Page 17 of When We Are Old

“About what? Did you tell him you loved him?”

Ooh, tricky one to answer. “I think so.” I pulled at the neckline of my jumper, my skin sizzling under the polyester. Words were said, and not said. The clash of our teeth echoed in my head and I cleared my throat.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed into slits and I knew our short time of conversing was about to blow. “So you aren’t going to tell me anything?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I don’t have any answers. We talked. I told him,” My cheeks became nuclear, “that I liked him.” Her eyes narrowed to nothing more than a cat’s gaze in bright sunlight. “But he lives in Scotland, and he has two children. We’ve lived a whole lot of life without one another, and I don’t know what happens with that.”

Hannah sat up a little straighter, her eyelashes widening. “Children?”

“Uh.” God, this was a messed-up situation. I’d just declared undying love to a man my daughter hadn’t even met—officially.

My heart squeezed in my chest and try as I might I couldn’t ignore the fact Matthew and I might have gone about this all wrong. Everything about us had always been wrong, but we’d just levelled up into a new game called Wing It.

“Yeah.” I tried to sound nonchalant about the fact there stood a good chance I fully intended to give Hannah two ready-made, Scottish stepbrothers. “Jack and Ewan. They seem cute.”

Her gaze narrowed again. “And how old are they?”

I winced. “Six and eight.” I rushed the words, saying them quicker so they wouldn’t come as such a shock—everyone knows this doesn’t work. Still, it’s always worth a try.

“Hmm.” She sucked her teeth for a minute. “Better than a disgusting smelly older boy.”

“That’s very true.” I nodded, eager to carry on with the positives. Any positives.

“And not a baby.” She pulled a face, turning her lips at the corners and making a gagging noise. “Ewww. You aren’t going to have a baby, are you?”

“Ewww, why are you even saying that? Babies aren’t my forte.”

“Oh, thank you,” she retorted.

“And anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Matthew and I haven’t even had a date yet.”

The thought struck like thunder from up high. We hadn’t even had a date yet. Hannah watched me, a smile playing on her lips. “Nonna said you would rush in headfirst.”

Her barb pulled me back from my helter-skelter of panic. “Where is Nonna with her font of never-ending wisdom?”

“She’s gone to bingo.”

“Don’t be silly. Where is she really?” I stepped for the hallway and hollered up the stairs. “Maaaaaaaa.”

“No really, she’s at bingo. She said, and I quote, ‘Who knows when your mother will be back from her gallivanting. I need to go to bingo and meet Marge’.”

I walked back to the kitchen table. “Who’s Marge?” I really needed to talk to Ma about her crazy idea of moving out. Her new friends probably needed to be vetted as well. My mother seemed determined to take my criticism regarding her sheltered existence to heart and now planned to sell the house from under us.

That was not what I intended.

Hannah gave her obligatory slump of her shoulders. “I don’t know. Some poor woman at the old people's home, I’m guessing.” She switched the conversation's direction, taking me unawares. “Are we going to talk about Ange?”

My stomach dropped. Angela. Her betrayal in our friendship stung like a sting from a killer bee. I kept trying to shove it from my mind, but it gnawed at the edges with the determination of a dog with a new bone. She’d lied. Maybe wilfully kept Matthew and I apart… How the hell did we move on from that? I shook my head at Hannah. “I don’t want to talk about Ange. Let’s talk about babies instead.”

“Mum, this is important. She was devastated when you left Friday night, and she is my godmother; you can’t just ignore her.”

Ah! The godmother card.

My face scrunched into folds of dismay. “Yeah, Hannah, she was devastated,” I emphasised the word, “because she knows she’s done some really crappy things.”

“But we all make mistakes though. You told me you did with this Matthew guy.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that Matthew wasn’t just some Matthew guy. He was the guy, the only one in all of existence. That when God created the Garden of Eden and allowed Adam to walk under the trees, what he was putting in place was a prototype for Matthew Carling.