Page 82 of Forever, Maybe

M ichael Stephenson. Or should it be Hardy? As he sat in Luton Airport, waiting for his flight to be called, he turned the unfamiliar names over in his mind.

For twenty-five years, he’d been Michael—Mikey—Gordon. His adopted father used to joke that his long-dead great-grandparents had declared themselves thoroughly done with Scotland and moved “abroad”—to England.

Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Dad.

The thought came automatically, trigged by why he was at the airport in the first place. Alan and Karen Gordon had always been open about his adoption.

“Your poor, dear mum,” his mother would say, pulling him close, the scent of her flowery perfume tickling his nose.

“She wanted the very best for you, the best ever, but knew she couldn’t give it, so she gave you up for adoption.

And then me and your dad came along, and we wanted a lovely little boy like you so, so much! ”

She’d first told him the story when he was five, then again and again over the years, always the same: your poor mum , she wanted the best , and the lovely little boy part. And it worked. He didn’t feel any “less” than the kids he met at nursery and then school up until a point.

“Hurry up, lads! There’s drinking to be done!”

A group of guys around his age strode past, decked out in lurid shirts and shorts, their energy dialled up to way beyond one hundred per cent. One of them launched into a chant— “Oggie, oggie, oggie!” —and the others roared back, “Oi, oi, oi!” , clapping in raucous unison.

Stag weekend.

Ibiza, Tenerife, Prague, Dublin, Belfast—wherever they were headed, for one mad second, Mikey considered ditching his flight and tagging along. A weekend of sun, booze and absolutely no life-changing meetings. What was not to like?

A security guard materialised beside the ringleader, whispering something in his ear.

Mikey tensed. He might be off duty, but once a police officer, always a police officer.

The group had probably had a few too many already, and a drunken stag party could turn ugly in seconds.

Instinct had him springing to his feet, ready to intervene if necessary.

But the ringleader merely turned to his mates and pressed a single finger to his lips. Instantly, the noise died down. No complaints, no protests—just a collective shuffle in the direction of Burger King instead of the bar.

Mikey let out a slow breath, tension draining from him like sand slipping through an hourglass. He sat down again and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone.

He studied the photo for what must be the hundredth time.

He’d ‘met’ Nell on Skype already—an awkward, stop-start conversation full of overlapping sentences and hurried apologies.

No, you first. No, you go. Both of them pretending not to stare, Mikey thrown by how young she looked—barely older than him—and searching for traces of himself in her face.

He couldn’t see it.

Nell swore he was the spitting image of Darren Hardy, his long-dead father.

She didn’t have many photos— their brief teenage romance had happened in the days before everyone carried a camera in their pocket—but her father (his grandfather!) had dug one out.

She’d scanned and sent it to him that morning.

“See what I mean about your dad? X”

In the grainy photograph, Darren stood in a doorway, dark shirt, jeans, cigarette hanging from his lips.

One hand lifted absently, fingers brushing the frame.

His eyes were red—“Cameras back then weren’t as good as even the most bog-standard phones now,” Nell had told him—but despite the poor quality, the image crackled with something real.

A moment of pure teenage joy. That feeling when the world was yours for the taking, when you were untouchable, immortal.

Mikey’s vision had blurred then, the photo dissolving behind unshed tears. Now, on his hundred-and-first viewing, he held it together—just. But the past still pulled at him, a dull ache, like pressing on an old bruise.

Seventeen-year-old Mikey Gordon had once felt invincible, too. Right up until his so-called “brief wobble”. That was what his parents called it. Charitable of them, considering the wobble lasted almost a year.

The once-promising student, set for university, had stopped showing up to school. Instead, he spent his days holed up in his room or getting high in a cramped, smoke-filled bedsit with a couple who dismissed universities as nothing more than factories for the bourgeois elite.

They tapped into Mikey’s feelings about adoption—the bit where he felt rejected and in turn where he rejected the kind folks whom he’d called Mum and Pops from the time he could talk—loading him with a great big dose of insecurity coupled with entitlement.

By the time he came to his senses, the damage was done—no exam passes, university no longer an option.

