TOM

The boys looked at their new cousin with varying degrees of interest.

Michael stood on tiptoe to try and see into the Moses basket to find out what all the fuss was about. Anthony held his finger within the baby’s reach and smiled when it was grabbed, while Simon’s eyes flicked from the baby to her parents and then back at the baby. He was a bright boy and the last time he had seen his Auntie Jane she’d had a big stomach. Now her stomach was much flatter and there was a baby. I thought he’d probably worked out that the two things were connected and fully expected to have an interesting conversation with him later.

‘Where did baby Emily come from?’ he asked, not long after we got home.

We’d talked about how we would approach this subject when it was brought up so I said, ‘From Auntie Jane’s tummy,’ in as matter of fact a tone as I could manage.

‘How did she get there?’ He didn’t look up from the toy farm that he was playing with.

‘Uncle Craig put her there,’ Michelle said in the same tone as I had used.

He stopped what he was doing and chewed his lip then he looked at his mum and asked, ‘ Did I come from your tummy?’

‘Yes, you did,’ she said it softly and smiled.

‘And did Daddy put me there?’ He made it sound like a ridiculous idea.

Michelle stretched her arm out so that she could stroke his head, ‘Well you didn’t get there by yourself did you,’ she said.

He went back to placing the cows in a circle and the conversation seemed to be over. Michelle and I shared a smile and a sigh of relief.

We didn’t consciously hide Robert’s existence from our sons. We had mentioned Uncle Robert in passing, you know things like ‘Daddy and Uncle Robert did this or that,’ but we’d never really been sure if anything had registered. Apparently enough had because, one day not long after his seventh birthday Simon asked, ‘Why don’t we see Uncle Robert?’

We were sitting at the kitchen table when he asked the question. Michelle was serving up the Sunday lunch and I can still see her as she stopped mid-action with a spoonful of mashed potato halfway between the saucepan and a plate. I could see her hand shaking and that familiar look of fear in her eyes.

‘He doesn’t live here,’ I said as I poured some orange juice into the beaker that Simon was holding.

‘Where does he live?’ he lifted the beaker to his mouth and slurped loudly. I told him that I didn’t know and hoped that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. Simon had another question, ‘Doesn’t Gran know where he lives?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, grateful that Michelle put his food in front of him at that point. Simon’s stomach always came first and the conversation was finished, though I suspected only temporarily.

A couple of nights later, when the boys were tucked up in bed, I sat on the sofa with the newspaper open on my lap. I doubt I was reading it because I rarely do. I tend to just flick through. Anyway, that’s what I was doing when Michelle came into the room carrying Simon’s drawing pad. She opened it up and handed it to me.

I looked at the picture and asked, ‘What’s this?’

‘Something Simon drew today,’ she said as she sat on the other end of the sofa and watched for my reaction.

I saw a collection of people of different shapes and sizes and I realised that they were a family. It was our family. Michelle and I were there holding hands with each other and there were three children standing in front of us. There wasn’t a lot of difference in size between the boys but we could identify them by the fact that for some reason they were each wearing their favourite hat. There were two sets of grandparents at one side and at the other side was Craig with Jane who was holding a ball that I assumed was baby Emily.

I didn’t notice at first, but Simon had drawn another figure. It was alone and smaller than the rest which made it look like it was standing in the background.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked.

Michelle’s voice cracked as she told me. ‘Uncle Robert.’

We’d made a conscious decision not to hide the fact that I had a brother, and now Simon was taking an interest in him. We only had ourselves to blame really, but what choice had we had? I did have a brother.

Simon had drawn his mythical uncle off to the side of the family group, there but not quite part of it. On the outside.

We spent the next nine years hoping it would stay that way.