She’s scarcely taken her eyes off Hadyn since she first caught sight of him, though apart from a fleeting interest when she stopped a passing ice-cream man to buy him a cornet, he’s shown little interest in her. ‘I knew that I would not go a whole lifetime without seeing him again.’ She stops, throwing me a remorseful look and I can see that despite her jubilation, her heart is also heavy. ‘My brother Diego,’ she gets the words out slowly, and I appreciate how difficult this must be for her to admit. ‘He did you a great wrong.’ She sees it now, then? For such a long time, I had no idea whether she really believed it herself, the truth that he was mine and Charlie’s child. ‘He also did you one,’ I say. ‘He did.’ She thumps her chest, conceding only now the injury done to herself when Hadyn was passed off as her nephew. ‘It’s true. But I had some benefit of it.’ Her gaze is still down on the shore, where Hadyn’s romping around with her little dog Lulu and Naseem, but her tone is unmistakably—and so unexpectedly—apologetic.
