Max wandered around the living room. Framed photos of Jamie as a baby and growing up were on every wall. He wiped his forehead. Emily wasn’t his firstborn anymore. Did this mean that every first with her didn’t count? Were all those special moments tarnished because they’d already happened with his first child? Except he hadn’t been there to witness them and that didn’t sit right with him. It was a kick in the gut that he’d missed out on so much. Maybe it would be easier to walk away after all. None of this was fair on Maddy let alone Emily and Chloe. He could slip out of the door unnoticed, maybe move abroad with Maddy and the girls. Thanks to Ali’s dear old dad, she’d never be able to trace him, not with his new name and the life she knew nothing about. But would he really be able to give up on his own son? Jamie. He couldn’t deny he was pleased he had a son, and Jamie was a good kid, kind and thoughtful. He’d already had a hard start in life, a bit like his own. How could he walk away now, like his own parents did to him?

‘He seems fine,’ Ali whispered, standing at the door.

‘What did you tell him before?’

‘That you had to go away.’

‘Poor kid.’ But one day he’d tell Jamie the truth, that his grandfather lied to him, told him he’d been aborted because no one was allowed to date the boss’s daughter, let alone fall in love with her and get her pregnant. How he wished the old man was still alive so he could smash his face in for making him leave.

‘I need to keep an eye on the dinner. Come and have a beer?’

He followed her into the kitchen. She opened a bottle and handed it to him. Jamie laid the table, then took his ball out to the small patio garden.

‘It’s a shock for him to find out you’re his dad,’ she said taking a lid off a pan, releasing a slinking ribbon of steam like a genie. She was crying and he didn’t know what to say. He put his arm around her, and she turned into his chest.

‘You will keep coming to see him, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I mean, you will stick to it?’

‘Of course I will. It just kills me that I didn’t know about him sooner.’ He had to make this work somehow without hurting Maddy. There was no way he would do what his own parents did and deliberately bugger off.

She turned to the cooker and stirred the gravy. Max wandered back into the living room with his beer. Jamie smiled broadly at him from the tiny garden.

‘Shall we have a kickabout then?’ Max finished his beer. The boy’s face brightened.