Chapter Twenty-One
Erin moved to the side as Adam brought the last of the cups through to the kitchen and hovered, as if asking where to put them.
The patterned porcelain teacups looked tiny and fragile in his enormous hands.
Everyone else had gone, and she became hyper-aware of being on her own in the small space with this big man.
She took the cups from him and put them on the top of the dishwasher.
‘Why don’t you wait for me out there?’ She pointed out to the room, noticing the light was fading outside and fresh rain spattered the windows.
The uplighters on the walls made the café appear cosy and warm, and a surge of affection for the space was followed by a scooping out in her middle. ‘I’ll be done in a minute.’
‘I’m happy to help,’ he said. ‘Being a single man has its benefits. I’m fully competent in all things domestic.
’ Did he want a prize for doing tasks every woman on the planet performed daily without a word of praise?
‘Point me in the direction of the dishwasher.’ He scanned the various chrome appliances.
‘I wouldn’t thank you for it,’ said Erin, forcing humour into her voice. ‘I’m a tyrant when it comes to loading.’
‘Ah, you’re one of those, are you?’ He pointed at her. ‘I saw a meme that said in every couple there’s one person who loads the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect, and one who loads it like a raccoon on meth.’
‘Scandi as charged,’ said Erin, opening the front and bowing down to reorganise the top rack.
She wanted to shove her head inside and put it on a boil wash when she realized she’d unintentionally implied they were a couple.
But she couldn’t backtrack without making it into a thing.
She spent longer than she needed to re-stacking the delicate cups, before standing and moving to the sink to wash her hands.
She kept her back to him when she said, ‘What was it you wanted to talk about?’
She heard the soles of his boots shift on the floor. ‘I wanted to explain … I think I gave you the wrong impression when we went to the park last week.’
‘About what?’ She turned off the tap and dried her hands on a tea towel before folding it neatly and hanging it over the handle of the oven.
‘About my son. If you’d hung around long enough to hear—’
‘It’s really none of my business.’ Erin walked past him into the body of the café and began to tuck chairs neatly under tables, annoyed at the hint of irritation in his voice.
He was in no position to tell her what she’d done wrong.
She wasn’t the one who’d abandoned their family.
Quite the opposite, in fact. She shoved a chair hard, its legs scraping loudly on the floor.
‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. His exasperated tone made her bristle. Why had he bothered staying behind if that’s what he thought? ‘But for some unfathomable reason, I feel the need to explain myself to you, because, again, for reasons I find utterly baffling, I care what you think of me.’
She turned to face him, surprised by his candour. ‘You don’t owe me an explanation.’
‘I know.’ His fingers curled inwards. ‘God, you really are infuriating.’
‘Me?’ That was rich. ‘I’m not the one who infiltrated a perfectly functioning book group and turned it on its head.’
‘Infiltrated?’
It did sound a bit strong when repeated back. ‘No one asked you to change things.’
‘Everyone else seems happy with what’s going on. More than happy.’
That might be the thing that annoyed her the most. ‘Well, I’m not.’ There, she’d said it.
‘That’s because you’re terrified of anything upsetting your finely balanced ecosystem.
Heaven forbid anything should ever change.
’ He tucked a chair under a table so hard it clunked against the wood, then looked sheepish and took more care with the next one.
‘Change isn’t all bad, you know. Sometimes things change for the better. ’
She needed to get to the crux of what bothered her the most. ‘Well, you can’t change the fact of having a child.
You can’t just walk away from a living breathing person, not without harming people, if you do.
Children are precious. You can’t be in their lives one minute and not the next.
It’s not fair on anyone. Parenting is hard, but that’s what you agree to when you bring a new life into this world, you sign up to do the hard work and to put them first.’ Even as she spoke, she knew her words were really meant for Jack’s father, more than the man standing in front of her now.
Adam raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘I didn’t even know I had a son until a month ago.
That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.
If you hadn’t been so busy deciding who and what I was, judging me and finding me guilty in your personal family courtroom, you might have worked out that I wanted help.
I needed help.’ He said the last words slowly, and the emotion in them made Erin turn and stare.
What she saw wasn’t a confident man who travelled the world in search of a scoop.
His shoulders were hunched, and pain showed in the deep creases beside his eyes.
‘I thought I could talk to you because I saw how kind and compassionate you are with everyone at book group, but I made a mistake. You haven’t given me a fair hearing. ’
‘You didn’t know you had a son?’
‘Not a clue.’
Head suddenly light, Erin pulled out a chair and sat. Adam did the same.
‘I had no idea until I got an email about four weeks ago asking if I was willing to do a DNA test. A twenty-six-year-old man had been told that I was his father, and he wanted to know if it was true.’
‘He’d only just been told?’ That sounded brutal. Jack might not have much of a relationship with Andrew, but he knew his genetic heritage, at least.
‘Yep.’
‘His mother …?’
‘Someone I had a brief relationship with in my late twenties. We were both journalists covering the election. We were on the campaign trail together, sharing the tour bus, staying in the same hotels. We hooked up for a couple of weeks, but agreed it was never going to go anywhere. She was a home-bird, mostly working on local news, I wanted to travel.’ He gazed at her earnestly.
