CHAPTER 33
I stood by the bike, looking at Darren, trying to see what he felt. His tells said that he was terrified, and I suddenly knew exactly how his mind was working.

Darren was someone who dared to dream, even though life had beaten him down every time he looked up, but with those dreams he carried such a sense of worthlessness, that I could have wept.

No. I did weep. I knew that feeling, that all too soon the bright segment of your life would turn dark, turn to shit and pain. I had lived with it all my life, after all, and it was only Eric who had brought me out of it. Whatever Darren had, it was a loan that he knew would be snatched back. Not could be, but would be, with all the inevitability of old age. I remembered the delight he had shown when he told me he had his own door, and his own lock…

Yet, despite all that, he still dreamt of better things, and now he was screwing up his courage to ask for one.

“Darren….”

“Yeah?” He looked almost ready to run.

“Darren…don’t hear this question badly, the wrong way, aye? Just hear it, think it through, and answer truthfully”

He looked away, and back, momentarily fascinated by the approach lights by the path. Displacement glances.

“OK”

“Darren, why would I want to be your mum?”

For an instant his face started to crumble, but then he remembered the way I had prefaced the question, and he pulled himself up again.

“It’s not the same thing as me wanting you, is it?”

“No, love, it’s not. I just want you to put yourself in my shoes for a minute, aye?”

“OK…you say you love me?”

“Yes, absolutely. You are a fine boy, one of the best, and you are making a great man. What is there not to love?”

He blushed a little. “An’ you know I love you? Ain’t never loved anyone like you, not even Shan, or Nan, or Granddad, yeah?”

“Thank you. That means a lot, aye?”

“Yebbut, you ain’t had a good life, lahk, you been locked away, like me but different, innit?”

I nodded. “Carry on”

“An’ then you gets your Eric, an’ you is free, but it’s not enough, yeah? I seen the way you looks at Kirsty an’ little DA, an’ you can’t never have that, can you?”

“And so?”

“Iss what I was hoping, yeah, that, well, a kid that needs a mum, an’ a woman who needs a kid, an’, well…iss yes, innit?”

“Darren, son, how could it ever have been anything else? You do realise only one man has ever made me happier, aye?”

The rest was without words, up until the point when Darren asked his last question.

“Eric, what he gonna say?”

I grinned at my new child. “Be honest, what do you think? I know how your mind works, Daz, and this isn’t something to be taken away when people get bored, aye? We do have one job, though, and that’s talking to the Woods, aye?”

“They gonna be upset?”

I could feel my smile getting broader. “Nope, don’t believe they will!”

I dug out my phone. I sent a quick text to warn my beloved, then rang him.

“Eric? Darren has a question for you.”

I looked at the boy. “Obvious, isn’t it? Mums usually come with dads attached. Ask him nicely…”

Polly was next.

“Polly Armitage”

“Hiya, it’s Annie. Got something to run past you about Darren”

“Yes”

“Pardon?”

“Yes. Next question?”

I mumbled something, and I could hear her laughing happily.

“Look, Annie, I am guessing he is asking you to be his foster parents, you and Eric. I could see that one coming a mile off. In fact, I have been discussing it with the Woods for a week or so”

“You sneaky sod!”

“Ah, years of experience, Annie my dear! Look, we shall get together at some point, but there are a number of steps to go through. Fostering is one thing, formal adoption is another. Your change in status official yet?”

“I believe so; new certificate should be issued next week”

“And you will be wed in a very few weeks. Good character, steady responsible jobs, and your gong won’t do things any harm, will it? Leave it with me for now, and I shall set wheels in motion, OK? Ciao!”

I closed the call.

“Polly knew already, Darren”

“I need to know one thing….”

There was a twinkle back in his eye, the sort of look that precedes a truly crap joke.

“Am I gonna have to hold your hand when we cross the road, Mum?”

It was a while before I could see well enough to continue. I took him into the airport as we passed, and we had ice cream. Had to be done.

Naomi was waiting with a brew courtesy of a quick call, and as the two of us came in laughing and giggling, she gave me one of her country lady stares.
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“So the boy finally asked you, then?”

Darren looked as surprised as I felt.

“Oh, don’t be so confused, my dears, it’s been obvious for rather a long time. Annie, congratulations. Darren, the VERY special biscuits, I think. Now, how is my other dear?”

We settled once more into the comfort of the conservatory sofa as Darren busied himself with his domestic duties.

“I am astonished, Naomi. He looks almost as he was when he…before, aye? They have worked what I can only describe as miracles. I mean, when you know someone…sorry, Naomi, I am being a little clinical. He is well, that is all that matters, aye? And he will be back with us newly-minted. Darren? Some tissues, please”

I waited till her emotions were stable again. I had some idea, of course, of how she must have been feeling, but there is a world of difference between understanding and experiencing. I hoped never to take that particular journey.

“Naomi, he has a sense of duty that amazes me. He has prioritised everything for the important stuff, aye? Such as being on my arm in September”

She smiled, fondly. “My Albert would have been there even if it was lying on a stretcher with the machines that go ‘Ping!’ wired to him”

“I never had you down as a Python fan, Naomi!”

“Ah, that’s Albert. One of the things I have always loved my husband for is that even as his youth fled, he never lost the youth he was. He has always been alive, more alive than any man I have ever known”

She stared into the distance for a second or two, faintly smiling.

“Darren was such a delight for him. At last we had someone who could stay the journey with him. Those video games, oh dear!”

She laughed, as Darren cuddled up to her, and I prayed that his acceptance could finally start, that he could lose that nagging fear that people would get bored with his presence, that his world would come crashing down.

My boy, but shared, as family should always be.

I lay with my other man that night, as happy as I could ever remember being, sweat and other things drying on our skin. The calls had gone out that evening, to the girls, and the old trout and Sar as well as my own family. Merry had been blasé at first, as she dished out the rather tasty stew.

“Took you long enough…”

“Coming from someone who went from sermon to snog in about twenty-seven minutes, that is a bit rich, aye?”

She is not someone who can hide her glee well, and that set her off. I did love the look on her fiancé’s face, though, as he sat there with two women talking over his head. Eric put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, mate, you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll come to like it…and then the men with the white coats arrive. Just remember one thing”

Simon cocked his head. “What’s that?”

“At any particular time, we will normally only have one of them to deal with!”