“Well,” I began. And did not continue until the not-continuing became nonviable. “It just seemed… We sort of felt… We’re at a place in our life…”
“Adoption didn’t feel like it was right for us,” Oliver translated. “Not where we are now, especially not when there’s a national shortage of foster carers.”
I nodded like a dog on a dashboard.
Esther sipped her tea and leaned forwards. Once again her body language was extremely open, and once again my lizard brain decided this would be a great time to run up the walls and lick its eyeballs. “So”—her tone was effortlessly understanding—“one of the things we need to talk about is where the two of you are coming from, um, family-wise.”
Shit shit shit. I was fucked fucked fucked.
“It’s not intended to be intrusive or intimidating,” she went on, even though I was profoundly intimidated and at least a little bit intruded upon. “But it’ll really help me to build a good picture of you both.”
With the easy grace of, well, himself, Oliver started the ball rolling. “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell, at least where I’m concerned. I had quite a normal upbringing. I was always quite driven, and my parents were strict but fair.”
I tried to not actively stare at Oliver. It wasn’t that I’d expected him to say,My parents were arseholes who treated me and my brother like shit, only they did it in such a middle-class way that it took me nearly thirty years to notice. But it was a little bituncomfortable hearing him give Esther the exact same line he’d given me on our first date.
“Obviously,” I tried, “no one’s childhood is perfect.”
Probably Oliver didn’t want to lay into his dead dad in front of a random social worker, but I hoped he’d feel encouraged to, like, not lie for him?
“That’s true,” Oliver conceded. “My father…”
He paused, frowning, and I took his hand. Because, distracted as I’d been with my own bullshit, I’d kind of lost sight of how tough this was going to be for him.
“My father,” he repeated, “was a complicated man. He…he died a few years ago, and I suppose… I suppose it meant I had to do some thinking.”
“What kind of thinking?” asked Esther.
Another pause. “About myself,” Oliver offered, a little uncertain.
I squeezed his hand.
“About my values,” he went on. “The lessons he’d taught me and whether I was right to learn them.” His frown deepened. “Sorry, that’s all a bit vague and melancholy. I am actually seeing a therapist.”
I’d say this for Esther, she had a fantastic it’s-okay-really smile. Even my lizard brain was starting to come down off the ceiling. “No, no,” she said. “I asked, and everything helps.” And perhaps she could tell that Oliver needed a break, because she turned to me. “How about you, Luc?”
My ability to put Oliver’s needs above my own anxieties evaporated rapidly. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. You know. Basically like him. Only not. Normal, I mean. Very normal.”
A sharp little light crept into Esther’s eyes. Sharp but not unkind.“Normally when things are normal, people don’t say they’re normal quite that often.”
“I meeeean,” I replied, drawing the middle ofmeanout as long as I could in the vague hope that it would buy me some time. “Everybody’s got. You know. Circumstances and that. Ordinary normal ordinary circumstances.”
I was surprised and mildly reassured when Esther nodded. “Yes. They do. What were yours?”
“Well.”
“Yes?”
“Well.” I left it there. “Well.” I left it there again. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to pick it up or do anything with it. So at last I had to unleave it there and run as quickly as I could into: “Wellactuallymyparentsweresortofeightiesrocklegends.”
To my very mild irritation, Esther never stopped looking patient and gentle. If Oliver hadn’t been gay as a rainbow butt plug and my boyfriend who I wanted to keep, I’d have said the two of them should date. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m not sure I got that.”
“My parents,” I repeated, my mouth going dry and my tongue feeling way too big all of a sudden, “were, you know, um. Eighties rock legends?”
Esther just nodded. “Mm-hmm?”