Then came the police officer.

“Well, there’s another path you can take, son. Why not join the force,?” the man had said. “It’s a satisfying job. And we’ve always got room for people with brains.”

So he had.

Darren Hardy, according to Nell, had been a model student aside from questionable dalliances with underage girls.

Scouts from Norwich FC had been sniffing around him, convinced he had a shot at the big league.

His whole future ahead of him. Until the night he took a corner too fast, when the Audi TT he’d ‘borrowed’ from his father hit a tree and exploded on impact.

“EasyJet Flight EC4763 for Glasgow is now boarding. Please could all passengers make their way to Departure Gate 14.”

Mikey slung his rucksack over one shoulder. Two nights in Glasgow—hand luggage only. His phone buzzed as he joined the swarm of passengers heading for Departure Gate 14.

“Watcha.” Chrissie. “Nervous, bro?”

Mikey nodded automatically before remembering this wasn’t FaceTime. “Yup.”

“Mmm. There’s always the risk you won’t like her. Or maybe, and I wouldn’t blame her at all, she won’t like you!”

“Chrissie, for goodness’ sake! Give me the phone!”

In the background, the sounds of a scuffle—his father wrestling the phone from her grasp.

“Mikey, please ignore your sister,” his dad said, his voice warm, steady. “She is a terrible, terrible human being.”

Mikey wasn’t bothered. He and his older sister had survived—thrived, even—on banter. But that feeling hit him again. Panic, rising like a tidal wave. The urge to turn back, to run in the opposite direction. His dad and sister were at home. His home. The semi-detached on Aldar Street.

This morning, they’d insisted on making him a packed lunch.

Chrissie, in the grip of one of her periodic health kicks necessitated by the cake-baking side hustle, had mashed avocado with lime, mixed it in with slithers of smoked salmon and finely chopped spring onions, and spread it on thick slabs of her home-made wholemeal bread.

“You’re off to Glasgow, home of the deep-fried Mars Bar,” she declared, presenting him with the foil-wrapped sandwiches. “No fruit or veg for two whole days. You’ll come back riddled with rickets and constipated!”

Their dad had swatted her. “Chrissie! That’s not true!”

But they’d both fussed, urging him to eat the homemade muesli Chrissie had also prepared when he wasn’t hungry, running through checklists. Did he have his passport? Were his liquids under 100ml?

When Chrissie dashed off to find the pebble—the smooth, polished, almost-black stone she insisted brought her luck—Mikey turned to his father and asked one more time.

“Pops, is this okay? Are you sure you don’t mind? I can cancel.”

Alan Gordon—his once-luxuriant, reddy-brown hair now reduced to a thin halo of fuzz around the back and sides of his head—shook his head with a smile.

“Yes, of course, it’s okay. Chrissie found her real mum, and that worked out alright, didn’t it?”

Mikey gripped his father’s hands.

“She isn’t Chrissie’s real mum. And Nell’s not my real mum, either. Mum was, and always will be, my mum.”

His dad’s mouth twitched, the familiar Tourette-like sniff, the slight pull at the corners of his lips—the way it always did now when they spoke of Karen.

She and his father had adopted late in life, just skimming under the cut-off age when most social services deemed people too old to start raising children. And she had been Mum —his, Chrissie’s, in every way that mattered.

She had never hidden the truth. Adoption was a fact, openly acknowledged, but there had been an unspoken agreement—while she was alive, they wouldn’t seek out the women who had given birth to them, nor the men who had provided the sperm.

And he hadn’t been interested. Not really. Not until now.

“I’m fine, Pops,” he said now, and meant it. Chrissie’s teasing had settled him more than anything, though he should have managed to come up with a decent comeback.

From somewhere in the background, Chrissie’s voice rang out.

“She’ll love you, Mikey! I’ll pick you up from the airport on Friday!”

“Thanks.”

“Good luck, Mikey-mike,” Dad added. “I’ll be at the airport too.”

The flight was late taking off.

