Chapter 38
Driving home, Vee found herself sandwiched between a person with very little to say and an older one who looked very uncomfortable. She’d tried to make general conversation to get the ball rolling without success. Both seemed determined to be strong, silent types.
Vee reflected on the emails that had passed between herself and Finn over the last week.
They had mainly been a list of arrangements to do with flights, transfers and the time Finn was allowed to have away from work.
They hadn’t really touched on the reason for his visit, apart from a brief comment from Finn that the two of them had a lot to talk about and her own final sign-off last night when she’d said how she couldn’t wait to see him.
Too much? But she’d so wanted Finn to know how welcome he was, even if this meeting was probably happening at a time in his life when he’d thought his world was stable.
They reached the outskirts of Willowbrook and Finn perked up, listening attentively as Vee pointed out places that were significant in her and Cassie’s past.
‘There’s our old school,’ she said. ‘And that’s the park where we used to play.’
‘Cool church,’ Finn said, peering up at the steeple. ‘And look at all those graves. Creepy. Are any of our family buried there?’
‘Oh, yes, both your great-grandparents on my side and… and friends.’ Vee thought about Patrick, in a grave on the far side of the churchyard, ironically not far from the site of the doomed shed. She shivered.
‘Are you cold?’ Finn asked. ‘It’s freezing here. My moms told me to bring layers. It’s warmer this week in Boston.’
This was the longest sentence he’d spoken so far, and Vee smiled at him in relief. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said. ‘I’ve put the heating on at home so the house will be snug.’
Rick pulled up outside Dragonfly Cottage and switched off the engine. He turned to Vee and Finn. ‘I’ll leave you here,’ he said. ‘I’m off to do a job in Meadowthorpe. Good to meet you, Finn.’
They reached over Vee and shook hands before Finn opened the door and jumped down, reaching out to help Vee from the cab.
Her legs were stiff from being in the van for a while and she swayed as she stepped out.
Finn put a steadying arm around her, but it was only a brief connection, and he was soon swinging his rucksack onto his shoulder and following Vee inside.
As she’d anticipated, the warmth from the radiators had turned the living room from the chilly place of that morning into a much cosier one.
Vee’s charity shop sofa was now covered in a colourful patchwork throw and although she’d argued with Rick about the wisdom of covering up the floorboards with carpet, she had to admit that the room would be chilly without it.
He’d said that the old boards were too uneven and damaged to sand and stain successfully, and he’d been right.
‘This is neat,’ said Finn. ‘A real country cottage, like on the shows the moms sometimes watch. Hercules somebody.’
‘Hercule Poirot?’
‘Yeah, that’s the dude. I like it. Great pictures.’
They both looked round the walls, and Vee saw with fresh eyes the eclectic selection of paintings and old mirrors she’d gleaned from the local charity shops.
Also, she’d relied on Maryam and Rashid’s Treasure Trove table for additional bits and bobs to add colour and style.
It was the place where villagers left their unwanted possessions and were free to take whatever they liked from the table in return.
The previous guardian of the shop, Ingrid, had started the trend when she was divesting herself of a lifetime of unwanted belongings left to her by her husband and Maryam had loved the idea so much that she’d kept it going.
Vee had collected a huge bottle-green plant pot only yesterday and it graced the coffee table that Rick had knocked up using old pallets found at the tip.
The pot held a chrysanthemum plant, the glorious yellow one that had travelled all the way through France and back home with them.
The others had donated it to Vee as a housewarming gift, saying that there would be no connotations of honouring the dead when it reached England.
‘It’ll remind you of the fun we had instead,’ Sid said as he presented it to her.
‘Did you do all this yourself?’ Finn asked. ‘My mom – Cassie, I mean – said this place was a wreck when you took it on and it would take years to put it right.’
‘Rick did most of the hard graft,’ said Vee. ‘But I cleaned and scrubbed and decorated, so it’s my work too. Let me show you your room.’
