Page 59 of Forever, Maybe
Chapter forty-four
C hrissie sat on her bombshell until Dad finally left for the evening. Their father was a homebody through and through, happiest when nestled in his armchair with the remote in one hand, a chilled can of beer in the other, and a bowl of crisps placed within arm’s reach.
But tonight, their neighbours had coaxed him out for dinner—a rare feat.
Back when Mum was alive, the invitations were a regular occurrence, and even after her passing, they’d kept coming.
Until now, though, Dad had always declined.
Sitting at their table without Karen was too much, her absence a gaping black hole that threatened to swallow any trace of joy.
“Oh, yes, go!” Chrissie encouraged, practically shooing him out the door.
“And bring back the leftovers!” Mikey chimed in, adding with a grin, “especially if Hazeema’s making her saag gosht.”
At the mention of the dish, Mikey’s eyes took on a dreamy glaze, no doubt recalling the heavenly blend of tender lamb, earthy spinach and spices dancing on his tongue.
Dad had even dressed for the occasion, trading his usual baggy slacks and the ratty jumper Mum had tried—and failed—to banish to the charity shop for a crisp shirt and chinos.
“Kittens, you could come too,” he offered, adjusting his collar. “Hazeema wouldn’t mind.”
Of course, she wouldn’t. Hazeema, a first-generation Pakistani immigrant, was on a mission to school the people of Lincolnshire in the art of proper Pakistani cuisine. To her, the bland offerings of the average British curry house were an affront.
Mum and Dad had always joked that Hazeema never knowingly under-catered.
Walking into her house was like stepping into a sensory explosion—garlic, ginger, cumin, mustard oil and fenugreek hanging thick in the air as pots bubbled away on every burner, filling the kitchen with a fragrant, steamy chaos.
Mikey looked as if he was about to agree. Her brother’s sole motivation in life was food., and as luck would have it, his girlfriend Jaden was not only Barbie-doll beautiful but a culinary genius.
Chrissie nudged him discreetly in the ribs before he could say yes. “Nah, Pa,” she said with a smile. “You go and catch up with your friends. We’ll hold the fort here.”
Her dad’s eyes glimmered, the unmistakable sign that emotion had once again caught up with him.
Without them there, he might open up fully, laying bare the depth of his grief.
He and Mum had been teenage sweethearts—a bond that ran deeper than words.
Hazeema, married at eighteen, would understand better than most.
Mikey got the message. “Yeah, Pops! What if Hazeema and Bizhan want to botch about their terrible children and they need you, also the parent of vilely awful kids, to listen and say, ‘Gracious me, that’s nothing! You’ll never guess what my dreadful rascals did the other week!’”
Dad’s eyes glistened once more. “You two! I don’t know what I’d…” he trailed off. Chrissie leapt in with a hug before the moment got too heavy. “Off you go! Botch about us to your heart’s content! We love you!”
They ushered him to the front door, waving enthusiastically as he crossed the short path to the Kulpars’ dark grey door. He rang the bell, glancing back at them with a small, grateful smile as he waited.
When Hazeema appeared, resplendent in a green-blue sari with tiny, mirrored pendants that caught the porch light, she waved them a cheery hello before ushering Dad inside.
Mikey exhaled dramatically. “Mission: Pops’ Night Out complete.”
He turned to Chrissie, eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Now, pizza. Your shout. Meat feast. Also dough balls. And”—his voice took on the weight of a solemn pact—“Grand Theft Auto. Winner gets out of all household chores for a month. A whole month!”
“Where’s Jaden?” Chrissie asked, stalling.
Mikey shrugged. “Out with her mates. One of them is—get this—getting married next month. Twenty-four and tootling down the aisle. Jeez-o. Hope that doesn’t give Jaden any ideas.”
He wrinkled his brow in exaggerated horror, his mouth moving comically as he no doubt imagined his girlfriend dropping unsubtle hints about their future.
Chrissie smirked. She couldn’t picture her brother moving out anytime soon.
So long as Dad tolerated them both—and he would—Mikey was staying put.
“If you ever got married, would you want your real mum and dad to know?”
The second the words left her mouth, Chrissie winced, mentally cursing herself with a word her adoptive parents would’ve swiftly tossed into the household swear jar. Subtle, it was not.
Mikey shot her a seriously? look, complete with raised eyebrows and a shake of his head. Then, as if imagining Jaden might burst through the door at any moment, drop to one knee, and propose, he darted a series of panicked glances around the room.
“God’s sakes, no! You’ve been making too many wedding cakes. It’s all gone to your head. Anyway, on to much more important things! Who’s ordering the pizza? You, you, you!”
She dialled the number and ordered the meat feast. Fourteen inches, not twelve—an unsubtle bribe to butter him up. For herself, a modest seven-inch Margherita, a concession to the unwelcome extra kilos that had crept on during her cake-baking spree and its inevitable “quality control” tastings.