Mikey considered WhatsApping Nell to let her know he’d be delayed but hesitated. WhatsApp felt too personal, too familiar. He wasn’t ready for that yet. What if they met, he didn’t like her, and she started bombarding him with messages afterward?

He was in a window seat. He tucked his phone away as the trolley rattled down the aisle, air stewards gamely attempting to sell overpriced sandwiches and drinks.

Chrissie’s foil-wrapped sandwiches were in his bag in the overhead locker.

Despite Chrissie’s hearty breakfast, his stomach growled, but stupid self-consciousness (what if people thought he was a twat for eating salmon and avocado sandwiches?) stopped him rising from his seat and retrieving them.

“Can I have some Pringles?”

The steward nodded, handing over the small green-and-white tube.

The stag party from earlier was also on board, but aside from a lot of whispered deliberation over whether three small bottles of Prosecco or two miniatures of vodka was the better deal, they’d been surprisingly restrained.

The pilot’s voice crackled over the speaker, announcing their descent and the current weather in Glasgow—seven degrees and overcast.

Mikey peeled back the Pringles foil tab and watched as the land rose up to meet them.

Water. Endless green beyond it. Tree-covered hills. Then the city—tower blocks, stadiums, the strange hump-shaped building he’d heard was called the Armadillo, and, next to the river, the vast skeleton of a crane, standing stark against the grey sky.

The older woman next to him leant across, pointing to an area of housing. “There’s ma wee house in there somewhere! Are ye fae Glasgow, son?”

He struggled for a second or two to make sense of her accent before shaking his head.

“Visited it afore?”

He repeated the gesture.

“Ach, you’re in fae a treat. Mind ye go tae the Horseshoe Bar. And go tae the Stuffed! shop on St Vincent’s Street fae the best sandwiches in the city."

Stuffed. Daniel, Nell Murray’s husband’s, business. Were those sandwiches better, he wondered, than the ones Chrissie had made him this morning, home-made bread, a tiny bit of chilli added to the avocado because she knew he liked hot stuff...?

Family loyalty persuaded him they couldn’t possibly be.

“Where ye stayin’?” his neighbour asked, and he gestured vaguely to the ground coming towards them.

“City centre.”

Nell had offered to put Mikey up, but he’d turned her down, uncomfortable with the idea of being so close for forty-eight hours.

She hadn’t quibbled, suggesting hotels and B&Bs in the city centre and near her Pollokshields home.

When she offered to pay, he refused again, but agreed that she could buy him lunch, and maybe dinner if by that time they hadn’t run out of things to say to each other.

The flight, which hadn’t been full, emptied out quickly. The stag party lads thanked the crew, hands on their hearts, and declarations they’d met the best, most helpful, most beautiful flight attendants in the entire world.

With no hold luggage to wait for, Mikey dawdled through the corridors, heading for the arrival door, his heart thudding against his ribs. His phone beeped and he checked the screen.

Hey, you. I know it’s none of my business anymore, but I wanted to wish you good luck for today. Jaden x.

He shoved the phone back in his pocket without replying.

Oh heck, why was he hungry again? Nerves were meant to kill your appetite, and yet here he was, stomach grumbling like someone had forgotten to let it know his throat had been slit. He let everyone else stream around him, as he rummaged around in his gag, searching for Chrissie’s sandwiches.

His hand landed on a crinkly package. He withdrew it, unwrapped it. Ate it like a man who’d just spent

An arrival hall was a funny thing, unique to airports where people were funnelled on and off planes in strict regimentation.

Perhaps he should have travelled to Glasgow by train.

That way, when he arrived in the station, he could have hung back, using the surveillance techniques he’d picked up on the force to scan the crowds for Nell, so that he spotted her first.

He tried anyway, letting the stag party—also sans hold luggage—to surge in front of him, the leader of the group pointing towards the exit and shouting about taxis.

Ah.

There she was, eyes scanning the arrivals, lighting on first one face, then another, dismissing them and then finally finding him, a beam stretching across her face from one ear to the other.

Gold Almighty, she was so young. His feet glued him to the ground, instinct as always holding him back.

She stepped forward.

People pushed around him, his body wobbled.

He did, too.

THE END