I have mixed emotions when he speaks of his adoptive parents. I want to hear about his childhood and the stolen years. But I don’t like to think of another mother picking him up when he fell over, reading him bedtime stories or cheering him on from the sidelines at school sports day. It should’ve been me doing those things, not a stranger. It’s irrational and unfair but I resent a woman I have never met.
We take a seat inside the cafe and I return from the counter with a pot of tea and two cups. We take it the same, a splash of milk with two sugars. He removes an envelope from his jacket pocket and passes me an assortment of photographs.
‘They’re me as a baby,’ he says.
He is lying on a rug wearing just a nappy, grinning. His chubby arms are stretched wide and his legs are bent and mid-air. Even at an early age, he has a mop of dark hair like Jon’s. Other pictures reveal the first time he sat up unaided and the moment when he took his first steps. In that one, his adoptive mother is standing behind him, her hands holding his, helping him remain upright. Her face isn’t in the picture, which allows me to pretend that I’m there, not her.
‘You can keep them if you like,’ Dylan offers, and I thank him. He spots the tears forming before I feel them. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he says.
I remove a packet of tissues from my handbag, dab at my eyes, shake my head and change the subject. ‘It’s a nice cafe,’ I say. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘No, we live on the other side of town. One of my colleagues writes the pub and restaurant reviews and said it was a decent place.’
I sense there’s another reason why we are here. ‘And you’re not ready for us to be seen together, are you?’
His face flushes.
‘It’s all right, I understand,’ I add, and I do. But it stings a little. Like me, he’s sensitive and he recognises it in others.
‘I haven’t told my mum and dad about you yet,’ he says.
‘How do you think they’ll react?’
‘I don’t know. We’re a close family but I don’t want to hurt them.’
‘Then what made you want to find me?’
‘Curiosity ... a way to put all the pieces together to see the full picture. To learn where I came from, who I might look like, what we might have in common ... it’s not as if I feel that I don’t belong in my family, I just have a natural curiosity. Maybe it’s the journalist in me.’
‘And by finding me, have you satisfied that curiosity?’
‘I have,’ he replies.
Fear rears its ugly head. Is this his way of saying he has everything he needs from me? We’ve met and he’s learned what a messed-up world he was conceived in. Was I just an itch he needed to scratch? ‘Okay,’ I reply, and my eyes begin to well again.
He places his hand on my forearm. ‘And I’d still like to keep getting to know you,’ he says. ‘I’m not looking for another mum, I have one of those, but I’m always open to new friends.’
I can no longer hold my tears back. ‘So am I,’ I sniff, and dab at my eyes with a second tissue. But I’m not crying because he wants to continue in the way that we are: it’s because I see him as my son, but he will never see me as his mother. And it strikes me that, for as long as I live, no one is ever going to call me ‘Mum’.
CHAPTER 60
MAGGIE
It’s mid-afternoon by the time Nina reappears with the man who arrived at the house this morning. I strain my eyes to see what’s happening between them, but I think they’re only talking. This is followed by a peck on the cheek before she exits and returns to the house, alone. I wonder if Nina has told him about me. Has she told him she lives here alone? Have I been buried, written out of her history, or does she say we are estranged?
There has been one significant development today. Earlier, when she left my food, it was just breakfast and lunch, which indicates we are to dine together tonight. It offers me hope that she has made a decision on having my lump examined by a professional. And I’m prepared for the worst.
When the landing door eventually opens, we greet each other politely before I make my way downstairs. However, I can instantly tell there’s a distance between us. I hide my disappointment even though it comes as no surprise. So if she isn’t going to help me, I am going to help myself. I steel myself because I know this is going to get ugly.
‘You look nice,’ I say as she passes me a bowl of pasta. ‘Is that dress new?’
‘It’s a couple of weeks old,’ she replies.
‘You don’t normally wear such bright colours.’
‘I fancied a change.’
‘Is it for a special occasion?’
