by Susan Lewis
‘I’m Livvy, Patty’s daughter,’ Livvy told her, vacating her own chair so Izzie could sit down. ‘Can I order you a coffee?’
‘That would be nice, thank you. A latte, no sugar,’ and sinking into the chair she placed her bag on her lap and unbuttoned the collar of her coat. ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ she said, unravelling her scarf, ‘but I’m still a bit blown away by all this, because madam here only told me on Wednesday of this week what she’s been up to. Has she told you, I didn’t even know they’d found the birth certificate, let alone that they’d managed to work out as much as they have.’
Though Patty smiled, she was watching the woman closely, and so far she was having no problems with what she saw. However, she must keep reminding herself that they had a long way to go. ‘So do you think Eva … my sister is Richie’s mother?’ she asked, cautiously but directly.
Izzie nodded. ‘I don’t have any doubts,’ she assured her. ‘Not since I spoke to Linda, my sister-in-law – his adoptive mother. I called her as soon as this one told me what she’d been up to, and it turns out Linda’s known for quite some time. Apparently, a social worker told her when there was some stuff going on about a letter-box scheme – something else I never knew anything about until this week.’
Feeling her throat starting to tighten, Patty said, ‘So how come he isn’t with his adoptive mother any more? Or is he? I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m quite …’
‘It’s OK, I know I need to explain,’ Izzie acknowledged, nodding a thank-you to the waitress who delivered her latte. ‘I’m not sure how much time you have …’
‘As much as you need,’ Patty told her.
Izzie’s eyes softened gratefully, and after taking a sip of her coffee she said, ‘I don’t suppose Eva’s coming to join us?’
Feeling her guard going up, Patty replied, ‘Actually, this is going to mean a great deal to her, so we thought … We haven’t told her yet.’
Though Izzie seemed slightly flustered by that, her words were reassuring as she said, ‘I understand. You want to check us out for yourself first, make sure we’re above board and everything. I don’t blame you. You never know who you’re dealing with these days, and after what your sister’s been through … You can’t ever be too careful, can you?’
Patty smiled her appreciation.
Izzie looked down at her coffee and took a moment to gather her thoughts. ‘Am I right in thinking you don’t have any idea who Richie’s adoptive parents are?’ she asked, glancing up again.
Patty shook her head. ‘Eva’s tried to find out, she’s even been through the courts …’
‘Mm, I knew about that. It was a long time ago, wasn’t it? I don’t suppose Richie could have been much more than four …’
Deciding not to mention Eva’s more recent attempt, Patty waited for her to go on.
‘I don’t think Linda, my sister-in-law, knew who his birth mother was way back then,’ Izzie said, ‘but I suppose only she can say for sure. I know she didn’t go to the court, though. Neither of them did, her or Tim. They let the social workers deal with it all, which we all thought was for the best. It got her into a right state though, I can tell you that much. She could never make up her mind what to do. I kept saying to her, “You can’t promise one thing and end up doing another, it’s just cruel. So either let his birth mother be in touch and send her some letters back from time to time, or don’t agree to do anything at all.” To be honest, I presumed she’d opted for no contact, because once the ruling came through that they didn’t have to provide any details if they didn’t want to, she hardly mentioned it again.’
‘So you didn’t know that she had agreed to take part in a letter-box scheme?’
Izzie shook her head. ‘Of course, I do now,’ she said, ‘but like I said, I only found out this week when Linda herself decided to tell me. There’s been another court ruling recently as well, I hear.’
Patty nodded.
Izzie tutted in dismay. ‘Yeah, she told me about that too, and all the birthday cards and letters over the years that your sister sent. Linda still has them, she says, much good that’s doing Richie. I don’t mind telling you, I was shocked when she told me and pretty angry, so I had to hang up the phone. I called her back after though, and she’s promised me now that she’ll send them to him. They haven’t turned up yet, but it’s still early days, so I’m prepared to carry on giving her the benefit of the doubt for now.’
‘So where is she?’ Patty asked. ‘And why isn’t Richie still with her?’
Izzie sighed and looked down at her coffee as she tried to decide the best way to answer that.
