Finding Family

Evalynn: Reunited

I fiddled with the bottom of my skirt as I waited for someone to answer my buzzer press. I didn't want to come in my school uniform, but I didn't really have enough time go home to change, well I would have done, but didn't want to waste my precious time with mamma, so I'd taken my favourite purple top and cardigan to change into before leaving school. I was sure I'd also packed some leggings, but by the time I made it to the end of the day I couldn't find them, I may have shoved them into the PE bag by mistake, so there I was in my terrible grey school skirt.
"Hiya, what's your name and why are you here?" A voice, Julie, said through the speaker.
I took a deep breath to cull my excitement. "Hey Julie, it's Evalynn. I'm here for a meeting with Maria and my mamma."
"Of course you are. One second and I'll let you in." She replied.
I waited to hear the buzz, then pushed the door open and walked into the reception. Julie smiled as she looked at me, and I looked at her confused.
"You really do look like her." She told me.
I knew exactly what she meant so I shrugged then blushed. "Which room am I going to?" I asked when I could find my words.
"Room three. You should know about Maria's love affair with that place." Julie replied. "Oh actually wait no, don't go in there just yet. She told me to ask you to wait in the kiddie room. You know where that is?"
I nodded. "See you later Julie." I said before heading down the hall.

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As I waited I sang to myself like I often do, I tried If you Believe, but it made me too excited about seeing my mamma again in a few minutes so instead it was Its the Way you Make me Feel I sung, winning me some judgemental looks from the boy that I'd guessed was likely a little older than me who I was sharing the waiting room with. I tried my best to ignore him; I needed to be calm and collected, not as hyper and excitable as I could sometimes be. I doubted mamma would appreciate me leaping on her the second I saw her.
"What d'ya call that nonsense?" He asked, interrupting me half way through the second verse.
I had to stop singing and answer, but I didn't exactly want to. "Music." I replied with a soft smile.
He rolled his eyes, turned away and the conversation was left there. I went back to singing and he no doubt went back to judging.

There was a knock on the wall of the waiting area (the room didn't have a door) as, having finished Its the Way you Make me Feel, I started to sing Say You'll be Mine to myself, and then Maria looked through the archway into the room. I stopped singing so I could listen to what she was going to say.
"Evalynn? Ah yes. We're ready for you to come on in with us now." She said.
I stood up, flattened my skirt down, and headed across the room, flashing a polite smile to the waiting boy as I passed him. He rolled his eyes again.
Maria led me down the hallway in silence and I started singing in my head again. What if it was bad news? I bit my lip. Maria reached her favourite meeting room and pushed the handle down. I took a deep breath and hoped I was ready for this. When she opened the door I took one look at Faye and smiled. Faye smiled back.
"Hi mamma!" I said to her.
"Hey Evalynn, it's nice to see you again." She replied.
"You can sit with me or your mamma, I don't mind." Maria said.
I nodded, knowing I was never going to sit with Maria given the choice and sat down on the sofa with Faye. Her hand found mine and she held on to it. With a smile to myself, I closed my fingers around her hand. Out of the corner of my eye I could see she was smiling too. Clearly we were both happy to be back together and my worrying had been pointless.

Maria went off on one of her responsibilities rambles about how she had to make notes from the meeting in the interest of my safety, but I couldn't be bothered to listen properly. Then I lost focus altogether as she went off onto the topic of how we hadn't completely done this how we should have done; I didn't care too much because I'd found my mamma and it made me happy. I seemed to mostly just be staring at Faye; I'd thought I'd got over the excitement of her being mamma, but sat next to her now I realised I hadn't really. She was so pretty in real life and I loved her so much.
"So yes I am annoyed at the two of you even if it is impossible to stay mad at either of you apparently. But that's not the point of this meeting. Faye whenever you're ready." She said.
I shook myself out of my daydream.
Faye smiled at me. "First I missed you Evalynn. And secondly, more importantly, I have the idea that you should come and spend part of half term with me, Mick and Ben."
I stared at her in surprise. That hadn't exactly been what I'd been expecting her to say, more what I was hoping she would. I'd get to spend time with my mamma and my half brother.
"That is only if you want to. There's no pressure if you want to wait a while longer to get to know me better or anything." She added.
I nodded enthusiastically, my words failing me momentarily. "Yes!" I said after a long while. "I'd love to!"
Faye smiled at me again and squeezed my hand. When she relaxed her grip I removed my hand from hers and hugged her, leaning across the sofa so I didn't have to test whether or not my legs really were shaking too much for me to stand up. She slipped her arms round me and kissed my forehead softly.
"Well then I guess that settles that problem then." She whispered into my hair.
I cuddled closer up against her and she brushed her hands across my back softly. It dawned on me then that it didn't matter that she was famous, she cared about me. She wanted me to know that she loved me. She really did want to be my mamma properly. She wanted us to do normal mother and daughter things.

