Page 40 of When We Are Old

Maybe he would kiss me and make me feel like the universe didn’t exist…

A small voice in the back of my head reminded me I was kissing in my mother’s hallway. That broke a rule on a list someplace.

“Ugh. Oh my god.”

I gasped and pulled away at Hannah’s disgusted exclamation.

“You’re going to put me into therapy. I hope you’re saving.”

I squinted my eyes at her. “I’ve been saving since you were born.” I gestured her forward from where she hung onto the banister like a chimp at the zoo. “Hannah, this is Matthew.” It would have been so much smoother if I hadn’t announced him like he was the prize on a game show. Ta dah! You have won a giant Scot.

“Hi.” Hannah had her resting bitch face on. She analysed him from top to toe. “So you’re my new daddy?”

“Oh my god! Hannah!”

Matthew kept a solid poker face in place.

“She tells me all her boyfriends are my new daddy.” She shook her head. Sweat broke out across all my body. “Let me think, what number are you?” She tilted her head to the side while she pretended to count.

Matthew laughed and held out his hand. “Hi, Hannah. Sorry I didn’t get to introduce myself properly the other week.”

She smiled at him. A proper smile. “When I told you that I knew you, you said I didn’t. Then I finally remembered and created a happy ever after Disney moment for you both.”

He chuckled. It sounded like heaven bouncing around the bare hallway. “Yes, then.”

“I’d be gutted if my new daddy was a compulsive liar.”

He laughed, glancing at his feet. “No. I didn’t realise you saw me all those years ago. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

He seemed to physically relax with an exaltation of breath—stupid man. Did he not know teenage girls?

“So party tomorrow?” Bless him for trying to keep a conversation going. Someone give that man a gold star.

“Ma says she's not worried anymore now she’s moving out.” Hannah sneered at me.

“She’s not moving out, Hannah. Let’s not discuss it, now. Okay?”

She shrugged—universal teenage language for ‘don’t give a fuck’. I swept my gaze over her, taking in her outfit.

“What the hell are you wearing? Where are your clothes?”

I glanced at Matthew who concentrated very hard on his brown shoes.

“What, I’m not going anywhere?” She shrugged while I ogled at her minuscule shorts and vest top.

“It’s March, go and put some bloody clothes on. Nonna won’t let you sit at the table like that, and you know it, so don’t even argue.”

Matthew cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t know if you are aware, but I can hear every word you are saying,” Ma clipped from the kitchen. With a sense of impending doom, I smiled tight and towed him in behind me to officially introduce my mother to the love of my life.

“So, Matthew. Tell me.” Ma had on her Spanish Inquisition expression. She adjusted her glasses and peered at him over the top of the frames. I added it to my to-do list to remind her to book an appointment with the optician.

At the kitchen table Matthew leant back in his chair. Every so often my eyes stung with sporadic tears. There was only a certain amount of needing the loo, that one woman should use during dinner, but the emotional overload of having him here, sitting at the kitchen table was heavy. A long lost dream for him to be in my life and not just a forgotten wish was making me increasingly unstable by the minute.

His fingers looped around the long stem of his glass of red wine and my throat tightened. I coughed around it and then breathed slow when his foot tapped mine under the table.