‘That’s a pretty serious threat.’ Eden laughed, unable to stop herself from picturing just how mortified Drew would be to have to go through with that. ‘So do you still have to pay a forfeit, seeing as I was the one to ask you out?’
‘No, thank goodness. We agreed to come to a compromise and voided the bet. She said all she cared about was that we’d finally got our acts together to go on a date.’ Drew looked down at the floor and then back up at her. ‘I didn’t tell her I wasn’t sure if that’s what this was. I’m still not sure, but I know I want it to be.’
Eden could sense how hard it had been for Drew to admit how he felt, and the urge to kiss him was almost overwhelming. She’d wanted him to kiss her from the start of the evening, but she hadn’t been sure it had even crossed his mind. Now she knew he wanted to, but she was just as certain he still wouldn’t do it because he didn’t trust himself to have read the situation right. One of them had to make the first move. Stepping forward, she laid a hand against Drew’s face, giving him the chance to step back if she’d somehow got things wrong, but he didn’t. Instead she moved even closer, pressing her lips against his, and suddenly he was kissing her back with the sort of passion that left her in no doubt about how he felt. He’d been waiting for this and wanting it just as much as she had.
‘Can we go out again?’ Drew’s tone was more urgent than she’d ever known it to be.
‘Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid having to put on a pair of harem pants and jiggle your hips like you mean it?’ She raised her eyebrows and he laughed, shaking his head.
‘Having you say yes is the only thing I want.’
‘In that case, yes, I’d really like to go out again, but right now I think we’d better get back to the party and say our goodbyes, before we become the main source of gossip. You know what they’re like, and I’ve got to get home soon, in case Teddie is having a rough night.’ She shrugged regretfully, but Drew nodded.
‘Of course, Teddie will always come first.’ There was no edge to his tone, or any hint of bitterness in his words. He understood her situation completely.
It would have been so easy to rush headlong in to things with Drew, but they needed to take this slowly, for both of their sakes and more importantly for Teddie. Just like Drew had said, her son was always going to be her priority, but she had a strong suspicion that he’d be Drew’s priority too, and the thought made her smile into the darkness as they made their way back.
12
Eden was incredibly grateful for the support her parents had given her since her return to Port Kara. They worked well together as a team, her mother always coming up with different ways to try to engage Teddie. Although it wasn’t completely straightforward, despite Karen’s sobriety she could still be unpredictable at times, her mind seeming to wander off on a tangent mid-conversation, if something else more interesting caught her attention, or popped into head. It was why Eden’s father had given his wife the nickname Goldie, having likened her attention span to that of a goldfish. Karen wasn’t in the least offended, she seemed to revel in her reputation as a scatty, slightly eccentric middle-aged woman, and would often loudly pronounce that ‘no one wants to be a boring grandma, do they?’ Eden could certainly never accuse her mother of being boring, but it was also why she’d never want to leave her in sole charge of Teddie for any length of time. Especially as he had no concept of risk or danger, and he wasn’t the sort of child you could leave to his own devices, even for a moment.
Karen’s obsession with conspiracy theories showed no sign of abating, and the internet was both her friend and downfall. She could disappear down rabbit holes of misinformation and crackpot ideas, and by the time she emerged nothing could convince her that they weren’t undeniable facts. The theories that drove Eden insane were the ones about the potential ‘cures’ for autism, as if it was a disease, rather than a difference in the connections between the nerve cells in the brain. Her mother’s inability to separate fact and fiction, combined with spending an unhealthy amount of time on TikTok was a dangerous combination. But when Karen had sent Eden a link to a technique called bleach therapy, which was every bit as terrifying as it sounded, they’d had a blazing row which had almost been enough to persuade her to head back to London.
‘Stop sending me all this stuff, Mum.’ Eden had held up her phone and jabbed a finger at the message her mother had just sent her via WhatsApp. She’d been doing her very best to remain calm, even if it was the six hundredth time she’d asked her mother not to send her any more ridiculous links about so-called ‘cures’ for autism.
‘I don’t know why you’re so resistant to these alternative ideas. What’s the harm in trying them?’ Karen’s bottom lip had jutted out like a sulky toddler. ‘Don’t you want Teddie to get better?’
‘He can’t get better, Mum, because he isn’t ill. Autism isn’t an illness.’ She’d said the last part really slowly, as if her mother really was a toddler.
‘That’s just a word, you know what I mean.’ Karen had folded her arms tightly across her body, and Eden’s scalp had started to bristle.
‘I’m not sure I do know what you mean, why don’t you tell me?’ There had been an edge to Eden’s voice that should have been a warning to her mother, but if Karen realised, she ignored it.
‘It’s just such a shame, isn’t it, that Teddie’s the way he is. And I just don’t think you should give up on trying to find a solution.’ Her mother’s words had hit her like bullets. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard that kind of thing before, but coming from Teddie’s own grandmother it felt far worse.
‘So you wish Teddie was different?’ She hadn’t waited for her mother to answer. ‘Would you love him any more if he didn’t have autism? Because I wouldn’t, I couldn’t possibly love him any more than I already do.’
