Page 20 of A Found Family at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘I certainly have. It’s so nice to finally meet you.’ Reuben held out his hand and, when she took it, the last thing she’d expected was for her body to react the way it did. It had been so long since she’d been attracted to anyone, for a moment she appeared to forget how to speak. When she finally regained the ability, she blurted out something she had no idea whether Aidan and Jase would rather have kept to themselves.

‘I’ve heard a lot about you too, especially in counselling today.’

‘Oh God, is it that tough having me as a nephew?’ Reuben grinned, matching dimples appearing on either side of his mouth.

‘It’s a bloody nightmare.’ Aidan’s smile mirrored his nephew’s, and Isla’s shoulders relaxed. It didn’t look like she’d given away any family secrets after all. ‘But as you well know, you’re also a big part of the reason why we’re desperate to become parents, and today the counsellor gave the three of usthe go-ahead. So if the meeting with the surrogate goes well, this could just be the first thing of many that we have to celebrate.’

‘That’s amazing.’ Reuben didn’t look as if he could have been any happier if the good news had been his own. ‘I’ve got to go and meet with Francesco about next week’s order, but I’m going to start dropping off a fruit and veg box to you every week, and you can sort out the best bits for Isla. After all, you’re all going to need to be in tip-top shape to make sure I finally get a little cousin. Surely this is all about me, after all!’ Reuben laughed again and dropped the perfect wink. ‘It’s great to meet you Isla, and hopefully I’ll get to see you again some time. Nan keeps telling these two to bring you over for a family dinner. And that’s what you’ll be, soon – part of the family. Although, on second thoughts, that might be why they haven’t brought you, in case you do a runner.’

‘That’s exactly why we haven’t subjected Isla to family dinner night.’ Jase rolled his eyes.

‘You two just don’t appreciate it, because you were born into it. But, believe me, you’re lucky to have a family dinner night.’ For a moment, Aidan’s tone was more sombre than Isla had ever known it, but then he smiled again. ‘Even if you are all as mad as a box of frogs.’

‘We might be as crazy as Aidan claims, but I can at least promise good quality food. I run an organic greengrocers and deli, and I keep telling these two they need to ditch all the processed stuff they eat whenever Nan’s not cooking.’ Reuben’s dimples put in a reappearance. ‘I tried dropping off produce boxes before, but they never got through them. Left to their own devices, I swear they’d live off chicken nuggets and takeaways. This is my chance to get them to embrace the good stuff for a change. Nan always uses stuff from the deli when she cooks for us, and they never turn that down.’

‘It’s just the prep that always seems to stand in our way.’ Aidan pulled a face. ‘But you’re right, we must do better and my mother-in-law is a fantastic cook.’

‘So what do you reckon, Isla, are you up for a family dinner night?’ Reuben looked at her and she found herself nodding.

‘It sounds great.’ There was a note of wistfulness she just couldn’t keep out of her voice. It had been so long since she’d had a family dinner, where all of the people she loved most were in the same room together, without the aid of FaceTime. Aidan was right, Jase had no idea how lucky he was.

‘I’m looking forward to it already. I’ll let Nan know; she’ll be thrilled. I’ll deliver the first fruit and veg box tomorrow, so don’t let these two keep all the best stuff for themselves. They’ll eat the strawberries and grapes straight out of the box like donkeys, and leave you with all the stuff that’s supposedly hard to prepare.’ Reuben grinned again, and gave a wave of his hand, disappearing towards the kitchen, before his uncles could even respond.

‘We’d love to have you come to dinner, but don’t feel pressurised by Rube. I think he’s got his own agenda.’ Jase exchanged a look with Aidan, and she decided not to even ask what they meant. She already knew that a child raised by Aidan and Jase would be surrounded with love, and meeting their extended family would just enable her to picture that more clearly. It had nothing to do with Reuben’s slow smile, or wanting to hear that easy laugh of his again. She didn’t do romance and, even if she had done, she’d have steered clear of Reuben. The only way to keep your heart safe was to keep it to yourself, and she had a horrible feeling he might find it all too easy to make her drop her guard. She wouldn’t have taken the risk, even if there hadn’t been the added complication of him being Aidan and Jase’s nephew. He was off limits and, given how attracted she’d felt to him, it was probably just as well.

‘If you suddenly discovered your dad wasn’t your biological father, or there’d been a mix-up at the hospital and neither of your parents were genetically related to you, would you want to find your biological family?’ It was a question Aidan had asked himself so many times since he and Jase had decided to become parents, but he still didn’t know what the answer was, even as the woman seated across the table from him waited for a response. It was difficult to think about it from a general point of view when it was impossible for him to be objective, because the parents in question would behisparents.

Discovering that Sean and Anne weren’t related to him might have been a relief. It would mean he didn’t have to keep striving for their love and approval, or steadfastly avoiding a visit to their home just to discover he was no closer to the holy grail of being accepted for who he truly was. They could part ways, without the ties that bound, and all the platitudes about only having one mother and father and learning to cherish them whatever their faults. His dad wouldn’t have to sit nursing a pint, and occasionally glancing up at his son, po-faced, hoping that his dress sense would suddenly have changed, and that he’d finally have learnt to be ‘less obvious about all that gay stuff’, as his father had urged him to be so many times before. They could walk away from one another without any need for a backward glance, and let go of all the expectations that he’d find a way to fit in eventually. It was only when he realised that Chooky was still staring at him, that he remembered he hadn’t answered the question.

