If I Were You

Chapter 62 Flynn

Exhausted, angry, tearful, I think we both feel like we’ve lived a million years in one night. I make us both coffees, unlock the doors out to the balcony and lead Amy outside. The mist is clearing, the lake now silvery blue, the air streaked with a wash of colours above the patchwork of fields that stretch for an age. The gentle chittering of birds is the only noise we can hear as we settle on the white wrought-iron chairs outside and sip at our drinks.

I know I need to make this right.

Setting my cup down, I lean forward in my chair, grateful for the knitted pink jumper that Amy forced me into. ‘Ames,’ I say, ‘for starters, I am so sorry that you found out about Tanya and Charlie this weekend. I stupidly assumed that the past is just my past and doesn’t affect you, but that was selfish.’

Amy simply nods. I can’t believe how difficult I’m finding this. Good with words at work when it comes to being truthful, sharing things I find painful I’m screaming to be silent.

I take a breath and press my palms together. ‘The thing is, thinking about Tanya, well, not Tanya as such, thinking about Charlie hurts,’ I say carefully, airing things I have not said aloud, have not dared mull on for years. Another huge thing to add to the other hurts.

‘Tanya got pregnant when things were not going well with us,’ I explain, ‘and after the initial shock, I was pretty blown away that I’d be a parent. I thought I would be a good dad, you know.’ I look up then, meeting Amy’s eye.

She doesn’t agree with me, her knuckles white where she is holding the cup, so I soldier on.

‘Charlie was born, and she was perfect. Well, actually she was pretty beaten up and covered in rank goo, but to me she was this wonderful little person. She had the biggest yawn, you could see her tonsils when she opened that mouth and,’ I can feel my throat thicken as I recall the details, ‘and the tiniest fingers. I remember clumsily dressing her in one of those little white jumpsuits and I thought I’d pull off her fingers – I was terrified!’

I swallow, take a sip of my coffee. Is this too much? Is Amy going to hate me? Get up and leave? I take a breath. If I’ve learnt anything in the last twenty-four hours, it’s that I can’t ever be truly close to her if I don’t share this stuff.

‘I knew when I looked at her that whatever I felt about Tanya – and I’m not going to lie,’ I say, voice hardening, ‘we were not doing well. Well, whatever happened, I would be there for this girl, this baby. I felt completely overwhelmed. I can’t explain it, Amy …’

‘You loved her,’ Amy whispers.

I nod, not able to respond. Sipping my coffee and licking my lips. ‘I felt this overwhelming peace that I could stop searching for something.’

As I say this out loud I blink, aware now that my feelings towards Charlie are linked to the other person in my life. Struggling to look at Amy, I go on.

‘Ever since my dad died there has always been this gap inside me.’ I shift; a lifetime of never speaking about this robs me of breath. My vision narrows, the blackness closing in.

‘You never talk about him,’ she says.

My chest is heavy as I finally admit what I’ve never been able to tell her before. ‘I … I can’t remember him.’

She frowns then.

The silence goes on. My breathing gets shorter. This is too hard; I can’t do this.

I see my own hand rest on my arm as Amy says, ‘But … the Ferris wheel, the—’

I force myself to meet her eye. ‘I made things up. I have one or two stories about him. I … I make them up. I’ve never been able to remember anything, not for years.’

Amy’s hands cover her mouth.

I force myself to go on; I need to say everything now because I’m not strong enough to do this again.

‘I just see blanks and I wish I could, I wish I could remember his face …’ I clear my throat, try to feel the seat beneath me, focus on Amy opposite me. ‘But, for the first time, as I stared at Charlie, I felt that weight lift. I loved her, immediately,’ I admit now, my voice soft.

I try not to break down. ‘Tanya showed you the photograph, but it all changed after she took it. She’d been so quiet. I thought she was allowed to be quiet; I mean, I’d watched what she’d gone through and it was pretty bloody heroic – the woman was allowed not to be sitting up in bed, cracking jokes – but something was weighing on her. I thought she was overwhelmed too. I mean, it felt scary to be suddenly entirely responsible for this new human being. The hundred different ways we could cock it up, you know?’

Amy nods quickly, her coffee slopping in her saucer.

‘But then she told me.’

My voice cracks as I return to that room, can almost feel the weight of Charlie in my arms. Amy reaches for me, squeezing my fingers. I shut my eyes.

‘She told me Charlie wasn’t mine.’

Amy’s fingers clamp deeper on my hand and I hear her breath catch.

I don’t want to let the tears leak out but so much is building inside me I could burst. It’s as if my smaller frame can’t contain the swell of emotions.

‘Sorry,’ I say, huddling into myself as I become aware tears are escaping. ‘Must be the hormones,’ I sob-laugh, and that finally makes Amy scoot forward on her chair, her arms, or rather my arms, around me, shushing me as I cry.

‘So, she wasn’t mine,’ I stutter. ‘She was never my daughter. Tanya meant to tell me, but time just went on and it got harder.’ I can’t stop the bitterness making my words brittle, but a smaller voice reminds me that is what I’ve done too, put off the truth for another day, week, month until it feels impossible to ever admit things.

Amy’s hand is still warm on my back.

‘I didn’t want to go. I felt so guilty, like I was abandoning them. Even though she told me to go.’

‘So you had to,’ Amy said gently.

‘Did I?’ I shudder in my chair, still hating that memory, the feeling that I had done the very worst thing. I’d left her, tear-stained, exhausted, bewildered and holding her tiny baby to her chest.

‘Fuck, Flynn, this is … a lot,’ Amy says, sitting back. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

My head is still bowed as I try to get into words what I’d felt.

‘I felt ashamed that I’d left her, confused because I loved Charlie. I used to go on Facebook and look at photos of her, I wanted to send her a card every birthday but couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. I wasn’t her dad. I was literally nothing to her, and yet I felt like I’d walked away from my first child.’

This was too much. ‘Fuck,’ I say, pressing my fists to my eyes, ‘this is like therapy Ames, are you going to charge me fifty pounds?’

‘Fifty pounds?’ she says. ‘Sixty-five at least,’ her voice wobbling too.

I look up at her then, my head woolly, my mouth dry. ‘I am sorry, I genuinely just wanted to forget it, try to move on, force myself to not think about it, to plan ahead. Thinking about Charlie still hurts. I’m not good at things hurting – never have been. I guess that was what got me baby obsessed. Even the business became about the kids’ parties. It was my way of honouring her, making other children happy.’

Amy is quiet for a long time.

‘Thank you for telling me now,’ she says, then she looks up at me, her expression serious. ‘I’m so sorry.’

And I don’t know whether that is a final goodbye or whether it has changed anything.