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“Angry? Fuck, Hannah. Do you understand what this is doing to me?” I jab my finger in the direction of the door. “There's a kid out there who's mine, who I'm responsible for. I’ve never seen him and then you turn up on my doorstep and tell me he’s fuckingdying! You selfish bitch.”
As soon as the words are out, I regret them, slamming a hand over my mouth. Hannah stands.
“Shit, I'm sorry.” I reach out to her as she steps back. “I shouldn't have said that but I'm in shock here.”
“I should go, until you calm down.”
“You can't dump this on me and walk away!” I half-shout again.
“Then, what? You're upset. I don't expect you to be rational.”
This can’t be happening. How can I have a kid for eight years and never know? “I want tests. Prove it.”
“Fine,” says Hannah in a tone of heavy defeat. “But he was conceived the summer I left Wales and the only person I had sex with was you. You know that.”
And with that, Hannah has managed what I swore she wouldn’t. In a spectacular fashion, Hannah manages to haul me back in time to the place I’d shut the door on. The woman in the room with me is the girl who, nine years ago, cried when she told me she was leaving. The anguish on her face is that of the girl who clung to me and told me she’d love me forever.
I fight. For breath, against all this, for me, for Avery, for a future I’d planned that slips through my fingers as I slip back in time.
Hold onto the anger. Don’t look at her.
“I think you should leave,” I say coldly.
“I want to explain properly.”
“Like you said, I’m fucking angry right now and this is not the time.”
Hannah nods and buttons her coat with trembling fingers. “Just tell me one thing before I go.”
I rub my face, rubbing sensation back into my frozen body. “What?”
“Will you help?”
“I'd have helped years ago if you'd asked me,” I say through clenched teeth.
“I was trying to protect us all.”
“This is why you never wanted us public, isn't it? You were too ashamed!”
“I don't expect you to understand or forgive me. I'm asking for Connor. You don't need to have anything else to do with me.”
I catch up to the reality further. In front of me is a woman whose son has cancer, her world broken apart by the devastation she might lose her child. With this, she’s been forced to let go of her biggest secret.
The usual Bryn’s heart would break for anybody in her position. Right now, I have nothing. I almost hate her.
How fucked up that she pretended her own child wasn’t hers. How long for? How long has Connor known she’s his mum?Doeshe?
Why the fuck didn’t Hannah tell me?
I waver. Her decision to lie has to be put aside because this isn't about me or her. It's about Connor.
