Epilogue
Jaz was sixteen when she left us.
The morning Jaz’s mother was due to collect her, I got up early.
I’d been getting up early a lot lately. I was never going to become a morning person, but between a dog and a kid, I’d got weirdly used to having stuff to do before ten, and while I still didn’t like it, my brain was gradually accepting that it was the new normal.
“Coffee?” offered Oliver as I stared blearily into the toaster.
“Hmm?”
“Would you like some coffee?”
I didn’t quite have it in me to answer, but Oliver made me some anyway. Which was one of those things that felt like real love.
Putting his arms around me, Oliver kissed me gently on the back of the neck. “We prepared for this.”
“We talked about this,” I replied, “we didn’t prepare for it. You can’t.”
“No,” agreed Oliver.
And for a while we just stood there like that, him holding me and me resting against him, like there was nothing but the two of us in all the world.
I tried not to think about how in a bit over an hour, that would be one step closer to being true.
At least there’d be only the two of us in all the house.
Well, us and Spud.
We were interrupted by a sound of disgust coming from Jaz. Disgust of the older-people-I-live-with-are-showing-affection kind. Not the homophobic kind. “Are you two finished being shit?”
Oliver turned his head fractionally towards her. “No.”
I disentangled myself from him and tried to avoid bursting into tears. “And we never will be.”
Jaz pushed past us, grabbed a couple of slices of bread, and popped them in the toaster.
She’d been out of the yoink-two-slices-and-vanish habit for at least a year.
When her toast popped up, she buttered it, then retrieved a packet of Maldon Sea Salt from the cupboard and sprinkled a few flakes artfully over the top.
“So,” she began. There was an edge in her voice that, even after all this time, I didn’t think I’d ever heard. “This is weird, right?”
I suddenly had no idea what to do with my hands. “I’m trying not to be.”
“We’re very glad that Maisie is able to take you back,” said Oliver more levelly. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t also miss you.”
Jaz looked very fixedly at her toast. “Yeah, well. You said. Yesterday. And the day before.”
“And we still mean it today,” replied Oliver.
I didn’t reply anything. I was beginning to find it a bit difficult to get words out.
Scuffing one foot on the floor, Jaz lapsed into a still-characteristic silence. “Yeah,” she finally repeated. “Well.”
We sort of avoided talking from then until the doorbell went. Spud ran to it, yapping, and I spared a thought for how much he’d miss Jaz as well. In some ways, he’d been closer to her than any of us.
Holding out a faint, desperate hope that this would actually be Next Door’s Kid’s Parents popping up with some last-minute complaint, I rested for a second with my hand on the latch.
Oliver and Jaz lined up behind me, and Spud scampered around my feet, totally oblivious about what was going on.
And then, when I couldn’t delay any longer, I opened the door.
It wasn’t Next Door’s Kid’s Parents. It was Maisie. Which meant it was over.
“Hi,” she said, in that very specific tone people got when they knew they were happy about something you were sad about.
Oliver and I hi-ed back, and Jaz—who I didn’t think was trying to give the impression that she was desperate to get rid of us—started gathering up all the bags she’d packed in advance.
The suitcase she’d taken on her year eleven geography field trip.
The laptop bag we’d got her for the laptop we’d got her to replace the one she’d had from Bellefield when it inevitably broke.
The guitar my mum had stolen from Brian May.
The sports bag Jaz no longer had to use for her PE kit because she was somehow starting her A levels already and so would never have mandatory football ever again.
It was terrifying how many memories you could build in just a couple of years.
“Thanks,” Maisie went on, only slightly awkwardly. “For, y’know, looking after her.”
“It’s fine.” It was the most not-falling-apart tone I could manage. “Literally the job description.”
“It was our pleasure,” added Oliver.
Jaz turned and gave him a the fuck it was look. “The fuck it was.”