‘I swear to you, it was a mutual decision. Neither of us left the other. It was fun while it lasted, but that was it.’
‘And she never told you she was pregnant?’
‘No.’ He rubbed his face. ‘If she had … I think … I’m sure I would have wanted to be part of his life, I mean, half his DNA is mine, for God’s sake. I was nearly thirty. I wasn’t a kid. I would have done the right thing.’
There was such sincerity in his voice that Erin believed him.
She’d judged him, and she was wrong to do so.
She was getting everything wrong these days, and this time she’d walked away when someone needed her help.
That was against everything she stood for.
Blood rushed up her neck as it dawned on her she was the one who’d behaved unforgivably, not him. ‘Why do you think she didn’t tell you?’
‘I honestly don’t know. Maybe because she knew I was ambitious and didn’t want to be tied down.
That’s one of the reasons we decided not to try to make a go of it.
If we’d really fallen for each other, maybe things might have been different, but, like I said, it was just …
nice. She was a couple of years older. I got the impression she wanted the husband and kids, the semi-detached house in the suburbs and all that.
But there were no hard feelings, honestly.
I didn’t use her and abandon her. Oliver knows that. ’
‘That’s his name, Oliver?’
‘Yes.’ Adam’s face brightened. ‘It’s a good name, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a lovely name.’
‘His mum married his stepdad when he was two, and he calls him Dad, so it’s not like he’s missed out on having a father figure. Not from what I can gather, anyway.’
‘So why has he got in touch now?’
He sat back, eyes wide. ‘He’s going to be a dad himself.’
‘Whoa.’ Erin couldn’t stop it coming out. ‘You’re going to be a grandad?’
He laughed. ‘No need to look like that.’ Erin closed her mouth, when she realized it was hanging open.
‘That call I got, when I left book club that time, it was Oliver. That was the first time I’d spoken to him.
The DNA tests came back positive, so there was no doubt I was his dad, genetically I mean, and now he’s going to be a father himself, he wanted to reach out and see if I was willing to meet up. ’
‘That’s massive.’ She tried to imagine meeting Jack for the first time as a fully grown adult. She couldn’t.
‘Yep.’
‘What’s he like?’ Jack was an intrinsic part of her. Being his mother was a significant element of her identity. She couldn’t begin to imagine not having witnessed him growing up, it was simply inconceivable.
Adam raised his palms. ‘I haven’t met him yet.’
Erin calculated the time that had passed. ‘But it’s been a couple of weeks since that call. Does he live far away?’
‘Only Market Harborough.’
‘Then …?’
Adam dragged his nails across the underside of his chin. ‘It’s a big decision.’
‘Is it?’ Erin couldn’t imagine anything on earth keeping her away from her son. The pull she felt towards him was visceral, magnetic.
He dropped his eyes to the table. ‘It is for me. I’m not like you, Erin. I’ve seen what you’re like with Jack. You’re a great mum.’
Erin warmed at the praise. ‘And you could be a great dad.’
‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for it. You’ve got all this.
’ He gestured out to the room. ‘You’ve got foundations, people you’ve been friends with your whole life, it’s all solid and tangible.
I’ve never put down roots. I travelled, I made friends, I moved on.
I’ve never really committed to anything except my career, and even then I’ve always been freelance.
I haven’t even said a solid yes to a job. ’
‘So, you’re a commitmentphobe, is that what you’re saying?’
‘You make it sound like I’m taking it lightly. I’m not. I just need to know I’m making the right decision.’
‘I don’t understand what decision there is to make,’ Erin said, unable to keep the exasperation from her voice. She was truly confused as to why he wouldn’t leap at the chance of having a relationship with his boy.
Adam stood. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this.’ He marched to grab his coat from the back of the chair.
‘Is this what you always do? Run away when things get hard?’ Erin was beginning to wonder if he’d lied. Maybe he knew about his son all along, but didn’t want Erin to know that.
‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ Adam shoved his arms into the sleeves of his jacket.
‘What’s it got to do with me? I brought my son up myself. I didn’t bugger off when things got real like his dad did.’ She stood facing him and leaned against the table, arms crossed tightly.
‘You can’t judge everyone by that metric, Erin.
You’re tarring me with the same brush as him, and that’s not fair.
I thought you’d understand. I was wrong.
I get that you were hurt, but you’ve let that make you blinkered and stuck in the past. Forget I ever said anything.
’ He strode towards the door, his boots clonking on the wood.
‘You thought I’d understand what? Not facing up to your responsibilities? Does that sound like me? I’ve got responsibilities coming out of my bloody ears.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m drowning in them.’
He flung the door open. ‘I thought you’d understand how hard this change is for me.
What it feels like to be terrified you’ll fuck up and get things wrong.
’ A breeze blew in from the street, making the hairs on Erin’s arms stand on end.
‘I thought if anyone would get that, it was you.’ He stepped into the night and closed the door behind him.