Finding Family

Faye: Knowing

I'd known for sure for a few weeks before I asked Evalynn to meet with me, but her knowing that I was her mamma made everything feel a little bit different. I was so full of happiness and excitement that I was struggling with the idea of staying still, so going to the Isle of Wight was turning into a nightmare. Eventually, after all of ten minutes of being back with the others I had to tell them why I was so happy, although as always I was struggling to get a word in with Claire, Lisa and H all talking at once.
"Guys shut up and let Faye speak." Lee said, finally bored of waiting for our friends to shut up.
I smiled at him and the other three stopped their very loud conversation so I could talk. "You guys know I saw Evalynn again last week?" I started.
"Oh my god yeah! How did it go?" Claire replied. Lisa asked much the same question.
"It went really well, yeah she took it so well I'm so proud of her. And she hugs so nicely." I told them.
"Did she ask you the dreaded question?" Lisa asked. She knew what my worries about this were, she'd been listening to all my rambling the nights leading up to the conversation.
I nodded. "And it upset me, but she understood that I'd done what was best for her."
"I'm gonna do it again with the most important question - does she want to stay in contact with you given she knows about all this being more than most people expect?" H asked me.
I smiled and tears, happy tears, welled up in my eyes. It felt like a massive change compared to the tears I was so used to getting at mention of Evalynn. Things were finally changing and I was so happy. "She does. She's so in love with the fact I'm her mamma by the seems of it and I love the fact I've found my daughter. I think it's a good thing because Ben's taken quite a liking to her!" I joked.
Lisa smiled. "I always knew she'd understand, and I always told you that when you two find each other again she'll understand why you did it didn't I? So there was nothing to worry about." She hugged me and I hugged her back. She'd told me that right back from before Evalynn had even been born, when I'd been confused and not known what it was I wanted, or what was best for Evalynn. Back when I'd been angry at myself and at him for letting that happen, and yet the pregnancy might have been the worst thing for me then, but it had led to a moment that had been more beautiful than I could possibly have imagined.

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They all knew, all had guessed, I'd be distracted during the show, I was still in my own little world because of the Evalynn thing, but no-one had expected me to essentially sleepwalk through the whole show from memory alone. Sure I was physically there, singing and dancing on stage with four of my closest friends, but my mind kept drifting away to where my relationship with my daughter went next. To what was to come for us. I wanted her to eventually come and live with me, Mick and Benjamin, but I didn't know if she'd want that, given how complicated it'd make her life. And added complications for her to our complicated lives - nothing is straightforward about our family life now, let alone adding a pre-teen to the mix, but I knew that was a battle to consider when I got to it. Not to mention that I'd be asking her to start a new life almost as far from where she lives now as she could be. But I knew she did want to spend time with me, and I was considering asking her if she wanted to spend some time with me towards the end of the summer holidays. I was running through the possible options in my head. We'd probably do better starting out by spending a long weekend with her, to see if I could get to know her more, considering I essentially knew nothing about my own daughter, and then at some point after that I'd try and spend longer, maybe a week, with her. Because she knew very little about me really. She knew the facts about the side of me that the public sees, but she didn't know about the deeper parts of me, the parts of me that only people who were close to me knew about, and I knew that'd have to change reasonably quickly because it'd be unhealthy for her to not know.
I concluded during the closing number that I'd have to talk this out with someone. It had to be someone sensible, which ruled out H, and someone I could trust to not already be on a side, which ruled out phoning Mick or my sister, who'd both side with me. That left Lisa, Lee and Claire. As much fun as conversations with all three of them at once were, I knew that I needed this to be sensible and full of awkward questions to make me think. I took Lee off the list, just because I wanted a female. I concluded I'd ask Lisa, because she was my closest friend, so she wouldn't mind asking me questions that would make me squirm, and I still trusted her a little more than I did Claire.