“Jasmine,” warned Maisie. It had taken me a while to get used to the fact that Maisie actually did always call her daughter by her full name, and that Jaz didn’t seem to mind it from her. But it made sense when I thought about it. “Don’t be a prick.”
Thankfully Oliver, always ready with a slightly-too-formal response to anything, just smiled. “It’s fine.” Then he turned to Jaz. “I hope this won’t be too sentimental, but I assure you, these last two years have been the most rewarding of my life.”
“And he has, like, a super-rewarding job,” I chimed in uselessly.
Stepping lightly over our threshold, Maisie hugged me and said in a soft voice, “I know how hard this is.”
Then she hugged Oliver, and he hugged her back and replied, “Just so you know, Jaz will always have a home here if she…if she needs one or if she wants one or…”
“Or if she just wants to visit,” I added, not at all desperately. “You will visit, right?”
Jaz made the most noncommittal sound I’d heard her make in two years of hearing her make extremely noncommittal sounds. Which was the closest she was ever going to get to a yes.
“Of course we will.” Being a grown-up, Maisie was slightly more willing to be reassuring.
And then we all lapsed into a horrible silence.
“We know this is for the best,” said Oliver in that what-matters-is-what’s-right way of his that, honestly, we all really needed from him just in that moment. “And we know she’s not ours. But…”
“But we’re hers,” I finished for him. “Always. Or as long as she wants us.”
From the look on Jaz’s face, as long as she wanted us ended about eight minutes ago, but her face was sometimes deceptive. Especially when feelings were involved. It was one of the many things we had in common. Or, possibly, one of the many ways I was still worryingly like a teenager.
Maisie picked up the last remaining bag. “Well.”
“Well,” I echoed.
And then I said “I guess you should…” at the exact same time Maisie said “I guess we should…”
“We shouldn’t keep you,” cut in Oliver firmly.
Which was, unfortunately, true. On many levels.
We shut the door and were just retreating, full-on-no-shit heartbroken into our front room, when there was another knock.
Spud fucking lost it.
“I suppose,” said Jaz when Oliver and I opened the door again, “that, all things considered, what with one thing and another, in the overall scheme of things you weren’t completely shit foster parents.”
Oliver put his hand on his heart. “Thank you, that means a lot.”
“To be clear,” I added, “he’s pretending to be sarcastic, but we both totally mean it.”
I got the impression that Jaz was already one-third regretting this. “And,” she added, “I might actually maybe miss you sometimes maybe.” She dropped into a squat and ruffled Spud’s fur. “And I will really miss you because you are the best boy, aren’t you?”
“Are we in the way?” I asked.
Jaz glanced up, half smirking. “A bit, if I’m honest.”
“To be clear,” said Oliver, with the sternness that Jaz had long since stopped taking seriously, “you don’t get to keep our dog.”
“Yeah.” Jaz continued commiserating with Spud. “Not fair, isn’t it, boy?”
“Arooou,” agreed Spud, the little fluffy traitor.
Once our foster daughter—former foster daughter—had finished ignoring us in favour of our pet, she stood back up. And finally, with a don’t-you-fucking-dare-say-anything look on her face, she hugged me.
Then she hugged Oliver.
Then she crouched back down to pat Spud again.
“Right,” she said. “I’m out. But I’ll be back to check in on Spud so…behave yourselves.”
We promised that we would. We shut the door behind her.
And then she really was gone.
“Aroou?” said Spud, somewhat anxiously, as we walked back into a suddenly much emptier, much quieter house.
* * *
I followed Oliver into the living room, where he was looking round like he didn’t recognise it.
“You know,” he said, “I can’t remember the last time we hoovered behind the sofa. We should probably pull it out and—”
Then he shaded his eyes with a hand and burst into tears. Which was almost a relief because it gave me something to do that wasn’t bursting into tears myself. I drew him gently onto the sofa that we definitely weren’t hoovering behind that evening.
He made a slightly futile attempt to wipe his eyes. “S-sorry.”