‘I’ve already told her Uncle Tim died,’ Sadie piped up.
Izzie glanced at her daughter, then back to Patty. ‘That was quite a shock, when he went,’ she said. ‘Mervyn, my husband, took it quite hard. I’m sorry to say they hadn’t spoken for a few years by then, but I suppose blood and water and all that … You couldn’t wish to meet a lovelier man than our Tim, good as gold he was, but then the drink got hold of him, and I guess you could say it was what ended up killing him. He was on his way home from the pub one night, drunk as can be, and he probably didn’t even see the lorry coming.’
‘Oh no,’ Patty murmured. ‘How old was he?’
‘He’d just turned forty-six. It was a crying shame, because like I said, he was a good bloke at heart. It was losing his job that triggered it all. OK, he always did like his whisky, but hardly ever to excess, it just all started going downhill for him after he was laid off, and he couldn’t ever seem to turn it around again. I wish I could tell you that his wife was of some help, but if you met her … Well, what can I say? Another kindly soul, I’ll give her that, but honest to God she’s got to be one of the most insecure people I’ve ever met. Don’t ask me what made her like it, I don’t go digging round in people’s private affairs, but I can tell you this, she doesn’t have an ounce of confidence in herself, which is tragic in its way. She hardly has any friends, never goes out anywhere, I mean apart from the usual stuff, you know, shopping, taking the kids to school, dentist, doctor and all that. It’ll be why she never wrote back to your sister, I’m sure of it. She’d have wanted to do the right thing, but then she’d have been terrified of saying something wrong, making your sister think the worst of her … Heaven only knows what goes through her mind, because I swear she doesn’t think like the rest of us, nothing like, in fact. Poor love, you can’t help but feel sorry for her, but you don’t half want to shake her at times, I can tell you.’
Realising she’d never really allowed herself to imagine what her nephew’s adoptive parents might be like, Patty was feeling quietly stunned to be faced with such a sad and, it had to be said, inadequate picture of them. ‘So where is she now?’ she asked.
Izzie put her coffee down and dabbed the foam from her top lip. ‘Living up north with her brother,’ she replied. ‘She went about nine, ten months ago. She’d been talking about it for a while, ever since Tim went, in fact …’ She turned to Sadie, ‘Have you told her about Una?’
Sadie shook her head.
With a sigh, Izzy said, ‘Una. Dear thing. She came along just after Richie turned five. A big surprise to everyone she was, because Linda was sure she couldn’t have any of her own. It was why they went for adoption. Then suddenly, out of the blue, it turns out she’s pregnant. She had to spend the whole time flat on her back, and it’s sad, but true, that dear little Una has never been a healthy child. Sweet, but all skin and bone she is, and talk about sickly. From what I’ve already told you about Linda, you can probably imagine she’s scared out of her wits of something happening to her. Ever since the poor mite was born her mother was for ever dropping Richie round to me in case he’d picked up something from school that he might pass on to his sister. It got so that Richie was spending more time at our house than he was at his own, which is how come he and our Sadie are so close, he’s more like a brother to her than a cousin.’
Patty glanced at Sadi
e and smiled.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Linda adored Richie,’ Izzie went on. ‘Still does, I’m sure about that – when you meet him you’ll realise it’s hard not to – but that wretched woman was always so torn about the right thing to do. It was only when her brother’s wife ran off with some other bloke, last winter, that she finally decided to move up there and live with him after talking about it for years. The trouble was, Richie didn’t want to leave his school or his friends, nor us, it has to be said. He was adamant he wasn’t going to go, so in the end Merv and I told her we’d be happy to have him with us at least until he’d done his GCSEs and then we could sort out what to do from there.’
‘He sits them next year,’ Sadie informed Patty.
‘He’s a bright boy,’ Izzie added proudly. ‘Does well in most of his lessons and he’s sport-mad, isn’t he, Sade? Especially when it comes to rugger.’
‘Everyone likes him,’ Tara announced.
‘Apart from Dudley,’ Sadie reminded her, ‘but like I keep saying, Dudley needs to get a life.’
