from the world. All of it, every single moment of it, had been leading to here, right now, this moment.
The photos swam in front of me, blurring and warping. But when I focused again, I knew she was telling me the truth.
‘He has my eyes,’ I said. My heart was racing so fast I only just had the breath to say the words.
‘And your smile,’ she said.
She was right. He did. He looked like me, and he looked like Emma, and it was all I could do to hold it together right now.
Finally, I looked up at Emma. She was watching me worriedly.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t believe this could even happen.’
‘I could never believe any of it. But it’s true,’ she said.
And she was right. It was.
It was all I’d ever wanted, and now it had happened. I just needed some time to truly let it sink in.
I jumped as Emma’s hands wrapped round mine on the bench. They felt warm and so real.
‘Would you like to meet him?’ she said.
I looked up and met her gaze.
‘I can’t think of anything I want more,’ I said.
37
EMMA
I’d been terrified and excited about meeting Nick today, unsure how he’d react to seeing me. I’d expected him to be furious, had even been fully prepared for him to tell me to leave and never come back. And if he had, I would have respected his wishes.
But from the moment we were together again, the connection between us was there, as strong as ever – if not stronger. Perhaps it was because, for the first time since we’d known each other, we were living in the same time.
I hadn’t been sure whether I was going to tell him about Flynn today.
‘Just see how it goes,’ Rachel had said. ‘I’ll bring Flynn along, and if you do end up telling him and he wants to meet him, then let him. If not, we can just go home again.’
In the end, telling Nick about Flynn had been the only thing I could have done. And his reaction was better than I could ever have imagined.
As I showed him photos of his son on my phone – Flynn being born, Flynn’s first steps, in his first school uniform, on holiday, in his armbands at the side of a swimming pool, on his first bike in the park – Nick wanted to know everything abouthim. What he was like, what he liked to do, was he funny, was he clever, was he good at sport, did he play any instruments. I told him everything, about all the milestones he’d missed, a quick snapshot all in one go. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much this was to take in, but he didn’t seem to want to stop.
And then, it had been time to go and get our little boy.
‘Wait,’ Nick said, as I stood. I stopped. ‘Does… does he know who I am?’
‘I’ve told him you’re his daddy, but I haven’t worked out the rest yet, how to tell him where you’ve been all this time. I didn’t want to confuse him any more. But listen, we can work that out. Let’s just let you meet each other first, shall we?’
Nick nodded. I pointed to the playground across the way, the playground that hadn’t existed last time Nick had been here, and told him Flynn and I would meet him there in half an hour. And then I stepped out of the bandstand into the bright sunshine and walked on wobbly legs to meet Rachel, feeling as though I’d been hollowed out.
‘We’re getting ice creams,’ Rachel told me when I called her.
As I turned the corner and saw the pair of them, I smiled. Chocolate ice cream dripped down Flynn’s arm, and his face was smeared with it.