The stairs and banisters had now been painted white but a runner up the middle muffled their footsteps as they ascended.
Vee opened the door into the guest bedroom that was now looking much more welcoming.
An old brass bed took centre stage covered with another patchwork throw.
This floor was sanded and stained but had a thick rug to warm the toes of anyone stepping out of bed on a cold morning.
The walls were painted in a gentle shade of green and the only picture was a large black-and-white photograph in a gilt frame.
Finn went straight over to it and looked intently at the figures grouped together.
They stood on a grassy hill and had very solemn expressions.
‘I found that one in the loft,’ said Vee. ‘The couple in the middle are my grandparents. They weren’t miserable really. It was a serious business having your photo taken in those days. The others are my great-aunts. Now they were quite grumpy.’
Finn laughed, and the sound took Vee back to her childhood. He sounded just like Tallulah with her deep chuckle. ‘You remind me of my mum,’ she said.
Finn dumped his bag on the floor. ‘That’s cool. Come on, let’s go downstairs. We need to talk before we go any further. This isn’t as weird as I thought it was gonna be but it’s still pretty strange. It’s like I’ve been born all over again.’
‘Yes, that’s exactly how it feels to me too,’ said Vee, leading the way back down to the living room. ‘I don’t suppose you want a cup of tea?’
He grimaced. ‘I do not. Disgusting stuff. But you go ahead, I’ll just have a water. Still, not sparkling. Unless… you might be making coffee?’ he added hopefully.
Vee said that was perfectly possible. She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, assembling a tray with mugs, a cafetiere and a plate of chocolate chip cookies which she’d bought to make him feel at home.
They sat down together on the sofa and Vee wondered where to begin but Finn was already on the case. He went straight in for the kill.
‘Right, before we go any further, I need to know why you decided that it was a good idea to have a baby in the first place and more to the point, why you didn’t want to bring me up yourself.
I mean, you just gave me away like a parcel.
Oh yeah, I get that you did it for your sister, and I guess that makes it a bit more okay, but even so…
it stings, Mom. You must be able to see it from my point of view?
And not only that, I also want you to explain why I wasn’t told about you being my natural mother.
I’ve said the same to the moms at home. They know…
oh, boy, do they know… that I’m seriously unimpressed by all this but they haven’t given me a satisfactory answer yet. ’
Finn sat back and folded his arms, looking directly in front of him rather than at Vee. She bit her lip. ‘Well, you don’t mess about, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘No point. Let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? Then we can get on and eat cookies.’
The mention of the biscuits was less threatening than the first part of Finn’s speech. Vee took heart.
‘To cut a very long story short, I was in a strange place; at a crossroads in my life, I suppose you could say. My relationship had ended badly, I was thirty-five with no desire to find a new one, my sister was very much in love with the woman she’d met on a student exchange in America, and they were both longing for a child.
Cassie was twenty-eight, still young but with a whole heap of medical problems that meant she’d never be able to conceive a baby of her own.
Marissa had similar issues too. I wanted to help. ’
‘Yeah, that ties in with what they told me,’ Finn said. ‘But what I still don’t get is how you could do it. Didn’t you want to keep me… even a little bit?’ His voice wavered on the last words and he suddenly sounded much younger than his twenty years.
Silence fell as Vee tried to think how to answer this question honestly.
Eventually she cleared her throat. ‘I did and I didn’t,’ she said.
‘You’ve got to understand that it wasn’t as if you were conceived in a relationship.
The man who was the…’ She paused, trying to think of a tactful way to put this.
‘Sperm donor,’ Finn said. ‘Let’s not make him anything but that.’
‘Okay, the sperm donor. He was a friend of your parents, but he only did the job as a favour to them. He didn’t want any involvement. He’d never wanted children, and he moved away soon after, with the proviso that he wasn’t to be contacted again.’
‘Yeah, that’s also what they said. But you still haven’t told me how you felt.’
