‘Why did you want to meet me?’
Sean swallowed. He must have been prepared for this, but I enjoyed watching him squirm all the same. A bit different looking your own child in the face and answering that than it must have been practising it in the mirror.
‘I… You’re my son. I’m only sorry we didn’t meet earlier.’
‘So, why didn’t we?’
Sean sighed. ‘Because I was an idiot. And a coward. For a long time, I didn’t know how to even start, we live so far apart.’
‘Although you didn’t know where I lived. I could have been anywhere.’
A short pause. ‘I guess I assumed you were in the UK.’
‘How did you know we even had somewhere to live?’ Oh boy. I held my breath, waiting to see how this turned out.
‘I knew your grandparents would take care of you both.’
‘Mum’s parents wanted about as much to do with me as you did,’ Joey replied, while I tried to unclog the broken shards of heart from my windpipe by sheer force of will. ‘They’ve never even met me.’
All the colour drained from Sean’s face. Even his lips were white. ‘What?’ He looked at me, aghast.
‘You knew they’d sued me and then published a book about it. Why on earth did you think they’d want to take on my baby?’
‘But how could they leave you to fend for yourself? Their own child?’ he stuttered.
‘Bloody hell, Sean!’ Oh dear, this conversation appeared to have caused my swear-translator to malfunction.
‘What, like you did, you mean?’ Joey said.
Sean dropped his forehead into his clenched fists, barely managing to stop his jaw from scraping the table. We sat there, Joey and I, and calmly waited for him to pull himself together.
Eventually, after much face rubbing and slow head shaking, Sean rose from the depths of the table. ‘I’m so sorry. I just never thought.’
‘Well, no, that would have presented you with a quite inconvenient truth, wouldn’t it?’ I said.
‘What did you do?’ he asked, voice hoarse.
‘We coped,’ I snapped back, suddenly exhausted with the whole conversation. Part of me wanted Sean to grasp quite how tough it had been, being hurled across the chasm from Sports Personality of the Year nominee to homeless, jobless, single teenage mother in such a short space of time. The other part – a mix of pride and wanting to protect Joey – wanted to stick my chin up and pretend I’d managed perfectly fine, thank you very much, and here is the amazing proof, sitting right next to me.
And it was for Joey’s sake that I summoned up enough strength to bite back the thirteen years of angry accusations jostling to be heard, squished my outrage down beneath my clenched intestines and took a slow, deep breath.
‘So, where are you staying? Have you managed to see much of Nottinghamshire while you’ve been here?’ I asked, valiantly omitting ‘or have you been too busy stalking us?’
Sean blinked a couple of times.
I picked up my slice of lime and courgette cake, waving it breezily. ‘If you can get out into Sherwood Forest this time of year, I’ve heard the trees are spectacular.’
It took another minute or two of blatant changing the subject before Sean got the hint that I was moving things along from grotesquely painful to bearably bland. He tried to chat with Joey for a few more minutes, but the mood had shifted from nervously expectant to strange and tense.
‘I think it’s time we made a move,’ I interjected after an awkward anecdote about Sean’s brother (Joey’s uncle!). Joey sprang from his seat before I’d completed the sentence.
‘Right, well. It was wonderful to meet you.’ Sean stood, too. He was the exact same height as Joey. ‘I really appreciate it. And I hope we can do it again soon.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ I said, snapping on my woolly gloves as if my insides weren’t a crumbling pile of wreckage. ‘Joey’s very busy with school and swimming at the moment. As you’re aware.’
‘I wish I could tell you how sorry I am,’ Sean blurted, just as we began to leave.
Joey turned around, and the brief flash of anguish and confusion was a perfect mirror of the face behind us.
