Finding Family

Faye: Constant Delays

The day after my talk with Mick, Ben got ill. Not badly ill, just ill enough to distract me from Evalynn for a few days.  Then had come the phase of stalling, of putting it off until tomorrow, again and again. Then had come the summer, and for some reason I just didn't want to write to her during the school summer holidays, perhaps I was worried that she'd be busy off with friends or on holiday with her 'family'. Eventually I'd got to a 'today' that wasn't going to get pushed back, today was the day I was going to phone the centre and ask to make contact with Evalynn. 

Or it would have been if my phone hadn't rung just as I dialled the number. It was my manager. I was reluctant to answer, I'd told her that I didn't want any parts at the moment because of Benjamin, but considering the rumours Lee had put out about Steps last year I concluded it would be best to answer.
"I have very exciting news for you Faye. There's going to be a documentary made about why Steps split up and, naturally, they want to interview you for it." She said when I answered.
I tried to refrain from being sarcastic. Because talking about how the band that had taken over my life had split was really going to make my life 1000 times better. "Great. That sounds lovely. When is it being filmed?" I replied.
"Erhm... I forgot to note that down. Wait no. I found it, they want you to run some starting interviews for it next month if that's okay?"
"I suppose it'll have to be. Tell me the date and I'll make sure someone's looking after Benjamin that day." I replied.
"Great." She replied, and filled me in on all the details I could ever possibly need.

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When the call was over I felt numb. Some moron wanted me, nearly 10  years on, to talk about the single event that had almost killed me. What kind of a sikko even wanted to watch that? But, I supposed on further thought, it would allow me a chance to bring closure to it if I could talk to my other band mates about it.
I contemplated phoning Mick to talk it over with him, but remembered he was probably in a meeting about something-websitey-IT-nonsense right now, so instead phoned my friend Holly. I already knew that if this blew up into something again there was no way I could ever bring Evalynn back into my life. I'd given her away to protect her from the spotlight, not to force her into it some other time in her life. I just needed someone intelligent to talk to, someone who I could explain the whole thing to and who wouldn't judge me like Erin would.
"Hey Faye, what's up?" Holly asked me as she answered the phone
I thought for a moment. "Yeah no, I can't explain it over the phone because I can't work out what I even want to say. Can you come over?"
"Uh yeah why not. It's been a while since I saw you last."
"Ugh too long." I agreed.
"Give me about 15 minutes, and make me a coffee would you!" She replied.
"Will do. See you soon."
"See ya."
The line went dead and I sighed. I needed to explain it all to someone, and I wanted it to be Holly.

When Holly showed up I'd just made her coffee and Benjamin was sat contently playing with his toy trucks. The box of Evalynn stuff was on the floor next to the sofa ready for me to explain it to her.
"Hey!" She squealed, hugging me as she stepped through the front door.
"Heya." I replied.
"So what did you want to talk about?" She asked.
"You're going to want to come in and sit down, it's a lot to take in." I replied.
She nodded and waved at Benjamin as she walked past. He smiled back at her and I smiled. At least I had that much to hold on to.

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Explaining the whole Evalynn thing to her took a while, especially since I'd had to explain to her a few details of Steps that I'd apparently never bothered to fill her in on, but I eventually got through all of it. Just like Mick had been, she was very supportive of the idea that I set out to find Evalynn, or was until I explained to her about the call I'd had that morning.
"What the hell? Why would anyone think you guys wanna talk about that? What kinda psychopath is making that show?" She asked loudly.
"I don't know. It almost feels nice though, knowing I might finally get closure on it." I replied, walking over to Benjamin and lifting him up before he could start crying. I'd learnt now when he was going to cry, memorised the signs.
"I don't know it feels wrong, almost dodgy. Are you seriously not worried about how it's going to effect you?"
"I'm worried about it yeah, I mean it's probably going to go one way or other, I'm going to be famous again or I'm going to be depressed again. That's why it's too late again now to try and find Evalynn. I gave her away to protect her from fame; it'd be wrong to bring her back into my life if I was going to be famous again."
"But that was the old you, you've got Mick and Benjamin now Faye sweetie. I promise you that if you do go find Evalynn she'd love to know her mother. And she'd love to know she has a little baby half-brother."
I was less than convinced, and even if she did love me I already knew that I couldn't go find her, it wouldn't be right. "I don't know Hol, I don't know anything about her so it's hard. You get it?"
She bit her lip. "I suppose it must be hard."

She didn't even know the start of it. Its a horrible feeling being in a situation like I was. But I didn't mind too much because Holly was actually pretty good at taking my mind off serious things like Evalynn. Before long she'd done it again and we were sat there laughing and joking around, the Evalynn and Steps problem pushed to the back of my mind for another day.

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When Mick got home that evening I explained the Steps thing to him. I tried my very hardest to hide how the whole thing was making me feel, which was painful because the entire idea of being married is you're honest and open with each other, but here I was hiding how scared I was about something. But I needed to hide it as best I could because after 3 years of living together he'd got pretty good at reading all my little signs as to how I was feeling. I didn't want him to try and talk me through my feelings, because I was doing a good enough job at talking myself out of this as it was. Him pointing out how scared it was making me and that maybe it wasn't a great idea would have made me run away from the whole plan. Why was doing this to myself? Why hadn't I just said no like a normal person would have done?
Because I wasn't a normal person, I hadn't been since that audition and I needed to face reality that it couldn't ever be a possibility. I wasn't 'not famous' now, I never could be again, but I was 'not famous' enough that nobody would be too interested if I brought Evalynn back into my life, no-one would particularly care about this never before seen little girl who showed up in my life, and now I was about throw that away again. I'd missed my opportunity to find my little baby girl and bring her home to family that wasn't famous. In hindsight, my thoughts should probably have been more focused on the fact I was about to condemn Benjamin to what I'd decided no child of mine would have to face, but for some reason at the time, that didn't matter to me as much, because at the end of the day at least he could hide away from it with Mick.

We dodged round the topic until we went to bed, when I lay awake thinking about what was now in store for me again. It wasn't ever going to be right for Steps to be back together, not after how it had ended, but somehow this felt like the worst way to bring it back to life. It could have been done in so many more natural ways that would have meant we wouldn't have had the eyes of the nation on us, and of course that wasn't how it was happening. Secrecy had never really been a Steps thing after all.
"Faye. I had a thought." Mick whispered.
"Yeah." I replied, rolling over so I was facing him.
"You might be worried about this meaning you'll never get to see your daughter again, but if anything doesn't it make it more likely?"
"What?"
"Out there, somewhere, is a little girl... who probably looks a fair bit like you, with a family that isn't really her family. Who knows, maybe she'll see it and realise."
I couldn't let the hope of that tiny possibility in. It was almost impossible a TV show where I would inevitably swear and cry a lot would be watched by my daughter and make her want to find me. "Mick, we've been through this. I doubt she's ever even heard of me."
"No, but who's to say that her parents, or older siblings or whatever weren't fans. Your little girl might just see this show and the penny might drop. She might just realise who her mother really is. And she might just get curious and ask to make contact."
The way he said it filled me with a bizarre hope that I failed to stop from taking over my mind. I needed something positive that could come from this to cling onto and as I didn't have faith that restoring our realtionships as the 5 of us was going to go too well I chose for it to be Evalynn. It was unlikely, the odds were still massively stacked against me and Evalynn, but it might happen. There was a chance that I would still find my little girl and that it could be from this, and if he was right, it was possible that I could live with myself bringing her into the spotlight, because she'd somewhat understand.

Hello! Spot the person who's been super awesomely productive this week (not on any of my real work, just the stories on this app really)! Yeah its me! XD