Mikey had already assumed his usual position, sprawled across the sofa like a human starfish. Without a word, she fetched him a can of non-alcoholic lager. He had an early shift in the morning and didn’t need the excuse to snooze through his alarm.
Settling into the recliner, she watched as he browsed Netflix. “So, the thing is, I’ve…” Her voice faltered as Mikey flipped over to Amazon Prime, scrolling through its offerings with casual determination.
Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. As small children, they’d fought all the time but once she reached sixteen and Mikey fourteen, peace was declared, and they hadn’t quarrelled in forever.
She took a deep breath. Mikey was easy-going.
One of his police colleagues had told her it was what made him a great cop.
He never lost his temper and remained unflappable, no matter what was going on.
Her handbag, a neon pink mock designer tote with oversized, interlocking CCs, sat by her feet. She leaned forward and pulled out the printouts she’d stashed there earlier—the ones she couldn’t stop rereading.
People didn’t always go by their given names.
That’s what the probate researchers had said on the TV show she’d watched.
It was a passing comment, but it stuck. Eleanor Stephenson had been a dead end—every search led to a brick wall.
But when she tried Nell Stephenson, after first exhausting Ellie Stephenson (apparently an annoyingly common name), she found something. She found her .
It had happened almost by accident. The article was buried deep in the Google results, a relic from over a decade ago, but there it was—a news piece about an art exhibition at a Glaswegian gallery.
The accompanying photo showed three artists standing proudly with the owner, all beaming at the camera.
According to the article, Nell Stephenson was one of the featured artists, specialising in charcoal landscapes of urban settings inspired by Scotland’s largest city. It also mentioned she was married to a local entrepreneur, Daniel Murray, who ran a chain of sandwich shops and food vans.
Chrissie had double-checked the date of the article, amazed by how young Nell looked.
But with the new name—Nell Murray—this time, she’d been able to track her down on Instagram.
She followed her using the account she’d set up for the cake business, the one conspicuously free of Mikey’s suggestion to post him eating the giant Jaffa cake she’d made “for marketing purposes.”
Nell didn’t post often, but her feed offered glimpses into her life—her husband, her friends, her job. There were no photos of children, but Chrissie knew some people preferred to keep their kids off social media.
She swallowed hard, the words pressing against her throat. Finally, she said it. “Mikey, I found your mum.”
There. It was out now.
Mikey turned his head slowly, his expression clouded with confusion, not anger or shock. “What?”
Chrissie stretched over and placed the stack of papers on Mikey’s chest—the original news article and a few recent Instagram photos she’d printed out.
Nell didn’t look much like him, but there was a faint resemblance if you stared long enough.
She explained how she’d found the woman, her voice wobbling slightly as Mikey lay motionless, making no move to touch the papers.
When he rolled onto his side to sit up, the stack slid to the floor in a fluttering heap.
“Why did you look for her?” he asked, his jaw tight, irritation bleeding into his tone.
“Because I thought you’d be interested, and that you would—” She hesitated, faltering under his sharp gaze.
He held up a hand, cutting her off. “If I was interested, I’d have done it myself.”
Fair point. She opened her mouth to respond but thought better of it. Instead, she tried a different tack. “But Luce says—”
“Luce?” His voice rose alarmingly. “You’ve talked to Luce about this?”
“Not about your mum specifically,” she said quickly. “Just… adopted kids finding their biological parents in general. You know, for closure. Knowing where you came from and—”
Mikey groaned, burying his head in his hands. “Spare me Luce’s self-help claptrap. She knows fuck all about me.”
Woah. Mikey did not swear. Neither of them did out loud. Their parents’ habit of swapping out rude words was ingrained in him, and like her he loved the inventiveness of coming up with silly alternatives.
“Did you tell Pops about this?” he asked, the tension in the room easing slightly when she stated emphatically that he knew nothing about what she’d been up to.
The doorbell rang, and she sprang up to answer it. The transaction took longer than expected, since the delivery guy had to scrabble around for change. By the time she returned to the living room, three flat boxes warming her palms, Mikey had disappeared.
He jogged down the stairs a few minutes later, a rucksack slung over one shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Obvious, innit? I’m off to Jaden’s. You shouldn’t have looked for that woman, Chrissie. I’m not interested. I never have been.”
The last sentence wasn’t true but contradicting him would only add fuel to the flames. “What about the pizza?” she asked. Perhaps Mikey’s legendary appetite would persuade him against walking out. The wretched order had cost a fortune.
“ You eat it.”
He slammed the door on the way out, the sound rattling through the house.
Great. She'd have to explain his absence to Dad later, and he’d be cross as well. And the ruddy meat feat pizza was siren-signalling her name, Eat me, you know you want to… One woman couldn’t possibly eat an entire two pizzas and doughballs in one sitting, could they?
Regrettably, the answer was a resounding ‘oh yes she can!’. Later, as she shoved the empty boxes into the recycling bin out the back of the house, along with the paper print-outs Mikey had refused to look out, Chrissie rubbed her by-now uncomfortably swollen stomach.
Was Mikey ever going to forgive her?