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It’s all just wishes and dreaming. I told Joseph years ago that wishes were for children and people who believe in magic and Santa, and it’s still my sentiment. I can dream and wish for hours, but I still know I did the right thing. Joseph and I were kids. He may have been twenty-two, but he was still a kid, really. A man who couldn’t tell me about his relationship with Hannah wasn’t a grown-up. A grown-up would have been upfront from the beginning or at least admitted things to me at some point. They wouldn’t have run away and left me wondering. Maddie deserved more than that and my broken self.

Giving her up and letting her live with Verity and my father, that was the best start in life for her.

“How did Maddie seem to you at dinner?” I ask Caleb.

Tonight, she sat between Caleb and Simon. They’re the two she’s most comfortable with right now. Felix is next. Right at the bottom are me and Verity, though I’m fairly sure Verity ranks higher than me right now. I’m just grateful that she’s back to talking to me, and I’m desperate to get us back to the type of relationship we had before or maybe find something even better.

“Quiet, but she ate a lot of her food,” he replies.

“It’s a lot to process, Dee, and she’s still just a kid with a lot of things on her mind,” Felix adds.

“I just want to take it all away for her. I didn’t want her teenage years to be tarnished by anything like this.” I bite my lip. I should have been more specific when I prayed for her future when she was a tiny baby. I prayed for greater parents than I had, and a life that wouldn’t have been blighted like my teen years were. I never considered that I needed to add good health too.

“She’s doing okay. She’s a tough cookie. She takes after you in that respect,” Felix soothes. He gives a final rub across my stomach.

“She mentioned that Joseph gave her his phone number,” Caleb states. “She sounded like she thinks she’ll be going to stay with him for holidays too.”

I bristle slightly in my seat. Not wanting to give away everything I’m burning about, I keep my eyes trained on Felix as I speak, though my comments are directed to Caleb.

“What, she’s thinking we’ll let her skip off for sunny holidays with daddy dearest when we still don’t know how well she is?” I scoff.

“She isn’t calling him Dad,” Caleb replies.

My cheeks flush given he knows exactly what I was hurt about. The idea that he gets a pass and can wander into her life and be assigned a role, when I’m the one who’s still feeling the sting of the rejection and the heat of her angry scowls when she found out the truth.

I never expect that she’ll call me Mum. Verity will always be that for her, the same way that my father will always be Dad. The idea that Maddie will let Joseph take that title when I’m never going to be more than the woman who gave her up, that hurts me. It’s what has kept me up at night, tears in my eyes and my worries lying heavily on my heart.

I force myself to take a deep breath. I shouldn’t be wallowing. I shouldn’t let myself be stressed out. I vowed that I would try to be calm and serene through this pregnancy. I didn’t expect Maddie to be sick again, and I certainly didn’t expect our relationship to have been discussed, all things that have caused intense emotions in me. I need to try and regulate my emotions. Not just for myself and for Maddie, but for the baby I’m carrying.

“You need to relax, Dee. Right now, there’s too much going on. She’s dealing with her treatment and what could lie ahead. Nobody knows if they’re going to say she needs a bone marrow transplant, and that’s a scary prospect hanging over her head right now. All of ours, too, but she’s the one who will have to go through it all. Add on that everything to do with Joseph, and it’s a lot, but she’s dealing with it well,” Felix reminds me.

“I just wish I could fast-forward us all to when things are going to be better. I’m keeping my focus on it, and I can see it so clearly. All of us, sitting on a beach somewhere, enjoying the sunshine. This little one being passed around everybody who loves them,” I start, rubbing my hand over my stomach again before continuing, “and us all watching Maddie as she looks so healthy and happy. She’s just reading a book, and it’s all so simple, but I know we’re all so happy. That’s where I want us to be.”

“We’ll get there. I can feel it. I’m sure Maddie’s turned the corner,” Caleb promises.

“Keep your focus on that, okay? Don’t let things with Joseph detract from that. Don’t fall into that despair again,” Felix coaxes.

He gives me a warning look. It isn’t the despair about Joseph he’s referring to and I know it. I can tell from his expression that he’s thinking back to the awful night when Maddie got sick the first time, when everything was uncertain, when I felt like we were in limbo waiting for news, and I was so afraid that she would die. I can still recall sobbing in his arms, too upset at the unfairness of it all, devastated that she could be taken from us. He did his best to try to calm me down, but that fear would flare up again and again and again. Every appointment with consultants, every updated bloodwork, every scan, every admission into hospital, every progress update.

“I will,” I vow.

“Do you want to stay tonight?” Caleb asks. I often joke that I live in one of their spare bedrooms given the number of times I stay over.

I shake my head. “I’m going to finish my tea and then go home for a nice bath before bed.”

“We have a bath here,” Caleb reminds me.

“I promise you both, I’m fine.” I know they worry about me. Felix has worried about me all my life, and I think Caleb absorbed some of that from him. Right from the day Felix introduced us, after Caleb passed the magical seven-date rule, Caleb has been in my corner.

I finish my cup of coffee and watch as they stare at each other. They have one of those nonverbal exchanges that can only be performed by people who know each other inside and out.

“Are you going to stay to watch a film?” Felix asks as he turns his gaze back to me, his silent conversation with Caleb concluded.

“No. I said I’d come for a drink before I went home. Task completed,” I say, gesturing at my empty mug. I could have gone home straight from Verity’s, but I don’t think anybody particularly wanted to let me go home by myself without having some sort of debrief about Joseph and Maddie meeting properly.

I feel a little less shaky after the small mug of coffee, though I’m sure the feeling will return when I’m at home, alone.

“Are you sure—” Caleb starts.