Chapter Forty-Five
‘Fell apart?’ I whispered. ‘What… as in… had a nervous breakdown?’ My heart squeezed.
Jake shook his head.
‘No, not like that,’ he sighed. ‘It was more… asking myself how I could bring a new life into this world, when I’d never bothered to find out who I truly was. If that makes any sense,’ he added. He shifted in his seat. A regrouping gesture. ‘Hannah wanted the two of us to create a brand-new human being. For me, this was a massive trigger. I suddenly had this overwhelming urge to find out who I really was. Who had I been when I first came into this world?’
‘My beautiful baby boy,’ I sobbed.
For a moment Jake glared at me, then the fierce expression softened.
‘I needed to find the man and woman who’d made my flesh and bones.’ He rubbed his forehead. A stress response. ‘It became an all-consuming desire to find the two people who’d created my essence. Can you understand?’
I stared at him mutely, while Lisa slowly nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately, it didn’t make sense to Hannah,’ he said sadly. ‘At first, she was patient with me. She said it was probably common to want to know more about one’s origins. What one’s birth parents did, and so on. She understood my curiosity. The need to know what was inside me. My parents had brought me up as their own, but they’d died. They couldn’t answer the questions suddenly whirring in my head. Unfortunately – despite them never making a secret of my adoption – when I looked for the paperwork, there was none. At least, nothing that gave me a lead on where to start. Time went by, and Hannah began to get impatient with me. She wanted to crack on. Start a family. Instead, her partner seemed to have morphed into someone with a messed-up head. Suddenly her calm, level-headed boyfriend was a mess of wildly swinging emotions. From anger and hurt. To abandonment. Despair. I didn’t know if it was an early mid-life crisis or a ridiculously belated adoption trauma. All I did know was that I felt confused and lost, and I refused to bring a new life into this world when I had unanswered questions about my own life.’
‘Can I interrupt for a moment?’ asked Lisa.
‘Of course,’ said Jake.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
I was instantly reminded of Jake’s bright red face only half an hour earlier when he’d stood in the main office with everyone watching the drama unfold. Now it was my turn to have a flaming face.
‘He’s thirty-four,’ I muttered.
Lisa’s mouth fell open.
‘Thirty- four ?’ she squawked. ‘That means’ – her brow furrowed as she struggled with the maths – ‘you couldn’t have been more than…’
‘Fifteen,’ I nodded, my face burning with shame. ‘I was fifteen when I gave birth.’
‘Holy moly,’ she breathed.
‘I did wonder if you were no more than a kid when you carried me,’ said Jake. ‘In a way, it makes it easier for me to come to terms with. Even so, I still have questions to ask.’
‘Of course,’ I whispered.
‘I mean’ – Jake shrugged – ‘I’m not expecting some instant parent-child bondto come about just because you’re my biological mother.’
My tear ducts involuntarily squirted more water. How could I even begin to explain that – despite holding my newborn for a few precious seconds – the invisible umbilical cord had always been there. Well, for me anyway. I could remember pouring my heart out to Cindy in one of our imagined conversations.
Not a day goes by where – at some point – I don’t think about what happened. What might have been. If I’d been a little older. A little wiser. If circumstances had been different. Sometimes I have a good day and realise that twelve hours have passed without fretting about it. I tell myself that the inner peace of those twelve hours was blissful. Such a relief. And then, equally, I’m horrified. Ask myself what sort of person I’ve become to have permitted twelve hours of amnesia. It makes me feel like such a bad person.
Cindy had reassured me that I wasn’t. At least, I like to think she had.
I now understood why Jake had seemed so familiar when I’d first caught sight of him outside my place of work.
A part of my mind detached. Whooshed backwards. Lisa telling me to turn now . Of locking eyes with a nameless stranger. Feeling disturbed, but not knowing why.
Well, now I knew. Jake had reminded me of Nicholas. Nicholas from long ago. So long ago, that I’d still been at school. As had Nicholas.
‘So’ – Jake ventured tentatively – ‘did you not have a family with your husband?’
I shook my head.
‘No, although I wanted to,’ I confessed.
‘Did you tell your husband about me?’ asked Jake.
I shook my head.
‘No. My parents knew. Obviously. And people in authority. It became a taboo subject. My folks and I… we haven’t discussed it in decades. Coping mechanisms on all sides, I suppose. But there were no more babies. I told myself it was karma paying me back. I’d received the gift of a child once, then given the gift away. So why should I be blessed again?’ I took a shuddering breath as my eyes continued to leak. ‘There was even a part of me that wondered if I’d somehow programmed my body not to have a baby as a form of self-punishment.’
‘Oh, Tilly,’ said Lisa. ‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Really?’ My chin jutted defiantly. ‘It was no more than I deserved.’
Jake shook his head.
‘You were fifteen,’ he pointed out. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to hear your story. The details of how I came to be.’