“Yeah,” I told him. “How dare you express emotion.”
“Well, this is a little undignified.”
“Fuck dignity, Oliver. Our kid just left.”
“With her mother. Which is the right thing for her.”
I knew Oliver would have a handkerchief, even if he’d temporarily forgotten. I took it out of his pocket and gave it to him. “Things can be right and still suck.”
“I know. But it’s particularly complicated when the right sucky thing is a right sucky thing you’ve been working to make happen for two years. And then it finally happens, and it feels a lot suckier than it does right.”
“Is it possible,” I asked, “you’re overthinking and actually we’re both just sad?”
He shot me a teary look. “And you’re not… I know how you… You don’t think it’s my fault she’s gone?”
“What? No. Where is this coming from?”
“I suppose I’m just aware that if I’d let things be, she’d probably have stayed until she was eighteen.”
“Or she might not have. Anything could have happened.”
“I still might have expedited something that—”
“Oliver.” I kissed him in an I love you but shut up way. “Stop. Everyone in this situation was a grown-up. Well, everyone except Jaz. Well, everyone except Jaz and Spud.”
“Ruff,” agreed Spud, who was sitting at Oliver’s feet, giving dog comfort.
“Maisie wanted her daughter back. Jaz wanted her mum back. You helped make that happen. And I love you for helping make that happen. Even if…” I sighed. “We’re both hurting because of it.”
Oliver closed his eyes for a moment. “Sorry,” he said again. “Not for the emotions. For…for being silly.”
“Eh.” I waved that away. “I like it when you’re silly. Makes me feel useful.”
He managed a watery smile. “There are more important things in a relationship than being useful. You taught me that.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got those things nailed.”
“You do,” he agreed, clearly meaning something totally different and a lot more flattering. He half turned towards me. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lucien.”
“More hoovering, probably?”
“Actually, we should probably dust the top of the television as well.”
“Oliver, you’re still crying. Why are you talking about dusting?”
He gave a weepy, self-conscious half laugh. “Because I’m…I’m at a loss, I think.”
“So am I. Let’s just be at a loss for a while? Maybe take Spud for a walk in a bit?”
“Ruff,” said Spud. And then, seeming to remember Jaz was gone, added, “Aroou.”
“That doesn’t seem…” Oliver broke off. Then tried again. “Adequate?”
“Is anything going to be?”
“One would hope so. Eventually.”
“Okay,” I said. “But eventually’s ages away. I’m trying to get through now.”
Oliver drew me closer, half protective, half needy. “We’re going to be all right.”
“Of course we are.”
“It’s just…hard to think. About anything.”
“That’s okay.”
“Or to imagine what we’ll do next.”
I was quiet, the seconds and minutes slipping away, as I snuggled deeper into Oliver’s embrace. “I guess,” I said finally, “we don’t have to?”
“Isn’t that a little nihilistic?”
“I don’t think so. I think it might be the opposite of…of that.”
“You aren’t totally certain what nihilism is, are you?”
“I mean, is anyone? Like, something something abyss, something something monsters, something something God is dead.”
Oliver opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Actually, that’s pretty much it.”
“I think,” I went on, leaving the dead God in the abyss with the monsters, “I just meant that it doesn’t matter that we don’t know what we’re doing today. Because we’ll always have tomorrow?”
“You,” murmured Oliver, “are the only person I know who can make procrastination sound romantic.”
I shrugged. “Well, maybe that’s because I can’t imagine anything more romantic.”
“Than procrastination?”
“Than being so sure of someone, so completely in love with them, that you can stop worrying about the future on account of how the most important thing about it is already sorted.”
Oliver blinked, crying again, but more gently this time. “Oh, Lucien,” he said.
And when he kissed me, there in our under-hoovered living room with its under-dusted television, he tasted a little bit of coffee and a little bit of crying, but mostly of forever.
Our forever.
Whatever that looked like.