What Lies Between Us(45)

I slump on to the sofa, allowing this information to sink in, and try to process it. The last thing I expected when I arrived home from work was to read a letter from Social Services informing me that Nina wants to adopt a child. It has come completely out of the blue.

Surely this can’t be a spur-of-the-moment decision? She must have given it a great deal of thought before applying. So why hasn’t she spoken to me about it? Perhaps she didn’t want to say anything because she thought I’d try and talk her out of it. The letter says they require a reference from me and to discuss her suitability as a parent because the child would be living in a house we share. I will also undergo a criminal record check and they will poke around into my background, too. I close my eyes and shake my head. I don’t like this one bit.

It’s a long three hours before Nina arrives home from work, and another two before we sit down to eat and I bring up the letter. ‘I’m not going to lie, it came as quite a surprise,’ I add.

‘I’ve been mulling it over for a number of weeks,’ Nina replies.

‘And you didn’t think to mention it?’

‘I would have, eventually.’

‘The letter says that a social worker has already been here to assess you and our home. So when were you going to tell me?’

‘I was going to wait until I found out if I’d made it through to the next stage.’

‘Nina,’ I say, more forcefully than I mean to. ‘You make this sound like a bloody X Factor audition. This is a huge decision you’ve made and I had a right to hear it from you. Don’t you think that adoption is going to affect me too?’

‘I assumed you’d want a grandchild?’

‘Of course I do, but that’s not the point! This is a big decision for you to have made on behalf of both of us.’

‘Well, if it happens, it’s not like I’d be living here for much longer anyway.’

She is full of surprises. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you, Mum. I’m thirty-six and time is running away from me. If I don’t do something about it then I’ll end up . . . sorry to say this, but like you.’

‘Me?’ I say. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘You’re lonely.’

‘I’m not lonely!’

‘Only because you have me here. How many relationships have you had since Dad left?’

References to Alistair are like hearing nails being dragged down a blackboard, even after so long. ‘You know the answer to that.’

‘Exactly. None. Sometimes I think because you and I have each other, we’re holding one another back from getting on with the lives we should be living.’

‘And you think adoption will help you move on?’

‘Yes, I do.’

I have lost my appetite. I nod slowly to mask an ascending fear. This idea of hers is wrong on so many different levels, yet I can’t tell her why. I hear the lump in her throat when she explains how she hides from colleagues who bring their children to work because she is so envious of them. She tells me how she has never got over Dylan’s death and the gaping hole she left in Nina’s heart. She admits to creating an imaginary world in which her daughter still exists; sometimes she pictures walking her to school, reading to her and tucking her up in bed at night.

Her disclosures knock me for six and I want to hold her and never let her go. Neither of us mentions Dylan any more so I had no idea how much her child plays on her mind all these years later. I assumed the secret to Nina’s survival has been her ability to compartmentalise and consign her baby to the past. But it turns out I’ve been too blind to recognise the strength of her maternal instinct. I was naive to assume a dead child means you’re no longer a parent.

There are things I want to tell her, things that I keep from her. I too have imagined an entire life for my grandchild, wondering if they would have taken after Nina or if they had the faults of their father. We both lost so much that day.

Watching Nina choke back the tears, I want to cry along with her. But instead, I swallow my pain. The more she reveals of herself, the more of a compelling case she makes and I gradually understand that adopting is something she is desperate to do.

And that also makes me more determined. Determined that I will not allow this to happen. When she talks about further interviews and psychological evaluations, I know for sure that I can’t let anyone inside her head. Because if I do, they might release something that I have spent the last twenty years trying to contain.





CHAPTER 37





MAGGIE


TWO AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER

The front door slams and I hear the picture frame rattle against the wall in the hallway.

‘Why?’ Nina growls as she storms into the kitchen. I brace myself; she knows.

‘Is everything all right?’ I ask, when we both know that it’s not.

Her cheeks are flushed with anger. She hurls her bag on to the floor and some of its contents spill out. ‘Tell me why you did it.’

‘Why I did what?’

‘Why you told Social Services that I wouldn’t make a good parent.’

‘That’s not what I said.’ I remove my hands from the washing-up bowl and wipe off the soap suds with a tea towel.