Izzie rolled her eyes. ‘Dudley’s real name is Russ,’ she explained. ‘He’s my eldest boy – I’ve got two, Russ fifteen, Jack thirteen and then there’s Sadie here who’s about to turn eighteen. They call Russ Dudley – and don’t ever let him hear you,’ she warned Sadie, ‘after the cousin in Harry Potter, because I’m afraid my lad’s got a bit of a jealous streak where Richie’s concerned. He’s got a slight weight problem too, and he’s not comfortable around girls …’
‘He’s a right muppet,’ Sadie broke in.
‘That’s enough,’ Izzie chided. ‘And we’re not here to talk about Russ, he’ll grow out of his silly nonsense soon enough. We’re here to discuss Richie and my meddling daughter’s …’
‘And what harm has it done?’ Sadie challenged. ‘Linda obviously wanted Richie to find his real birth certificate, or she’d never have put it in the envelope, would she?’
‘It’s true,’ Izzie conceded with a sigh, ‘and that’s my sister-in-law all over for you. She never goes about things in a straightforward fashion. When I spoke to her, a couple of days ago, after madam here decided to tell me what she was up to, Linda surprised the life out of me when she said she’d actually been waiting for my call. I said to her, “So why didn’t you just tell him, rather than go about it in such a roundabout way?” and her answer was, “I didn’t want to upset him.”’ She threw out her hands. ‘If you’d know what to say to that you’d be doing a lot better than I did, I can tell you, and if it weren’t for the fact that Miss Nosy here went poking through all the stuff Linda sent down, months ago now, we’d probably still be none the wiser, because Richie, God bless him, had barely even got round to opening it.’
‘I take it Richie knows about what you found, and everything?’ Livvy thought to ask Sadie.
‘Oh yeah,’ Sadie assured her. ‘I mean, he always knew he was adopted, ever since he was little, so it didn’t come as a surprise. We used to make up all these stories about who his real mum and dad might be, so it was like, totally amazing when we realised that his real mum was actually famous. He was like, oh my God. We were dead excited. Well, I was. He did his usual Mr Cool – if you knew him you’d know what I mean – but I reckon, underneath it all, he’s dead nervous. He keeps saying that if she wanted to get in touch with him she would, so we should just ignore it. Well, we know now that she tried. Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell him. He’ll be like, no way.’
Unable to stop herself smiling, Patty said to Izzie, ‘Has he spoken to his … to Linda since all this came to light?’
Izzie nodded. ‘They were on the phone for quite a long time last night, but I didn’t ask him too much about it after. Anyway, he says he doesn’t want to go up there, particularly. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very attached to her in his way, but between us, it’s not the kind of bond most parents have with their kids.’
‘He’s closer to you, really,’ Sadie told her.
‘Maybe,’ Izzie conceded. ‘But love him as I do, I have to say it would be lovely to reunite him with his real mother. To see him with someone who he really belongs to and who can give him everything he deserves. Oh look at me,’ she laughed as she grabbed a napkin to dab away her tears.
Having the very same problem, Patty said, ‘So where do we go from here? I want to do what’s best for him, but obviously I have to think of Eva too.’
Izzie nodded as she blew her nose. ‘Of course. I suppose you’d better let me have a chat with him first. You know, prepare him a bit and make sure he’s ready for it. We don’t want to be getting your sister’s hopes up, do we, if he suddenly starts getting cold feet on us.’
‘He won’t,’ Sadie insisted.
Patty smiled at her. ‘I’ll wait to hear from you,’ she said, ‘but when you talk to him, please tell him, from his aunt, that his mother and the rest of his family can’t wait to meet him.’
Chapter Seventeen
Much later that day Izzie’s heart was melting all over the place as she watched her young nephew trying to take in all that she and Sadie had just told him. His head was bowed, his fingers buried in his thick, tousled hair, as his elbows rested on the drop-leaf table that Izzie had pulled out from under the window for them to sit round. Her husband had taken their sons off to the indoor ski slope, mainly to get them out of the way for a while, but it was an outing they all enjoyed – and the closest they were going to get to the real thing, that was for sure. So, for once, the house wasn’t vibrating with teenage music, blaring televisions and a cacophony of rowdy voices and thundering feet. In fact it was quiet enough to hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking, and the hum of the fridge in the kitchen.