‘It’s a bit different for me than for most people.’ Aidan looked down at his hands, and twisted his wedding ring aroundhis finger, the way he always did when he was anxious about something. He hadn’t minded any of the questions the clinic had asked him, but he’d dodged opening up too much about his relationship with his family. Now he had no choice, and he’d asked for this. Chooky, whose real name was Angela, was a good friend of Esther’s partner, Joe. She’d just joined The Sycamore Centre to work alongside him, as a children’s mental health specialist. They’d met when he’d been living out in Australia, where she’d apparently gained her nickname of Chooky, when she was still just a baby, because she’d had big eyes and a mop of hair that had made her look like a chicken. It was a name that had evidently stuck, and almost no one call her Angela. Aidan and Jase had first met her at a party, which Esther and Joe had hosted, and she’d felt like someone they could open up to from the start. So, when Aidan had discovered that she worked in children’s mental health, he’d asked if she’d be willing to meet with him and Jase, on their own, to talk about how a child might feel, when they discovered they’d been born as the result of egg donation. Now he was trying to avoid answering her questions with complete honesty, but Chooky wasn’t easily put off her stride.

‘What do you mean it’s different for you?’

‘I don’t have the greatest of relationships with my parents. So, I guess I would be interested in discovering if that might be different with someone else.’ Aidan finally looked up at her. ‘But I’ve got my father’s eyes and my mother’s nose, so I know there was no mix-up at the hospital. And, in a way, I guess that helps, because it proves that a genetic connection isn’t always important. I feel much closer to Jase’s family than I do to my own. If I’d grown up in a family like his, I really don’t think I’d be interested in becoming part of another one, just because I discovered I had a genetic link with them. Maybe I’d be a bitcurious, but there certainly wouldn’t be any sort of gap I needed to fill.’

It was exactly what Isla had said about why she’d never wanted to register with one of those DNA testing sites. As far as she was concerned, Nick had been her father in every meaningful sense of the word, and no one else could fill the gap he’d left behind. It was obvious how much losing her father had hurt Isla, which made Aidan feel all the more awful for envying the relationship she’d had with her dad. But he couldn’t help it. No one had ever loved him in the kind of unconditional way that Isla and Jase had experienced. But he didn’t want to allow that to affect him any more, a child would be his opportunity to experience that same kind of unconditional love, and to make sure that their baby would never feel they had a gap to fill either.

Jase took hold of his hand. ‘I think Aidan’s right and that it wouldn’t go beyond curiosity for me. My parents are the people who raised me and loved me, and that’s what we want to replicate.’

‘That’s the single most important thing you can do to support a child’s mental wellbeing.’ Chooky had a gentle reassuring tone, and it was easy to imagine young patients finding her easy to talk to, as a result. ‘Having at least one stable adult in their lives, who loves them and protects them, makes an unimaginable amount of difference. I’ve seen it in with the children I work with, who’ve been through a lot of trauma. If they’ve lost parents in a devastating way, but have a grandparent, or an aunt or uncle, who steps up to be there for them, the impact of that loss on their mental health is far less damaging. Other children can seem, on the surface, to have gone through something far less traumatic, but if they don’t have that loving, stable adult around them, the impact can be catastrophic. It’s a terrible cliché to say that all you need is love, but when it comes to children, it’s a rule I wish the world would live by.’

‘Do you think we should tell them, from the start, how they were born?’ Aidan was fully aware that he was talking about a child that didn’t even exist yet, but he was so determined to get this right that he wanted to have every step straight in his head before they even began.

‘I’d say to be open and honest from the outset, in a way that’s age appropriate for the child to understand.’ Chooky picked up her phone. ‘There are some great children’s books on surrogacy and egg donation, and I can send you some links now if you like?’

‘That would be great, thanks.’ Aidan smiled. ‘I probably sound over-prepared, but I just want things to be perfect.’

‘I know you do, but they never are, not for anyone.’ Chooky’s voice was still just as gentle, but there was a firmness in her tone that left no room for argument. ‘You need to let go of the idea that it can be, because that will mess you up and put pressure on your child too. I don’t know how much counselling you’ve had as part of this process, but resolving the way you feel about the relationship with your own parents might be an important part of the process for you. I can’t foresee any problems with the two of you showing a child the love they need, but you really need to be okay too.’

‘I’ve been thinking for a while that it might be time we took a trip over to Ireland.’ Jase squeezed Aidan’s hand. ‘We can tell them face to face about our plans to start a family, and hopefully that will give us all a chance to start this next phase of our lives in a good place.’

‘You’ve got to have hope, haven’t you?’ Aidan painted on a smile, doing his best to give a casual shrug, but it felt as though someone had placed a slab of concrete on his chest. He knew exactly how his parents would react to the news, and the thought of looking at their faces when they did filled him with dread. But if it was a process they had to go through, in order to be ready towelcome a baby into their lives, then he was willing to face the pain he knew it would bring.

11

Jase had suggested waiting until the next half term to visit Aidan’s parents, so that they could spend a few days in the small town where he’d grown up. But instead, Aidan had paid way over the odds for flights from Newquay to Knock, leaving on the Friday evening and arriving home in Cornwall on the Sunday. He’d also vetoed the idea of them staying in the family home, despite his mother’s apparent delight at the prospect, and Jase reminding him that they were supposed to be saving as much money as possible for the IVF treatment. It might be a valid argument, but that didn’t stop it feeling like the walls were closing in, whenever he pictured spending time in the house where he’d been born. He also knew his father would be far from delighted at the idea of Aidan staying there with his husband.Homosexuality is an abomination. Unbelievably they were words that had actually left his father’s lips, and they weren’t something Aidan would ever forget.

There were fewer than two thousand people in Ballaghaderreen, where Aidan had grown up, and it always felt as though his father knew every single one of them. It couldn’t have been true, but Aidan still hadn’t been able to do or sayanything when he’d lived there without it getting back to Sean. Given that his father had rarely approved of whatever it was that Aidan had been saying or doing, it had made life in the small town feel claustrophobic at the best of times. Forty-eight hours back home would be more than enough.

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