Page 23 of Days You Were Mine

Jake smoothes his palm along the side of my body, rhythmically, as if he’s stroking a cat. It feels comforting to be touched like this, it stirs something inside me, something that goes way back.

‘I like the way you touch me,’ I tell him, and he smiles.

‘Same.’

I reach for his hand, holding it in my own, rubbing circles in his palm with my thumb. Instinctively, I press my thumb up and down, right in the centre.

‘That feels good. Reflexology?’

‘I don’t even know what that is.’

I carry on with my thumb-pressing, working my way slowly up to the base of his hand and then his wrist. My thumb hits a thick ridge of scar tissue, confusing at first. I stop pressing and start stroking, learning its shape. Jake just watches me.

‘What’s this?’

He takes his other hand from where it rests on my thigh and brings both wrists together.

‘Two of them, actually. A matching pair. Stupid mistake when I was sixteen.’

I’m so shocked I can’t find any words. Instead, I kiss each of his wrists in turn.

‘But why?’ I say finally, and Jake shrugs.

‘I think the correct term is a cry for help.’

‘I hate that you were once so sad,’ I say, and my throat feels tight with unshed tears.

‘Seems to me you didn’t like childhood much either. Lots of people don’t. It really doesn’t matter.’

He moves even closer so that he can kiss me, eyes first, nose, then mouth.

‘Don’t look like that, Alice. The past is over. You and me, here, in the now. That’s all there is.’

Now

Luke

Reunions between adopted children and their natural parents can feel deceptively celebratory at first. There’s relief on both sides, a passionate desire for it to work. But fast-tracking these fragile new bonds can end in disaster if both parties are not careful.

Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Traumaby Joel Harris

I’m always in charge of the food when people come over, and today I’ve decided to keep it simple. It would be foolish to try and compete with Rick’s cooking, so I’ve made a casserole instead. Shin of beef from Moen’s, the butcher, simmered for three hours in a lethal combination of sherry and red wine, fresh thyme to lift it into something sublime. I’ll serve it with mashed potatoes, the cardiac variety, whipped with butter and cream until they are as soft and melting as a mousse. We have beautiful cheeses and plenty of red wine – a classic Chianti I’ve fallen in love with; the table is laid with our favourite plates, flowers and six bright orange candles that Hannah picked up in the Design Museum. It’s beginning to feel like a party.

‘This is exactly the celebration we should be having,’ Hannah says, because she can always read my mind. ‘Having Ben andElizabeth here makes it special. We are introducing your best friends to your parents.’

Alice arrives first. The moment she sees Samuel, she swoops him up from his little rug, lifts his T-shirt and blows raspberries against his stomach. We do this too, but Samuel always laughs hardest with Alice. And it’s an addictive sound, these deep-bellied chuckles of his. Even when she has stopped, he sits on her lap, smiling at her, waiting patiently for the next trick, and she obliges, playing peekaboo behind the flat of her hand.

Today she has brought a toy with her, an octopus with different sounds hidden within each of his legs – a bell, a rattle, the crunch of crackly paper. It’s a slightly ugly thing, this octopus, bright blue with black and white stripes and sinister eyes, but Samuel loves it. He grips one of the legs in his small fist and doesn’t let go.

Rick arrives in a cab twenty minutes later. He hands over a bottle of champagne and says, ‘I was going to drive, but I changed my mind at the last minute in case we want to get pissed.’

‘Rude not to when we have all this,’ I say, gesturing to the bottles of Chianti lined up on the worktop.

Alice says, ‘Oh Rick, look, Chianti Classico. The labels are still the same.’

‘We used to drink this in Italy,’ Rick says. ‘Alice was there for a whole summer and I went out to visit. A long time ago now.’

I catch something here, an edge of melancholia between the two of them. But there is no time to examine it, because Ben and Elizabeth arrive, the way they always do, in a maelstromof noise and excitement. Ben is dressed in his yellow and black Rupert the Bear suit, bought in a charity shop ten years ago and worn relentlessly ever since, Elizabeth is holding an enormous bouquet of flowers and a chocolate cake she made herself.

---