Page 88 of The Love of My Life
But of course, I have no phone, and Jill is being infuriatingly resistant to giving me hers.
I stand in front of her bathroom mirror, contemplating my face. I look exhausted; the skin round my eyes saggy and translucent.
What did I think would happen? Did I really believe I could bury these truths permanently inside myself, that Leo would never sense there was more?
Really?
‘Look. Jill,’ I say, when I return to the kitchen. ‘It’s so kind of you to do this, but I have to speak to Leo. Even if he doesn’t want to speak to me, I still have to sort out stuff concerning Ruby. Please let me borrow your phone.’
Jill gets cocoa out of one of her neat plastic storage boxes.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Fine.’
She starts making a paste out of cocoa, sugar and milk, humming under her breath as if I’m not in the room.
‘Jill.’
‘Yes! Hang on, let me get these done, then I can—’
I go to the hallway where her coat and bag are hanging on their designated hooks. I get her phone out of her pocket and as she comes out I hand it to her, for the password.
‘Emma! Could you not have—’
‘Please just unlock it,’ I say. ‘Please, Jill. I’m desperate.’
She sighs, reaching for the phone, just as the intercom goes.
She jumps. Jill actually jumps, and her face changes completely.
‘Emma ...’
‘Yes?’
Jill pauses. ‘Listen, I didn’t just bring you here for pastries and a heart-to-heart. I – there’s something important you need to know. It’s why I was trying to get hold of you Friday night.’
I close my eyes. ‘Can it not wait?’
She doesn’t reply. When I open my eyes she’s buzzing someone into the building. She runs a hand up and down her jeans, and it comes to me that she’s not just a bit nervous, she’s terrified.
‘What have you done?’ I ask, quietly. ‘Jill, what’s going on?’
‘Just wait a moment,’ she whispers. She creeps over to her front door and puts her eye to the spyhole.
‘Jill ...’ I’m whispering too, although I don’t know why.
And then she straightens up and opens the door to a young man, standing outside. A man with my face and a male body.
With longish hair that needs washing and a once-red T-shirt, sun-baked to pink. He stands in the doorway, looking at me with fear and curiosity.
I would know my son anywhere. Even if I hadn’t spent years looking at pictures of him on the internet, I would know.
I stare at him. He stares at me.
My heart, pounding. All my life. This moment.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re Emma, right?’
I nod. Tears gather in my eyes. My child.