‘They seem like really nice people,’ Sadie earnestly assured him. ‘Tell you what, I’d love to have a family like that.’
Izzie turned to look at her. ‘And exactly what would be wrong with this one, young lady?’
‘Oh, now let me think about that,’ Sadie responded cheekily.
Richie’s head came up and Izzie’s heart melted all over again to see his grin. He was a looker, that was for sure, always had been, but there again, now she knew who his mother was, it was hardly surprising. He was an absolute ringer for her, apart from his hair, which was as dark as it came, and his nose was a bit crooked thanks to his chosen sport. He had her height too, in fact Izzie suspected he might be taller than Eva already, and since he’d started shaving – only a couple of months ago, and probably not more than once or twice a week yet – Izzie had begun to get a real sense of the man he was growing into. How fast it happened, she reflected nostalgically to herself, and how sad for his mother that she’d missed so much of him already.
‘This family’s cool,’ he stated. ‘I don’t really need another.’
‘Oh, get out of here,’ Sadie scoffed. ‘You know you’re dying to meet them all really.’
His grin started to fade. ‘I was,’ he admitted, ‘but now it’s like supposed to happen …’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t really see the point. I mean, how’s it going to work?’
‘No one can answer that yet,’ Izzie said gently. ‘We just have to take it one day at a time, and see how well you get on together.’
‘Do I have to go and live there?’
‘No, not yet anyway. You might find that you want to after a while, but until then you’ll still be here, with us, going to the same school, getting under my feet …’
‘OK, got it! That’s what this is really about … You’re trying to get rid of me.’
Not as taken in by the teasing light in his eyes as he’d probably have liked her to be, Izzie said, ‘My love, that’s not something you ever need to worry about, because no matter what happens, now or any time in the future, you’ll always have a home here with us.’
‘Definitely,’ Sadie added.
His eyes went down and Izzie heard him swallow.
‘Duh!’ Sadie exclaimed.
He looked up again.
‘You’re suppose
d to say the same to us now,’ she informed him, ‘because I’m telling you, if those gates and the walls outside are anything to go by …’
‘Sadie, that’s enough,’ Izzie cut in firmly. ‘This isn’t about houses, or money, or who’s living where, it’s about Richie meeting his real mother for the first time, and whether or not he’s ready to do it.’
Sitting back in his chair, Richie inhaled deeply and blew out his cheeks.
‘Not a good look,’ Sadie told him.
‘Sadie,’ Izzie warned.
‘It’s not like I don’t want to meet her,’ he admitted, ‘I mean I do, but what if … Well …’ he started to colour, ‘what if she doesn’t like me?’
‘Oh, give me a break,’ Sadie cried. ‘Who could not like you?’
Richie grinned. ‘I guess you’ve got a point,’ he conceded.
Laughing, Izzie said, ‘I was thinking that it might be a bit easier for you if you met her sister first.’
He frowned. ‘You mean the one you saw today? Patty?’
‘That’s right. I’m sure she’d agree to it if we asked.’
‘I bet she would.’ Sadie nodded. ‘Actually, I think that’s a really good idea, Mum.’
‘Would you like us to be there too?’ Izzie offered. ‘I’ll drive you over there, of course, but we can come in with you, if you like.’
‘You mean when I see the sister, or when I see …’ He looked at his aunt helplessly. ‘What am I supposed to call her?’
Curious to know the answer to that, Sadie looked at her mother.
‘Well, I guess you should call her Eva,’ Izzie replied uncertainly.
‘Not Mrs Montgomery?’
Izzie wrinkled her nose. ‘That definitely sounds too formal. Tell you what, we’ll check with Patty, who we’re already calling Patty, so I’m sure Eva will be fine.’
Putting his hands behind his head, he took another deep breath. ‘OK, so what am I going to talk to her about?’ he asked. ‘I mean, if I do go and see her.’
Again Sadie looked at her mother.