Page 47 of Lost In Someone

“Can you make us some coffee, babe?” Ivan asks me.

“Of course. I’ll make his bottle too.” I’ll do this for them, then leave them to it and go to Merrick. Since Milo got here, we’ve talked on the phone, but I haven’t seen him in a while. The kettle boils, and I use the French press for the coffee and grab some milk. I finish getting Milo’s bottle, put two mugs on a tray, and carry it all in.

“Aren’t you having any?” Ivan asks.

“No, I’m going to let you and your mum spend time with Milo. It was nice to meet you, Sarah. I hope we see you more often.”

“You don’t need to do that, babe.” Ivan stands and puts his hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I am. I just think this is the moment for you and your mum to talk and spend time with our boy.”

He kisses me. “I love you.”

Oh, I’m really in the shit. My mum looks so pissed off and hurt. And she has every right to. I’ve been putting this moment off too long, looking for any excuse for avoiding telling her. Brodie has given up asking me about it. She must have found out where I’m now living through someone else. Probably Drew. So I’m gonna be in the shit with him too.

And Brodie? Well, he’s giving me a WTF look. My pathetic attempts to explain sound more defensive than explanatory. But before I can start again, Milo squawks, and all eyes turn to him.

“I’m going to get him cleaned up.” Brodie walks past me and gives my arm a squeeze. He picks up Milo and carries him out of the room.

As soon as Brodie and Milo are out of earshot, my mum spins around to me. “What’s going on, Ivan? This is all very confusing. You never wanted a relationship, and after your dad died, you became more determined to stay away from anything serious.”

“You know why.”

“I do, and I’ve hated it.” She gestures to the upstairs. “He seems nice.”

“He’s amazing. He makes me think differently, that some things are worth changing for. He’s handled this whole mess incredibly. Never faltering or questioning me. I couldn’t do this without him.”

“This is where it gets confusing. How on earth did you end up with a child? Have you adopted him? Is he your boyfriend’s?”

Before I can answer, Brodie comes back with a very awake Milo and passes him to me. “Can you get us some coffee, babe?”

“May I hold him?”

Her eyes swell with tears just as mine did when I first saw him. She talks softly to him, then looks at me with the expression she used to give me when I was ten and I’d done something bad. She’s going to want more answers. Answers I don’t want to share with her. She knows Kate. When my dad was alive, they were friends with her parents and often went out for dinner or drinks together.

Brodie comes back in, announcing he’s going to go out. I understand why he wants to leave us to work through this, but that doesn’t mean I want him to. But he closes the door behind him, and it’s just me and my mum. This woman has a way of getting the truth out of me. She’s always had a knack for knowing exactly the right thing to say to me.

“Okay, I can understand you don’t want to tell me who his mother is, or do you not know? Never mind. You can tell me what happened and how you finally got to have him. What happens when his mother wants him back?”

“She won’t want him back, and she can’t. She wants nothing to do with him and signed him over. She has left a substantial amount of money, but I don’t want it. We’ve put it in a trust until Milo’s eighteen. The documents are sealed, so he can’t find out who she is until he’s of age. Hopefully, we’ll have done a good enough job of raising him by then, and he won’t be interested in knowing the person who signed him away hours after his birth.” I pour coffee into two mugs and make Mum’s the way she’s always had it.

“Money, you said, and a substantial amount. Interesting.” She regards me with shrewdness in her gaze.

Fuck, she knows about me and Kate, which means she can put two and two together and work out that Milo’s mother could be Kate. I stay silent, but when she raises that perfectly shaped eyebrow above her right eye as she used to do, I give in. She won’t stop until she gets the truth out of me.

“Not really. I don’t need to be paid to raise my child. No money can buy a child to clear your conscience. I’m happy never to see or hear from her again. So don’t go poking about. I know what you can be like. You suddenly think you’re Miss Marple.”

“I don’t think I need to do that, nor am I old enough to be Miss Marple. You insult me, Ivan.” She taps a finger to her lips as if she’s weighing up her options, deliberating over her next words. “I can’t say I’m surprised by her actions. Doug and Eileen always considered Kate a burden. An accident. Hence the boarding schools and, once she was old enough to be left at the house, the constant travelling.”

“And if I told you you were wrong, what would you say?” I’m wasting my breath, and we both know it.

“I’d say I didn’t raise a liar.” She looks down at a sleeping Milo. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

“No, well, maybe. I haven’t seen her since last summer, which isn’t unusual. But you know I went away to work last year. I got a text message from Drew with a picture of Kate looking pregnant. I couldn’t work out why he would send it to me. So I kind of forgot about it or pushed it away or didn’t give it another thought. But when I got home, I asked Drew about why he’d sent it. I started counting back and realised it could’ve been when we hooked up. I doubted it, though, because we’d used protection, and she would’ve told me. She’s not the sort of person who likes to stay quiet about things. You know that, Mum. Again I stopped thinking about it.”

“Yes, the whole family are a loud bunch. I never liked the way they showed off, being too noisy in restaurants or talking over someone to make a point. Where does your man come into this? How did you meet? He’s not local.”

I chuckled drily. “He was a one-night stand that left me on my arse. He was special, but I had no way of finding him. Colour me surprised that he was here in Calston Cove. I like to think of destiny, that we were meant to find each other again. He’s the other half of me, my soul mate.”

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