The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

settling down and having children, and that’s what finally tore them apart. In the end, her desire for a family outweighed her desire for him, and before it was too late she turned to my father – fifteen years older, steady, reliable and adoring. She thought she could turn off her feelings for Jack, but instead they haunted her throughout her marriage. And maybe that’s why I understand her now more than ever. Because if there was a switch to turn off your feelings for someone and leave them in the past, I’d have used it by now. But there’s not. I get it. I honestly do now believe that she tried her best.

As for Jack, I don’t feel anything for him. I no longer see him as the devil who swept in and stole my mum away from us, but I also don’t have much respect for him. For all those years, he kept her hanging on, trying to convince her that they’d be enough for each other. But if he really loved her that much, why would he expect her to give up her dream of a family? I know that my feelings for Libby, whatever they really are, are one-sided and that she’s committed to someone else, but even if I thought I stood a chance with her, I would never, ever pursue it. She wants children. I absolutely don’t. The fact that I could never give her what she wants is reason alone to keep my feelings to myself. I would never want her to compromise on something she so desperately longs for. She deserves more than I could ever give her.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about, Jamie,” says my mum, anxiously.

We’re sitting on a bench in a small, unkempt public garden near Russell Square after a slow, uncomfortable walk through the streets of London. I have the feeling that today we’re both preoccupied by other things and would rather be somewhere else.

“Jack’s sick,” she tells me. “He has cancer. It’s terminal.”

And there’s why she seems so distracted.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I genuinely am. Not for him – I barely know him – but for her. “How long does he have?”

“We don’t know. Maybe six months, maybe more. But the thing is…” she sighs quietly and shakes her head. “I don’t know how to do this… The things is, there’s something you need to know.”

I wait patiently. A pigeon jumps onto the arm of the bench and I carefully brush it away, sending it hopping onto the concrete.

My mum clasps her hands together and brings them to her lips like she’s praying. She takes a deep breath.

“Jamie,” she says, turning towards me and clearly trying, but failing, to meet my eye. “Jack’s your biological father.”

I turn to her, but she’s staring at the ground, her hands clenched tightly in front of her mouth, the tips of her fingers turning white.

“What?”

A tear slips from her eye.

“Perhaps we should have told you, I don’t know. But we all agreed…”

“I don’t… he’s what?”

“Your dad knows. I mean, Richard. He knows. He’s always known. And we all decided – the three of us – that it would better if we just carried on—”

A strangled sound escapes from her throat. She removes her glasses and wipes at her eyes.

“God, I know this must be a shock—”

“I don’t… I… what? I mean… What?!”

All of a sudden the ground feels like it’s spinning beneath my feet. I lean forwards and put my head in my hands, nausea washing over me. The pigeon pecks at my shoes and I kick it away fiercely, sending it flying, wings flapping in alarm.

“What the fuck?” I whisper.

“I know it’s a lot to take in.” She places her hand on my shoulder and I shrug her off.

“How…? I don’t understand. How can he be…?”

“We had a very brief affair,” she says hastily, as if getting it out quickly will somehow lessen the torment. “When I found out I was pregnant, I knew it was Jack’s baby and I told your dad. I even told him I’d leave if that’s what he wanted, but he didn’t want me to. He didn’t want to lose Laura. He didn’t want to lose me. Jack didn’t want children – I told you that before – and Richard was willing to raise you like his own child—”

“So hang on,” I say, hunched over and digging my fingers into my scalp, “all three of you agreed on this?”

“It just made sense all round. Jack didn’t want a baby. And he certainly didn’t want the responsibility of Laura. That was never what we had in mind. It wasn’t what anyone wanted. I wasn’t looking to break our family up—”

“Oh my God,” I groan. “Does Laura know?”

“Of course not.”

I shake my head in disbelief. I can’t get my thoughts straight. My dad. My life. All of it a lie.

“We never expected to have to tell you—”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because he wants to see you. He’s dying and he wants to talk to you—”

“About what?”

“To make his peace with you, I suppose.”

“His what?” I laugh.

“He might not have been there, but he’s always kept a close interest in you.”

“A close interest in me? He hasn’t seen me in years!”

I try to understand what’s going on, but I feel oddly detached from the situation. I try to feel something, anything, just so I know I’m really here and this is actually happening, but I can’t. There’s nothing there. I’m hollow.

I laugh quietly, bitterly, pieces of the jigsaw suddenly falling into place.

I remember asking why I was the only one in the family with blue eyes and being told it was a generational throwback to my grandmother. I remember everyone saying I’d grow to be six foot three like my dad, and later being vaguely surprised when I ground to a halt three inches beneath him. I remember wondering how my parents could have possibly found the money to pay private-school fees.