"Right well that was easy." Maria commented, drawing us back to the real world.
I shuffled away from Faye slightly, though her arms remained around me.
"So the plan is you'd go up there on the Monday and come back on the Saturday, but it's a long way away, so it'll be a long journey." Maria said.
Faye nodded, and I smiled. "I don't mind, I'll get to spend time with mamma and it's so exciting!" I said.
She pulled me a little closer for a moment. "It'll be nice to spend time with you too." She said. "And I think Ben's already excited. He keeps saying how much he misses you."
I laughed. I could almost imagine him bouncing around the house, pestering Faye about me, excited to see me again. "You can tell him I'm coming to see him." I said.

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After that we discussed details, and I half took them onboard and half knew that Maria would give me a sheet with the instructions on anyway so I could read them when I wasn't so excited about being a proper daughter for a while. Every so often I'd glance at Faye, still struggling to allow my brain to process this was real, that I genuinely was going to spend time with her in the holidays. On a couple of occasions I caught her looking at me, and then I'd blush and look away again a few seconds later. Then for a while we were left to just spend time together - I think the idea was for us to play a game together which we did eventually do (playing a very unsuccessful game of uno curtesy of Maria's box of family meeting toys, and an even funnier game of snap because mamma had snap cards in her bag), though most of the time was taken up by us cuddling and talking where we'd had so little time for that so far. I found I loved her voice in person even more than I loved hearing it down the phone or on video. But I loved her hugs more. There was nothing more special to me than a mamma and daughter hug, and I didn't expect there ever would be.

On our way out hours later, Faye and I walked together, taking the long way so we could cut along the edge of the park as we did. I was getting the bus back, so I said I'd walk with her a bit towards the station (using a bus stop slightly further away from home as mamma was worried about me walking so far home) before I did.
"There is a chance that Lisa may come and visit on the Friday of that week, because she won't shut up about wanting to meet you." Faye told me with a laugh.
"That's fine, it'll be nice. Why's she so excited though?" I asked.
Faye sighed and stopped. I stopped and looked at her. She took a deep breath. "If I'm going to explain fully it'll possibly take a while, and might be better done while you're with me in private. But, in short, throughout all the stuff that happened while I was pregnant with you, including your dad leaving me, she was there for me. She's one of only three people to have held you before I gave you up. The others are Clara and obviously me. Those two are are the reasons for your middle names. They're the reason you're here instead of you having to go through the Steps split with me and I honestly don't think if you'd have been with me then I'd still be allowed to see you."
"Michelle? How does that fit in? I mean I get that Clara's your nickname for Claire but I don't get that?" I asked her.
She sighed. "Michelle's Lisa's middle name. I didn't want it to be really obvious because I didn't want everyone tracing you back to me until you were comfortable with that, but I wanted for people like my sister and me and them to know."
I smiled and hugged her. "I loved my name, I always have. I guess it's just a little better now I know what it means. Like it was more special when I first met you because you were the person who gave me it."
She hugged me back. "I suppose it is always good to know." She said to me. "I kinda wanted to tell you years ago but I couldn't bring myself to it."
I smiled more, but released her from the hug realising here wasn't the place for that. She got it, and took my hand, the pair of us walking on down the road together.

Before she left me at the bus stop we hugged, and then she pulled the sleeve of her jumper up. She had on the purple bracelet. I don't know why it was a surprise to me, but it was. I carefully rolled up my sleeve to show her mine.
"I hardly take it off, only when there's water or a stage involved." Faye said by way of explanation.
"I take mine off for school because it annoys me with my shirt sleeves, but other than that I usually have mine on." I replied.
She held out her hand and I knew what she wanted. Just like she'd shown me on the day she'd given me my bracelet, I pressed my wrist against hers and then we smiled at each other. We hugged one more time and I turned round just in time to see my bus coming round the corner. She waved goodbye as I got on the bus and then she carried on the short walk up to the train station alone.

The whole way home I was smiling. I was so full of love, I'd got to hug my mamma again. I was so happy that I'd got chance to find out more about me. And I was so excited to get to spend time with my mamma in a few weeks.