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“One day you leave London, without a husband, without a child and mere months later, you show up here expecting me to embrace a new family. A new you. No questions asked.” Serwa squeezes the lining of her coat, teetering on the edge of her chair stiffly.
“You can ask whatever you like.” Helen leans back, arms folded against her like a protective barrier.
“Can I? Fine. Then tell me again, how long you and Max have been together?” Helen looks at her mother, unsure how to answer. Technically, two and a half months. But really the roots were planted more than two and half years ago, working their way to the surface, so both answers are completely true and completely false at the same time.
“Mum.” Helen reaches for her wine glass, takes a sip.
“How long, Helen?” Serwa tilts her head in mock innocence and it’s the unabashed arrogance that causes Helen to set her glass down, shifting her body forward.
She does her best to stifle the urge to raise her voice. “Long enough for me to know that he’s a fact and not a fantasy. That he’s my future.”
“No one can know the future. And his child—“
“My child.”
“Is she? Is your name on her birth certificate? What about adoption papers, have those been sorted? Do you share a last name? By the look on your face, I can see the answer to all of that is no. So no, daughter, she isn’t yours. She’s his child and you simply live with her.”
The silence is deafening. Helen closes her eyes and tries to steady herself.
“Mum. Hear me when I say that this relationship—this family—may not be what you had envisioned, but it’s real and it’s non-negotiable. You don’t have to understand it, but you do have to live with it if you want me in your life. And for the record, I was there the day Luna was born more than two years ago. I was there the day Max almost died. Twice. I’ve weathered storms with him beyond anything you could possibly imagine—beyond anything you ever tried to weather with baba—and we’ve come out the other side. Luna is my daughter, whether it’s written on a piece of paper or not.” Helen pushes back her chair and makes her way towards the restroom.
As she rounds the corner, just out of view, Max walks into the restaurant with a bouquet of flowers.
“Ms. Sharpe! Hey! I’m Max. Helen’s—Max.”
Serwa stares at him, unyielding.
---
In the bathroom, Helen grips the counter like it’s a lifeline and stares at herself in the mirror. Is she right? Three months is nothing. And they could walk away at any time. Luna’s young enough she’d barely even remember.
Her chest lifts—up, down, up down—in a too fast rhythm and she can feel herself on the verge of panic. Where the hell is Max?
She reaches for her phone to text him, to feel the comfort of his name across the screen, but her phone is back at the table and her heart races faster. Stop this. Stop letting her get to you.
She closes her eyes, lids squeezing together—like the pressure of it will somehow push these terrible thoughts from her brain—and keeps them closed long enough for her breathing to slow. When her eyes fall open again, she meets herself in the mirror, finding moisture along the edge of her lashes. She wipes at the liquid before any piece of her can fall. She doesn’t know you. Do not let her dictate this.
With one final deep breath, she makes her way back to the table. When she gets there, Max is standing there awkwardly with a bouquet of flowers, looking like he isn’t sure what his next steps should be.
When his eyes meet hers, she tries to smile, but there’s no life in it and he asks, without asking, what’s wrong. She just shakes her head and prepares for round two.
---
Hours later, with Luna half asleep in Max’s arms, Helen pushes the door open wearily.
“I’m gonna go put her to bed,” Max whispers and tilts Luna down so Helen can say goodnight. Luna immediately reaches for her, arms snaking out around her neck, and Helen pulls her free of Max’s grip. The weight of her is a relief and Helen realizes that she isn’t ready to let her go.
“I’ll do it.” As they head toward the stairs, Max starts to protest, to offer her a few extra minutes to herself, but Helen stops him with a firm shake of her head, “Please.”
Max seems to realize this is about more than who handles her bedtime routine and nods.
Twenty minutes later, after Luna has curled into her family of stuffed animals and drifted off, Helen re-enters the living room to find a cup of tea on the table waiting for her and Max tucked into the corner of their couch reading something on his phone. He looks up when he hears her footfalls.
“Hey, she go down ok?” He smiles at her in a way that makes every part of her feel loved and she tries to hold onto this moment.
Nodding gently, she reaches out for her tea, “She was exhausted. It didn’t really take much,” and smiles when she tastes it. Honey Lavender. The one she would have picked for herself tonight if she’d been asked. She makes her way over to the couch and Max reaches for her tea, setting it on the side table, so he can pull her down into his lap. He looks at her for a few seconds, drinking her in, lost in it, like he can’t quite get enough of her. In truth, she can’t quite get enough of him either. Eventually, he breaks the silence.
“You wanna tell me what happened earlier?” His hand is running soothing circles across her back and sinks into it, trusting that what she feels in this moment is their reality and that nothing her mother said earlier has altered that.
She sighs into his touch, resting her head against his, “It was nothing. I should have expected it.”
He drops a kiss along her temple, “It didn’t really seem like nothing. And you’ve been quiet all day since. What did she say to you?”
Helen wonders how much she should share, how much of this conversation they are ready for. She’s afraid if she tells him all of it, he’ll start to have doubts too. “She just questioned how fast everything has happened.”
“Well it has happened pretty fast. But also pretty slow when you think about it.” His nose rubs the edge of her chin playfully and her hand slips through the hair at the back of his neck.
“I know. But from the outside...”
“It looks like you moved back to London with an instant family and she thinks it’s too much to soon.”
“She thinks—she thinks that it can’t possibly be real. That my relationship with you—with Luna—isn’t real.
Max pulls back, smiles at her like he knows something she doesn’t, “Well, what do you think?”
Helen pushes off of him, starts to pace. “I think she’s not wrong that everything is really new. I think she’s not wrong that we haven’t had conversations we probably need to have because of that newness.” She stops pacing and looks at him, “I think I’ve never loved anyone the way that I love you—and Luna— and that scares the living daylights out of me because what if it just goes away. I think—“
Max reaches for her wrist, mid stride, and pulls her back down, less gracefully than before. He takes her by the chin, cutting off her spiral with a kiss. “Helen. It’s not going to go away. We aren’t going anywhere. A lot has happened in a short period of time, we both know that’s true. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t ready for all of it. It doesn’t make any of it less real. Tell me what it is we need to talk about and we’ll talk about it. Right now.”
Helen hesitates, still not sure it’s the right time. He kisses her again—slow, easy, steady. “Tell me.” His whispered plea is enough to pull the truth from her.
“She told me that Luna wasn’t mine. And she was right. She isn’t. Not on paper. Not in any way that anyone but the three of us can recognize. And Max—”
Before she can finish, Max lets out a low laugh, reaching for his phone. “Helen.” He holds up the screen for her to see and the header says ‘Second Parent Adoption, New York City’
He smiles at her, “The other day, when I missed that call from school and they called you instead, it occurred to me that if it had been something more serious, you might have needed to make decisions for her that you don’t yet have a legal right to make. I wasn’t sure how much of a process it was going to be given that we aren’t married so I thought I’d wait to talk to you about it until I had more information.”
Helen bites her lip as the tears from earlier threaten to spill over. “You don’t think it’s too soon?” There’s hope and fear swirling inside her and her voice is shaky.
“Not even a little bit. Helen, you are everything to me and you are the only mother that little girl upstairs is ever going to really know. No matter what happens with us—and we can talk about that too whenever you’re ready—she is yours. And you’re hers. It’s as simple as that.”
The tears spill over now and she lets herself fall against his chest in relief. His thumb traces the moisture down her cheeks as he pulls her as tight against him as she’ll go. “We’ll figure out the paperwork this weekend, ok?”
Helen doesn’t say anything, just presses her lips to his heart in acknowledgement, and pushes herself closer. It doesn’t get more real than this.