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“About being seen?”

“No. Like you said, it’s one of the last appointments, and I’m sure people will have more things on their mind than looking at me.” I shrug.

“I cannot thank you enough for doing this for me,” she whispers. “For Maddie,” she amends before I can say anything.

We both know I’m only doing this for Maddie.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“Well, how about we go into the living room and wait for Maddie? I think it’s about time I introduced you properly to your daughter, if you’re ready.”

I knew this was the purpose of today’s visit. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to sit with the doctors and get a full run-down of Maddie’s care, take the blood test to see if I can donate if she needs me to. They all seem like small things, because today is much more momentous. Today, I’m supposed to do something that has been at the forefront of my mind for two years—meet my daughter as something more than a strange man in Delilah’s flat.

Now I’m on the cusp of it, I’m terrified. But I still stand up and nod at Delilah, prepared to meet my daughter, and my fate.

Chapter sixteen

Joseph

Present Day

Delilah lets out a noisy exhale of breath as she stands with me.

“Is she home yet?” I ask, wondering if I missed the noise of her arriving.

Delilah shakes her head and looks at her watch. “Five minutes or so. I just think maybe the living room will be better.”

I follow Delilah out of the kitchen, passing doors to other rooms until she opens one near the front door, and I follow her inside. The living room is decorated in a navy blue, with stark white furniture dotted around the room. There’s a three-piece suite nestled around a white coffee table, and one wall is full of floor-to-ceiling white cabinets—the bottom half of them have cupboard doors, and the top section is open shelving.

I put the book Delilah gave me on the coffee table and then go to the cabinets to look at everything on display. There are many books, a mix of young adult and thrillers, as well as a handful of classic literature. There’s a record player and a selection of vinyl records. Delicate ornaments, chunky candles, and photo frames fill the other spots. These are the typical family photographs people want to display. One which I assume is from Verity’s wedding to Delilah’s father. Various school pictures of Maddie, positioned almost in a line to show a time lapse, her hair lengthening, getting taller, teeth being lost, newer teeth displayed with wide smiles. The last one has her wearing a forced, tight smile, overshadowed by her long bright blue hair.

“She lost her hair in the first round of chemo,” Delilah comments. “The headteacher was quite firm that any wig she wore must be in natural colours, but she managed to sneak that one in for picture day, and the photographer didn’t seem to mind. She got two detentions for it.”

“I can’t believe they gave her detentions,” I scoff. I’m glad to be out of the school system now; some of them have rules that are unfair and unnecessary. Detention for a kid with cancer who wore a blue wig seems barbaric.

“She was actually glad to be treated like another student,” Delilah muses.

I stare at the picture of Maddie and her bright blue hair. It isn’t the hair I focus on, but the sheer fierceness in her expression. If ever there was a picture that would prove to me that Maddie is Delilah’s daughter, it’s this one. This is the same expression she always had, the one that screamed she was going through something difficult and traumatic, but she was going to keep it all to herself.

I have a hundred questions in my head, but I can’t speak when another picture catches my attention. It’s in the furthest section of the cabinet, a little display of pictures of Maddie as a baby, one of those frames with the title “My First Year.” The photographs are small, but I see it immediately—Maddie in her eleventh month, clutching a giant sea turtle teddy. One that I remember stuffing into Delilah’s bag when I packed up her things from my house the night after I met with Hannah.

I don’t know how to feel about the knowledge that Delilah kept that ridiculously expensive turtle after I walked out on her, and I certainly don’t know how to feel about the fact that she gave it to Maddie.

Before I can get my brain into any functioning order, the sound of the front door opening sends me through another stunned and emotional loop. There’s a small, hushed conversation in the hallway, and then the front door opens and closes again. Then there’s silence, until a girl’s voice calls out.

“Delilah?”

“In here,” Delilah calls back.

I feel out of place, loitering in the living room and staring at photographs of Maddie as I listen to her open the door and walk into the living room. She stands with her hands on her hips, positioned halfway between where Delilah is on one side of the living room and where I am.

Maddie’s hair has clearly grown back. It isn’t as long as the first time I saw her, when her hair had been in long plaits that hung to her waist. Now it’s barely at her shoulders, but the shade is the same as Delilah’s. She doesn’t look sick, but she doesn’t look like a picture of full health either. Her skin is paler than the last time I saw her, and I can’t decide if it’s because of the disease, the treatment, or whether it’s to do with the different season and a lack of being in the sun. Thinking she’s paler because she’s seriously ill is unsettling. I’m sure they wouldn’t allow her to go to school if she was still too sick. I tell myself it’s due to the lack of the sun, allowing myself to be soothed by the change in the narrative in my head.

As I’m assessing her, Maddie’s blue eyes seem to quickly skim me from head to toe. Is she comparing me to the image she’s had in her head as a potential biological father since she discovered her life was different from the story she’d been told? Do I measure up? If I do, is it in a good way or a bad way? Has she pictured me as an evil villain who knocked up the woman she thought was her sister before I ran with my tail between my legs?

As she surveys me, and I continue to survey her, I curse myself for not asking Delilah the important questions earlier. Does Maddie know I was a teacher? Does she know how we met? I recall her email, saying they hadn’t told her who I was yet, though I assumed that meant to my profession now, not who I used to be.

“So, you’re him?” Maddie asks. I nod. “I remember you. I met you before, at Delilah’s flat.” She turns to Delilah. “You forgot to tell me that bit when you told me the story, that I’ve already met him. That, and him being famous.” She turns her attention back to me.