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“I’ve been looking after Willow and making her all better,” Mia informs her mum.
“I can see,” Jackie notes, amused, glancing at the toys on the sofa. “What a good girl.”
“Doctor. What a good doctor,” Mia corrects, beaming with pride.
“Why don’t you get washed up and we can get a start on dinner?”
“Okay, Mummy,” Mia agrees, running up the stairs.
Jackie sits down on the sofa next to me, glancing at all the work on the coffee table. “What’s all of this?”
I sigh, leaning back on the sofa and dropping my head back. It’s exhausting me. More than I thought this assignment would.
“It’s an assignment for my journalism class and my application to get onto the university’s newspaper. I’m doing a real-life story, though I’ve been having problems finding something to report on and write about. I’ve asked around on social networking sites but its people coming back with stories about how they lost weight or how their holiday was ruined. I know I could pick any one of them and it would be a good story, but I want it to be spectacular, to blow people away. I need something that means something. I want something people don’t often question others about because they’re too scared to, or because it’s considered impolite.” I breathe out then glance up at Jackie, who is deep in thought, a blank expression on her face. “Sorry. I got carried away,” I explain.
“No. No, it’s not that. I was just thinking. If it’s okay with Liam, you could write one on us.”
My eyebrows pinch together, my interest piqued. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if it’s interesting enough to write a story about, but Liam is adopted,” she announces.
“Uh, what?” I breathe out, completely speechless.
“It’s not something we talk about. Not because it’s off limits but because it doesn’t feel like an adoption. Not anymore. He’s ours, you know?”
I nod and a thought occurs to me. “Is Mia?” I ask, my thoughts trailing off.
“Mia isn’t, no,” she tells me, seeming to be relaxed talking about this. Then a story comes to mind, and I wonder if she’ll be okay with it.
“Okay, hear me out,” I tell her, grabbing my pen and pad with enthusiasm. “You might not like the stuff I’ll ask but it’s the reporter in me.” I shrug, feeling apologetic. “But I need to ask questions others around you will want to ask but are too scared to, or consider it rude. It’s deep in the back of their minds or on the tip of their tongue, but it’s there, yet they’re too scared to ask.”
“Go ahead. You’ll be surprised by what I’ve been asked.”
“Are you okay to do this now or shall we wait?” I ask, my gaze shifting to the ceiling, where Mia is obviously playing and not washing up like her mum asked.
Jackie snickers, easing back onto the couch. “It’s fine. She won’t come back down here until I shout her. She gets distracted easily.”
“Okay, I’ll start from the beginning. What made you adopt?”
“I don’t feel like I wasmadeas such, but I guess it was the only decision we had,” she admits. I arch a brow. “I was told I couldn’t conceive. The chances were so low that when the third round of IVF failed, Frank and I decided to give up. Carrying a child wasn’t important to me. Being a mother was. So we decided to adopt. We were lucky to even be accepted, and when we began the process, we read other people’s stories and they all had one thing in common. They wanted babies, so we both chose to adopt a child who needed a loving family, one who would normally have trouble being adopted. We were blessed with Liam.”
My eyes fill with tears as I think about the life Cole could have had if he wasn’t given to the Cole’s.
“What was it like adopting?” I ask, writing notes as I go.
“The same as any mother being given a child. It was love at first sight. My parents were smitten just as much as we were. Everyone in our family was happy for us. The second they laid eyes on the little boy we had been blessed with, they fell in love. There were a few people who had a hard time adapting. We actually parted ways with a couple we were friends with.”
“How come?” I ask, and strangely, I’m not just asking for the story but for my own interest.
“Well, they would correct Liam when he started calling us Mummy and Daddy. It took us so long to get him to trust us. We were devastated when we overheard what they were saying to him. It ended up in a massive argument, one that got a little out of hand.” She shakes her head, like she’s brushing those memories away. “But for us, it just meant we knew who our real friends were. They didn’t understand how we could raise someone else’s child. But we never saw Liam as someone else’s child. He was ours from day one. Even to this day, I still look at him and seemylittle boy. We’ve never really acknowledged the fact that he is adopted. It doesn’t feel right to.”
“He’s lucky.” I smile, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “My mum’s friend was having trouble getting pregnant. I remember her telling my mum that they both had tests done and it was impossible for either of them to conceive. When my mum mentioned the option of adoption, they recoiled at the thought and looked at my mum like she had just told them she was a foreign creature. I never understood her reaction. I still don’t.”
“I don’t get why people don’t agree with it. Having Liam brought into our lives was the best gift anyone could have given us at the time. He might not share the same DNA as us, but he’s a part of us. He has his dad’s brains,” she muses wistfully. “And my loving nature. It’s hard to explain something that is bonded so strong.”
“And then you had Mia? What was your reaction when you found out? What was Cole like?” I ask, rambling questions off before I forget, getting lost in their life.
“Yes, Mia,” she declares. “I was around five months pregnant before I even knew. I went into hospital with mild stomach pains, and when they ran some blood tests, it came back that I was pregnant. I was so shocked. The first person I told was Liam. He was so grumpy.” Her expression is filled with wonder and love, and I know she’s thinking about that memory. “He told me he didn’t want a sister or a brother. Secretly, I think he was worried we would love him less, which wasn’t the case.”