And then I feel bad for wishing that upon her.

My throat aches as I fight the need to cry. I will not. ‘So there you go. That’s that. End of story.’ No sooner have I confessed the details than I wrap them back up and, like always, package it all away. I bury deep the need to get up, to shout, to lash out at her, at the world, at anyone or anything, in the hopes it might eradicate my feelings. Instead, I slowly raise my head to the sky, fighting with every bone in my body the animal instincts I feel.She reaches inside her bag to pull out a tissue, not quite able to extract it from one of those plastic packets of ten, three ply. I take the packet from her. ‘I’ve told you before about these, Mum, they’re a nightmare. Useless in an emergency.’ My brightness is false under the circumstances but I’m not conceding. I pull out a tissue, flick to unfold it and pass it to her. ‘Handy chuffing Andies. Handy, my arse.’Mum stares. ‘How can you be so flippant, Rhys. How can you… When you’ve just…’ I get up from the bench as she wipes her eyes, blows her nose then stuffs the tissue up her cardigan sleeve. How can I not be like this? To be anything else hurts like fuck. To be anything else makes me question everything I am. Everything I believe myself to be.

To be anything else makes me question Susan.

When Kat told me what the newspaper cutting said, my heart flirted with the idea, but my head pushed it aside as ridiculous, as wishful thinking. Despite my anger at her for doing that to a baby, if it was me, if I was that baby, then that meant a chance for a happy ending, and despite all my cynicism in life, I have dared to dream that might be in my future.

Stupid really.

Like those things happen.

The family from before walk past us. The toddler is now in a pram, eating an ice cream, the majority of which is around her face. She has tiny, green sunglasses on that make her face look like a squished alien. The parents smile proudly. Mum and I try to smile back.‘I can’t believe it. I can’t… and you never said anything. You must have been so…’ She reaches out to touch me again, her hand resting on my knee. I take it in mine, choking on the weight of the moment. ‘I guess that explains a lot,’ she says eventually. ‘I mean, how you’ve been dealing with things.’ She looks straight into my eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I let out a protracted groan. ‘I don’t know. I guess I was trying to be strong for David. At the meeting, they told him his mum wasn’t interested, that his contact was likely to be met with silence. The look on his face when he came out of that office, Mum, it all hurt so much, I just…’ I can feel myself going and I can’t allow it. ‘He needed us, didn’t he? It had been his moment and I strolled in and made it my moment too. Maybe that’s why…’ I hold back. ‘I parked it. Filed it under “move on”.’