Vee thought back to when the midwife had put her new baby in her arms. She’d been exhausted after a long and difficult labour but the sight of the tiny boy with his beautiful brown skin and big brown eyes had instantly melted her heart.
In that moment, she had wanted desperately to keep him for herself.
His fingers had closed around her thumb as she gazed down at him, wrapped in a snowy blanket provided by Cassie, who had learned to crochet just to produce her new son’s first shawl.
‘Yes, Finn,’ Vee said huskily. ‘I did want you. I wanted to keep you so badly that I didn’t know how I was ever going to bear to give you up.
But then Cassie and Marissa arrived, and I saw them fall in love with you the minute they held you.
They were both crying, and so was I. Even the midwife had tears on her cheeks.
She knew what I was about to do. I had to go through with it. I made a promise.’
‘Have you regretted it? I really wanna know that.’
The question hung between them. It was time for the truth.
‘Yes. Yes, I have. Many times. But a promise is a promise, and you’ve had a very happy life so far.
I don’t want to spoil it now by muddying the waters.
I love you very much, Finn. I always will.
But Cassie and Marissa are your parents, and they adore you.
They said they’d tell you about me one day, but I guess they were scared. ’
‘Of what?’
‘Oh, that’s simple. Scared you’d decide to come over here and make your life with me.’
‘As if.’
The two short words pierced Vee’s heart. Finn saw the look on her face and began to babble. ‘I didn’t… I mean, I… it’s not that I wouldn’t like it here… but… but…’
‘I know what you meant. Your life’s in Boston and that’s how it should be,’ Vee said, trying not to show the hurt inside.
‘But you need to remember that you’ll always have an extra home here with me, whenever you want to visit.
It’ll be different now, but we’ll make a new kind of relationship, won’t we? ’
Vee waited, holding her breath. Had she got this right? There must be no pressure on her son to feel obliged to visit her. He reached out and took her hand.
‘Sure we will,’ he said. ‘Now, why don’t we get some good strong caffeine inside us and have a sugar rush. Hey, is that someone at the door?’
Vee got up to see who was there, wondering how quickly she could get rid of them, whoever it was. She opened the door and there stood Beryl on the step, smiling hopefully.
‘I won’t come in,’ she said. ‘I saw you get back and I don’t want to get in the way while you’re having your big reunion, but I’d like to invite you and your nephew to come around later. I’ve organised a fuddle at mine. I hope you haven’t got other plans?’
Finn was now standing at Vee’s side. He looked down at Beryl. ‘What’s a fuddle?’ he asked. ‘I bet I’ll like it, whatever it is.’
‘Oh, hello. Or should I say hi,’ said Beryl, fluttering her eyelashes like a Victorian heroine. ‘It’s a party to welcome you to England. We’re having traditional British food. Winnie’s even making a sherry trifle.’
‘I don’t know what that is, but I bet it’s awesome.’
‘See you later, Beryl,’ said Vee. ‘We’ll bring a bottle.’
They watched Beryl go back into her own house. Finn turned to Vee. ‘I should’ve asked you first before I accepted,’ he said. ‘But we can go, can’t we… erm…’
‘I think it’s best if you just call me Vee. Drop the Aunty and forget Mom. There are two very important ladies who’ve earned that title, and I haven’t done anything to deserve it,’ said Vee, closing the front door. She made as if to go back to the sofa, but Finn put a hand on her arm to stop her.
‘Wait up,’ he said. ‘That’s not even a tiny bit true. Without you I wouldn’t be here at all. It doesn’t matter what I call you, though, does it? And we don’t need to talk about it any more right now.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Vee.
The relief of getting this conversation over was intense and she was delighted when Finn yawned and rubbed his eyes, saying, ‘I might have to take a nap if we’re gonna be partying all night with the oldies. But after that…’
‘After that, you’ll see how Willowbrook paints the town red,’ said Vee. ‘Watch and learn, Finn. Watch and learn.’