a few yards from their house and sat waiting for the clock on the dashboard to reach ten thirty, while behind us Theo puffed tunelessly on a plastic kazoo.
“On reflection, that might not have been the best toy to bring,” Maddie said after a while.
“I didn’t bring it, he found it on the backseat,” I pointed out. “And it’s good for his speech to use his fine mouth muscles. But I’m sure David will have lots of other toys to play with.”
We were both silent. The truth was, we were wrung out. The days since Miles had knocked on the door with his bombshell had been exhausting. We’d veered between hope and fear—hope that we could somehow make this work, and fear at what might happen if we couldn’t. Sometimes, in the depths of the night, I’d jolt awake, gasping with adrenaline. I could almost feel our family, our little unit, being pulled apart, like the segments of an orange. But then I’d tell myself it was going to be all right, that we had a plan. And that, after all, Miles and Lucy must be feeling exactly the same terror as us.
“Why are we doing this?” Maddie said suddenly.
I gave her a sideways look. “Meeting today? Or meeting them at all?”
“Both. Any of it. Perhaps we should just have—I don’t know, politely refused to engage. Perhaps that would have been the best thing for everyone, in the long run.”
“It’s not too late. We could make an excuse—”
She shook her head. “I don’t really mean it. And sorry for snapping about the toy. I’m just nervous, I suppose.”
“About the meeting? Or seeing Theo’s cousin?” We’d agreed not to use the words our son in front of Theo. He probably wouldn’t understand, but it was best to be careful.
“Both. But mainly David. I just can’t help thinking—he’s our, our offspring. I carried him. And we have absolutely no idea what sort of person he is. That’s just crazy, isn’t it?”
“Big car,” Theo said. I looked around. He was pointing at the four-wheel-drive BMW parked in the Lamberts’ drive.
“Very big car,” I agreed. “But big cars aren’t always better. They put lots of dirt into the air, for one thing.”
“Come on, let’s do this.” Maddie reached down and squeezed my hand, then unbuckled her seatbelt.
* * *
—
WHAT DO YOU TAKE as a gift in that situation? We’d opted for flowers for Lucy, and we’d let Theo choose a small packet of sweets for David. He’d decided on chocolate buttons. I’d mentally run through all the objections Lucy might raise—some mothers were funny about sweets of any kind—but these were only 160 calories, the chocolate was Fairtrade, and, most important, I knew there were exactly ten buttons in every bag, so they were eminently shareable.
We climbed the steps to the front door, which Theo managed by himself; rang the bell—more complicated than it sounds: It turned out the entry intercom was back by the gate into the drive—and then the door opened and there was Miles, casual in a patterned shirt, chinos, and deck shoes without socks. “Come in, come in, good to see you,” he said to me and Maddie, before eagerly crouching down to Theo and putting his hand up, palm out, in the universal gesture that means “high five.”
“Hey there, Theo,” he said gently.
Theo, for reasons of his own, chose to interpret Miles’s flat hand as a target to be punched. “Bouff!” he said as he hit him. Miles laughed and stood up.
“Lucy’s through here.”
He led us to the rear of the house, into a slate-floored kitchen the size of our entire ground floor. The blond woman I’d last seen outside the nursery was standing by a red Aga, making tea. Once again she was stylishly dressed, in tight white jeans and a shawl made of mohair or angora. “Hello!” she said brightly, coming over and kissing us both on the cheek. I sensed she was just as nervous as we were. “Oh, how kind.” She took the flowers and reached under the big ceramic sink for a vase.
“And this is David,” Miles said behind us. Maddie and I turned as one.
Miles had carried David in from an adjoining room, so he was at our height. He was smaller than Theo—a lot smaller—and in the flesh, you could tell at once there was something fragile about him. His fair hair was very fine, and his features were elfin, almost girlish, which made the resemblance to Maddie even