“To Dad,” Rosie said, and we clinked our glasses together.
“To Dad.”
“To Richard.”
As we sipped our sherry and smiled at each other, tears glittered in our eyes, and I thought of myself this time last December, oblivious to anything the year would bring. Surely next year would be kinder? Hard as it was to believe right then, the hurt and loss of Richard’s passing would start to mellow just a little bit. Olivia would tire of her drum kit. Jaimie and I would have a good talk and sort our problems out. And maybe, just maybe, he would even agree to having a baby with me.
Well, I could only hope, couldn’t I?
WINTER THREE
15
“I’m a bit scared, to be honest,” I said on the phone to Rosie.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I’d be absolutely terrified. Not that I’d be in your position in a million, trillion years, of course. But look, just because you’ve put your application to adopt in, it doesn’t mean you have to go through with it. You never know, you might come to your senses.”
The idea of adopting a child had come to me six or seven months after my breakup with Jaimie. I’d seen a TV programme about children in the care system—all these tragic kids shifted about from pillar to post, desperate for a new mum and dad. It made me cry, it really did. Then I got hooked on a podcast that followed parents who were applying to adopt. Their stories really moved me too—all that yearning and soul-searching as they talked about how much having a family would mean to them.
After that, I seemed to see adverts for foster carers everywhere I went. And then one Sunday morning in the bath, I had a light-bulb moment. I could do that, I thought. I could adopt. As soon as the idea popped into my head, I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before. It seemed like an obvious solution.
Rosie hadn’t shared my enthusiasm about it when I told her, though. She never came out and said it, but even so, I knew she thought I’d lost my mind.
“I do want to adopt,” I told her now. “But wanting something doesn’t make it any less scary, that’s all.”
“Oh, well, I expect everybody else will feel the same way you do.”
“Probably. Though no doubt they’ll all be getting a confidence boost from their partners. Let’s face it, I’m bound to be the only single person there.”
“Probably, yes. But then, if you weren’t single—if you were still with Jaimie, say—you wouldn’t be doing this, would you?”
“I suppose not.”
Staring out into the garden, I imagined how it might be if I were still with Jaimie—him not committing to having a baby with me, me still trying to get his girls to like me. “You don’t think I should have stayed with him, do you?”
I heard Rosie sigh. “We haven’t got time to debate that, darling, have we? Not if you want to get to your session on time. You did say it started at seven?”
I looked at the clock. “Oh God, yes. Thanks. See you on Monday for the lights?”
“You bet. Six o’clock under the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.”
“Six o’clock.”
“Go and sock it to them!”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Oh, and for the record, no, I definitely don’t think you should have stayed with him.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
The Introduction to Adoption Information Session run by Adoption East London was a bus ride away. As I hurried towards the bus stop at the end of my road, I wondered why I’d made myself potentially late by calling Rosie. And why I’d asked her about Jaimie. Why was I even thinking about Jaimie right now? God, if he knew I was doing this, he’d laugh out loud. He wouldn’t be able to believe it. But so what? It had been eleven months since our split. What Jaimie thought and didn’t think about anything connected to my life was completely irrelevant. Thank goodness.
My departure from Jaimie’s life had been a messy affair. Let’s just say he didn’t take the news that I wanted to break up with him at all well. In fact, it took a while to convince him I really meant it. And after I had, he wanted me gone as soon as possible.
“I’m going to work,” he’d said. “I’ll be back by four. I want you and your belongings gone by the time I get back. Understood?”
But it wasn’t as simple as that, because even though I’d let out my flat furnished, I still had all my other belongings in Ely—most of them crammed into Jaimie’s attic. He’d hired a van when I moved in, but obviously I couldn’t expect him to do that this time. So I decided there was nothing for it but to have a ruthless cull of my belongings. That way, everything would fit into my ancient car.
Only, on the way to the dump, my car died.
Ely isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, but my car happened to choose a roundabout for its final demise, and a queue soon built up behind me. As I tried fruitlessly to turn the engine over, wishing I hadn’t ignored the knocking sound that had started up the previous week, people started sounding their horns angrily.
Finally, I got out, and a man helped me to push my car to the side of the road. Then I rang roadside assistance.
As I stood at the side of the road, waiting, I stared bleakly through the car windows at the belongings I’d been going to dump—boxes of books I’d wanted to read again, my old college folders, a little armchair in need of renovation that had belonged to my grandmother. I didn’t really want to throw any of it out. At least, not hastily like this.
Tears filled my eyes—stupid tears that soon had doubt and panic raging inside me. The next few weeks were going to be so bloody hard. Why had I done this to myself? Jaimie was a perfectly good man. Decent. Attractive. Good in bed. Okay, so he always put his girls before me, but that made him a good father, not a bad partner. And he hadn’t definitely said no to us having a baby together. I hadn’t given him the chance to, had I? The six months weren’t up yet. God, what if I never met anyone as nice as him ever again?
Craving comfort, I phoned Rosie.
“Ah, kid,” she said after I’d explained the situation. “I’m so sorry. But it was the right thing to do if you weren’t happy, wasn’t it? And the important thing now is to sort out how to get your stuff back here. Look, Mark’s just popped round for a cup of tea. I’ll put him on, shall I? He can help you out.”
“Oh, no,” I said hastily, but too late—Rosie had gone, and I could hear a rumble of voices as she spoke to him.
Then Mark was on the line. “Beth? Jeez, I’m so sorry. Look, where exactly are you? I’ll hire a van and come straight over. But it’ll take me three hours or so to get there, at a guess.”
Hearing his calm, concerned voice made me promptly burst into tears. He’d sounded like Richard—kind and practical. And I knew that, had he still been alive, Richard would have been the first person I’d have called to get me out of this dilemma.
As I swiped the tears away, the flashing lights of the recovery vehicle headed towards me along the road. Suddenly I wanted Mark and his hired van more than I could say.
“Thanks, Mark. Thanks so much. The recovery services are just arriving.”