‘Did you do all this yourself?’ Finn asked. ‘My mom – Cassie, I mean – said this place was a wreck when you took it on and it would take years to put it right.’
‘Rick did most of the hard graft,’ said Vee. ‘But I cleaned and scrubbed and decorated, so it’s my work too. Let me show you your room.’
The stairs and banisters had now been painted white but a runner up the middle muffled their footsteps as they ascended. Vee opened the door into the guest bedroom that was now looking much more welcoming. An old brass bed took centre stage covered with another patchwork throw. This floor was sanded and stained but had a thick rug to warm the toes of anyone stepping out of bed on a cold morning. The walls were painted in a gentle shade of green and the only picture was a large black-and-white photograph in a gilt frame. Finn went straight over to it and looked intently at the figures grouped together. They stood on a grassy hill and had very solemn expressions.
‘I found that one in the loft,’ said Vee. ‘The couple in the middle are my grandparents. They weren’t miserable really. It was a serious business having your photo taken in those days. The others are my great-aunts. Now theywerequite grumpy.’
Finn laughed, and the sound took Vee back to her childhood. He sounded just like Tallulah with her deep chuckle. ‘You remind me of my mum,’ she said.
Finn dumped his bag on the floor. ‘That’s cool. Come on, let’s go downstairs. We need to talk before we go any further. This isn’t as weird as I thought it was gonna be but it’s still pretty strange. It’s like I’ve been born all over again.’
‘Yes, that’s exactly how it feels to me too,’ said Vee, leading the way back down to the living room. ‘I don’t suppose you want a cup of tea?’
He grimaced. ‘I donot. Disgusting stuff. But you go ahead, I’ll just have a water. Still, not sparkling. Unless… you might be making coffee?’ he added hopefully.
Vee said that was perfectly possible. She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, assembling a tray with mugs, a cafetiere and a plate of chocolate chip cookies which she’d bought to make him feel at home. They sat down together on the sofa and Vee wondered where to begin but Finn was already on the case. He went straight in for the kill.
‘Right, before we go any further, I need to know why you decided that it was a good idea to have a baby in the first place and more to the point, why you didn’t want to bring me up yourself. I mean, you just gave me away like a parcel. Oh yeah, I get that you did it for your sister, and I guess that makes it a bit more okay, but even so… it stings, Mom. You must be able to see it from my point of view? And not only that, I also want you to explain why I wasn’t told about you being my natural mother. I’ve said the same to the moms at home. They know… oh, boy, do they know… that I’m seriously unimpressed by all this but they haven’t given me a satisfactory answer yet.’
Finn sat back and folded his arms, looking directly in front of him rather than at Vee. She bit her lip. ‘Well, you don’t mess about, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘No point. Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? Then we can get on and eat cookies.’
The mention of the biscuits was less threatening than the first part of Finn’s speech. Vee took heart.
‘To cut a very long story short, I was in a strange place; at a crossroads in my life, I suppose you could say. My relationship had ended badly, I was thirty-five with no desire to find a new one, my sister was very much in love with the woman she’d met on a student exchange in America, and they were both longing for a child. Cassie was twenty-eight, still young but with a whole heap of medical problems that meant she’d never be able to conceive a baby of her own. Marissa had similar issues too. I wanted to help.’
‘Yeah, that ties in with what they told me,’ Finn said. ‘But what I still don’t get is how you could do it. Didn’t you want to keep me… even a little bit?’ His voice wavered on the last words and he suddenly sounded much younger than his twenty years.
Silence fell as Vee tried to think how to answer this question honestly. Eventually she cleared her throat. ‘I did and I didn’t,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to understand that it wasn’t as if you were conceived in a relationship. The man who was the…’ She paused, trying to think of a tactful way to put this.
‘Sperm donor,’ Finn said. ‘Let’s not make him anything but that.’
‘Okay, the sperm donor. He was a friend of your parents, but he only did the job as a favour to them. He didn’t want any involvement. He’d never wanted children, and he moved away soon after, with the proviso that he wasn’t to be contacted again.’
‘Yeah, that’s also what they said. But you still haven’t told me howyoufelt.’
Vee thought back to when the midwife had put her new baby in her arms. She’d been exhausted after a long and difficult labour but the sight of the tiny boy with his beautiful brown skin and big brown eyes had instantly melted her heart. In that moment, she had wanted desperately to keep him for herself. His fingers had closed around her thumb as she gazed down at him, wrapped in a snowy blanket provided by Cassie, who had learned to crochet just to produce her new son’s first shawl.
‘Yes, Finn,’ Vee said huskily. ‘I did want you. I wanted to keep you so badly that I didn’t know how I was ever going to bear to give you up. But then Cassie and Marissa arrived, and I saw them fall in love with you the minute they held you. They were both crying, and so was I. Even the midwife had tears on her cheeks. She knew what I was about to do. I had to go through with it. I made a promise.’
‘Have you regretted it? I really wanna know that.’
The question hung between them. It was time for the truth.
‘Yes. Yes, I have. Many times. But a promise is a promise, and you’ve had a very happy life so far. I don’t want to spoil it now by muddying the waters. I love you very much, Finn. I always will. But Cassie and Marissa are your parents, and they adore you. They said they’d tell you about me one day, but I guess they were scared.’
‘Of what?’
‘Oh, that’s simple. Scared you’d decide to come over here and make your life with me.’
‘As if.’
The two short words pierced Vee’s heart. Finn saw the look on her face and began to babble. ‘I didn’t… I mean, I… it’s not that I wouldn’t like it here… but… but…’
‘I know what you meant. Your life’s in Boston and that’s how it should be,’ Vee said, trying not to show the hurt inside. ‘But you need to remember that you’ll always have an extra home here with me, whenever you want to visit. It’ll be different now, but we’ll make a new kind of relationship, won’t we?’
Vee waited, holding her breath. Had she got this right? There must be no pressure on her son to feel obliged to visit her. He reached out and took her hand.
