Five Winters(80)

“Well, that’s very kind, but I haven’t got anything for you because we agreed not to buy anything for each other.”

“That’s all right. I don’t expect anything.”

But that wasn’t true. Tom did expect something—me to relent about my decision and start dating him again if he only wore me down enough. It was never going to work. I’d told him so. Over and over again.

I really wished I hadn’t been persuaded to start dating. But January and February had been particularly bleak months, which was probably why I’d been receptive to Naomi’s suggestion.



When Clare’s home visits had started up again in the New Year, I’d been feeling low after my disastrous Christmas. And one look at her grim expression told me she’d spoken to Jaimie and that his report on my mothering skills hadn’t been favourable.

“What did he say about me?” I asked her.

“I can’t tell you that. It’s confidential.”

I stared at the floor, so frustrated I could have screamed. I wanted to try to explain to her how difficult and unresponsive the girls had been. How very hard I’d tried. That being a stepmother was one of the most challenging things I’d ever done.

But then she said it herself: “Look, I know how challenging it can be to be a stepparent, especially in a situation where the children still hope their parents will get back together.”

“Yes,” I said with feeling, but Clare swept on.

“But being an adoptive parent can be much more challenging than that. No matter how inadequate a child’s parents have been, they are still that child’s parents, and the child is still likely to long for them. Miss them. Illogical as it is, they may even blame you for their being taken away from them. This is unlikely to last forever, of course, but it could last long enough for you to start to wonder whether you’ve done the right thing.”

“My relationship with Jaimie’s daughters wasn’t part of the reason Jaimie and I split up,” I said, not wanting Clare to think I didn’t have sticking power. “If it hadn’t been for . . . other circumstances, I would have persisted with them. They may never have viewed me like a second mother, but I don’t think they’d have gone on resenting me.”

But Clare latched on to the earlier part of what I’d said.

“Yes, as to those circumstances you mention, Mr. Faulkner intimated that one of the reasons your relationship ended was because you told him you had feelings for somebody else. And yet, when we spoke about this before Christmas, I don’t think you mentioned that?”

Blast Jaimie to hell. Obviously, he’d used the conversation with Clare as an opportunity to get his own back. But I wasn’t going to let him and his girls—or anybody else, for that matter—destroy my chances of adopting. I could be a good mother if I got the chance. I just needed to be given that chance.

So I leant forward in my chair, holding Clare’s gaze. “It’s true, I did tell Jaimie that. And it’s true that I do—did—have feelings for somebody else. But nothing came of it. Will ever come of it. And . . . everything else I told you about why Jaimie and I split up was true. We wanted different things from life. I didn’t love him as much as he deserved to be loved. Look, right now, my focus isn’t on a relationship. It’s 100 percent on becoming an adoptive parent. I’ll do whatever I need to do to make that happen. I’ve already arranged to volunteer at the youth centre, and I’ll ask my boss if I can change my shifts so I can volunteer at a school too. I want to get as much experience with children as possible.”

Clare looked at me. I thought I saw a gleam of approval in her eyes at my fighting spirit. “That sounds very helpful,” she said. “And if you like, I can put you in touch with another single adopter so you can have a frank conversation about the challenges she’s faced.” She smiled. “And the joys, of course.”

I smiled back, feeling suddenly hopeful that Jaimie’s negativity hadn’t blown my chances of adopting after all. “Yes, please, that would be great.”

Clare was as good as her word, emailing the contact details of a single adopter—Marie—to me the very next day.

When I first called Marie, she asked me to call back because she was dealing with an all-out tantrum. Actually, she didn’t need to tell me that, because I could hear the screaming over the phone. When I tried again, Marie told me these tantrums were fairly frequent. That they came out of the blue and probably amounted to her little boy testing her to see if she would stick around, even when he was naughty.

“The social workers say it’s a phase, and you have to believe that, don’t you? Otherwise, you’d go crazy. And he’s a little cuddly bunny most of the time. Except for when he’s not.”

Then she added, “I can’t deny all this would be easier if I had a partner. Someone to share my woes and my triumphs with. But then, I suppose all single parents might say the same thing.”

Marie’s adoptive son was six years old—she’d adopted him when he was five. When I asked her if she’d have liked to have adopted a younger child, she said, “Yes, of course. But it was always made clear to me that since the demand for babies and toddlers is high, younger children almost always go to a couple. Hasn’t your social worker told you that?”

My heart sank. “No,” I said, “she hasn’t. Not in so many words, anyway.”