Free The Making of Us by Lisa Jewell Page A

furiously over the buttons: Having lunch with family. See you out and about . She deliberately left the last line without a question mark. A question mark would suggest that she was hoping to see him out and about. She was not hoping to see him out and about. She would quite happily spend the rest of her life without seeing him out and about or anywhere else for that matter. Robyn was not interested in the men round here. Not in that way. They were fine for drinking with, partying with, sleeping with. But for the long haul, for the rest of her life, only a doctor would do.
    ‘A toast!’ said her father, holding aloft his pint of cloudy bitter. ‘To my little girl. Our little girl.’ He smiled at his wife. ‘We are so proud of you, my darling, so proud of you for everything you’ve achieved. You’ve brought us nothing but happiness these last eighteen years, nothing but joy. We could not ask for a better daughter. Thank you, Robyn, for being you.’ As the words left his lips, a tear slid from the corner of his eye and down his nose. He wiped it away and smiled apologetically at his little girl. ‘I love you,’ he croaked.
    ‘Aw, Dad,’ Robyn snuggled into him, ‘I love you, too. Thank you.’ She pulled her mother towards them, too. ‘Thank you both for being the best mum and dad in the world, and I want you to know that I am going to go on and on and keep on making you proud of me.’
    This was it, she thought, feeling her parents’ warm flesh against her body, the glow of her family around her, the warmth of this August afternoon of togetherness, this was it. This was all she wanted and needed. She was eighteen now. She could make contact with her real dad, if she wanted to. But she wasn’t going to. This man here was her real dad, this man in his green Blue Harbour crewneck sweater and Clarks shoes and shoulders like a brickie’s. Her dad . She didn’t want another.
    Her other father, the French paediatrician, he would stay inside her head forever. He would push her, unknowingly, towards a career in medicine and he would make her feel forevermore just a little bit better than everyone else. But her attachment to him would go no further than that. She liked him as he was – a character in her very own fairy tale.
    Later than night Robyn sat on the sofa, pressed against her father, her feet tucked beneath her, watching Big Brother . Her mother walked into the room, something clutched between her hands and held against her heart. Her face was smiling but oddly strained. Her father sat straighter at the sight of her and Robyn instinctively uncurled her legs and placed her feet upon the carpet.
    ‘You all right?’ she said.
    Her mother nodded. ‘I’m fine, sweetie, just fine. Got something to show you though. Budge up.’
    Robyn glanced at the paperwork in her mother’s hands. ‘Oh, no!’ she said, mock-dramatically. ‘Don’t tell me – I’m adopted ?!’
    Her mother smiled. ‘This,’ she began, ‘is what they gave me at the clinic, when I got pregnant with you.’
    Robyn put her hand to her throat and recoiled. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said, ‘take it away.’
    Her mother sighed and rested her hand on Robyn’s leg. ‘You don’t have to read it,’ she said, gently, ‘but I want you to have it. You’re eighteen now. You’re an adult. It doesn’t belong to me any more.’
    ‘Then put it in the bin,’ said Robyn, ‘shred it. Whatever. I don’t want it.’
    Her mother sighed again. ‘It’s just a letter,’ she said. ‘I’ve read it. There’s nothing alarming in it. And there’s his donor number and info, in case you want to contact him.’
    ‘I don’t! And I don’t want to read his letter! I know enough about him already and I’m very grateful and everything, but I don’t need him in my life, OK? I really, really don’t want to know.’
    Her mum squeezed her leg and smiled. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘we won’t be around forever, me and your dad. We’re not old, but