‘Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying and you know it isn’t.’
‘What are you saying then? That because he has autism he somehow has less value than a child who doesn’t have autism?’ Even in the moment a part of Eden had known that her mother wasn’t being deliberately cruel, just thoughtless and clumsy, with no real understanding of the impact of her words, like so many people Eden encountered. It was exhausting, and the real reason she was lashing out at her mother was because of all the other conversations like this, the sideways looks, and heavy tutting. She’d seen and heard it all. Comments about her letting Teddie watchPaddingtonon her phone, in an attempt to keep him calm.Lazy parenting. Just look at her using her phone as a babysitter. Words like that rang in her ears for days afterwards, and they imprinted on her brain forever. People were so quick to judge and were often incredibly vicious in delivering those judgements. They didn’t stop to think whether there might be reasons why Teddie was noisy and made repetitive sounds, or why his behaviour and her parenting didn’t seem acceptable within the narrow constraints of what complete strangers thought was right or wrong. They’d never walked a mile in her shoes and they had no idea what they were talking about. She’d had plenty of well-intentioned comments too, but they were often just as ignorant.He’s far too handsome to have autism, I’m sure he’ll grow out of it, all toddlers have tantrums. She couldn’t blame people in a way. There were damaging stereotypes about all kinds of diversity, and people were good at being blinkered, not bothering to look beyond the superficial. Maybe Teddie’s behaviour did look like that of any other toddler tantrum from the outside, but if the people watching had ever been in the eye of the storm during the meltdown of a child with autism, they’d know it was like comparing a stiff breeze with a tsunami.
Eden had lived with other people’s judgement for years, but she’d never expected it to come from her mother and sometimes it felt like no one understood Teddie the way she did or saw all the joy he brought to the world, because it didn’t look the same as the joy other children brought. Then Drew had come along, and seemed able to see all of that right from the start. She couldn’t help reflecting on her mother’s attitude as a result, and in a way it hurt even more than it had in the past to realise that Karen still couldn’t see her grandson the way Drew did. It wasn’t that Eden didn’t want Teddie’s life to be easier than it was, and there was no denying that his autism presented challenges that would be there for the rest of his life. Deep down she understood that’s where her mother’s comments were coming from; if they could just find a way to make Teddie’s life a bit easier for him then that had to be worth pursuing. Except Eden knew it didn’t work like that. There’d be no magic wand that took Teddie’s autism away, and she wanted the people around him to stop wishing for that, and to appreciate her son the way he was. Otherwise, just like Drew had said, they’d never accept Teddie and would always think of him as somehow less than he could have been, when for Eden he was everything.
Before she’d met Drew, it had felt as if no one was truly on her side, not even her own family. It was the pain of thinking she was the only one who loved Teddie unconditionally – exactly the way he was – that had made the row with her mother escalate into the kind of argument that went down in history, the sort that rattled the plates in the kitchen cupboards and was never forgotten by anyone who’d witnessed it. The only upside of such an angry and tearful exchange was that it had stopped Karen sharing most of her crazy ideas about autism with Eden. It was also the reason why she could trust her mother not to get it into her head to try out any of those ideas herself. Eden had left her in absolutely no doubt about how she felt about it.
Despite Karen keeping her outrageous ideas about autism to herself more often since the row, it had done nothing to dampen her obsession with other ridiculous theories. And the second Eden brought Teddie down for breakfast, she launched into the latest one.
‘When’s your next dental appointment?’ Karen looked at her from over the top of her glasses which had slid down her nose. She had the laptop open on the kitchen table, and a cup of coffee next to her, which had gone so cold that it had formed a kind of skin. This was never a good sign, because it meant her mother had lost all track of time online, which only ever meant one thing.
‘Why’s that?’ Eden put a piece of seeded bread into the toaster as she spoke. Teddie didn’t like white bread, or brown, the consistency of either was never quite right. He’d only eat multi-seeded bread, and even then only one particular brand. It was like the bakery version of the princess and the pea, and there was no fooling Teddie, he’d know if she didn’t get it right.
‘Because you should ask your dentist what they think about root canal treatment and if they’ve seen all the research on the problems it can cause. You don’t want to be with the wrong dental practice if there’s an emergency.’
‘Frankly I’m glad to be with any dental practice.’ When Eden had moved back to Cornwall, it had taken what felt like three hundred phone calls and some unashamed begging to get herself and Teddie registered with a dentist who eventually found the space to take them. ‘And I’d imagine all dentists have the same view on root canal treatment, and when it is and isn’t recommended.’
‘That’s just it!’ Her mother’s eyes flashed with passion, she was getting into her stride now and nothing Eden said was going to stop her. ‘Dentists shouldn’t ever be recommending root canal surgery, because it’s causing all sorts of terrible illnesses like breast?—’
Eden cut her mother off. ‘Mum, just don’t, okay? We’re never going to agree on what I’ve learned from my training versus what someone on TikTok has told you, and whatever it is I don’t want to hear it.’
