The Things I Know(96)

After a tour of Waycott Farm, a quick introduction to Daisy Duke V, Mrs Cluck VII, Helga III, and presenting his mother and aunts with a box of freshly packed eggs each to take home, Thomasina and Grayson kissed them all goodbye and waved them off as night began to fall.

Mr and Mrs Potts got ready for bed, jostling for space at the sink as they cleaned their teeth.

‘I’ve had the loveliest time. I hope they come again. It wasn’t so bad, was it?’

‘Not so bad at all.’ He beamed. ‘Thank you, Mrs Potts.’

‘Any time,’ Thomasina answered casually as she pulled her nightgown over her head. ‘I gave your mum a copy of the scan,’ she offered softly.

He nodded. ‘Good.’

‘I wasn’t sure if . . .’ she began.

‘Wasn’t sure if what?’ He looked up at her.

‘If I should send a copy to your dad too? Now that we have his address. I thought it might make him think about stuff.’ She knew it was still a delicate subject and thought about Henry Potts, who had replied to Grayson’s letter of introduction with page after page of detail about his life, his family, his job and made no reference at all to the life he had led before. The life with Grayson in it. She knew it was a lot for her husband to deal with as he tried to reconcile the person with whom he was now free to correspond and the man who had stood at the foot of his bed all those years ago. Grayson was still figuring out how to reply or indeed whether he should reply at all. She knew that his dad’s letter had made him question whether contact was a good idea – such was his disappointment at reading about a life that seemingly had no space for him in it.

‘I’m not sure,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I suppose, if he can’t relate to me, then he might relate to his grandchild. I’m just not sure I want him to – not sure if he deserves that chance.’

‘Only you can decide, and I will, of course, support you either way.’

‘Do you think he’ll come to visit, Thom? Ever come here to see our baby, our life?’ His tone was now neutral and not full of hope, as she knew it would have been in the early days.

She climbed beneath the covers of the rickety brass bed and patted the space next to her on the soft and saggy mattress.

Buddy curled into his basket by the door.

‘I don’t know.’ Thomasina, like her husband, knew it was always better, easier, to tell the truth.

He climbed in next to her and took her in his arms. ‘I don’t know either, but you know it’s funny – I don’t mind so much. Not any more. It’s like you and our life here, and this baby . . . you have filled up all the gaps I had inside me. I have everything I ever wanted. I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr Waleed, who lived in the flat below with his kids, wife and mother-in-law, and their garden implements lying in the basement storage cage where they had no use.’

‘I remember him shouting at you by the bins.’ She snuggled down.

‘The sound of his happiness floating up to the ceiling of my bedroom fascinated me, and I couldn’t understand how he could be so happy, but I get it now. He had the people he loved around him and that was everything. That is everything.’

‘It is everything,’ she agreed as sleep pawed at her. Being pregnant was exhausting.

She thought about the sparkly toffee-apple-red shoes, bedecked with sequins, and their neatly curved kitten heels, with a bow no less, now sitting in a special box in her closet. Shoes that she would never get to wear, shoes not designed for a foot like hers, but which she could look at whenever she wanted.

Thomasina wriggled to get comfortable as her husband smoothed her long hair over his chest. She smiled as she felt the pull of sleep, confident that the sun would rise tomorrow and that she, Thomasina Potts, would idle in her own kitchen and make breakfast for the man she loved. She might get her nails painted a pretty shade of pink and put on a dress with flowers on it. And she would spend the day talking to her baby and preparing to meet them, telling her child that it was okay to be born a little bit different, okay not to be like everyone else. And even if you sometimes felt as if the instructions had been upside down when you were made, or maybe they had lost a part when they opened the box – that was okay too. Because life was all about courage, about making the changes that would make you happy, and taking chances, recognising opportunities and being the kind of person who just bought the damn shoes.

These were the things she knew.