Page 78 of A Forever Home at Honey Bee Croft

‘Was there a reason they didn’t want kids?’ I asked when she paused.

‘They loved their careers and each other and felt no strong desire to have a family. They had big plans to retire early totravel the world and had been saving for years, but they gave all that up for Evie and me.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘Mum bought my first school uniform and Evie cried when she saw me in it. Mum told me it was as though she suddenly realised that four years had passed and she’d missed every milestone. Mum suggested she come to school with me on my first day, so she did, and that very afternoon she contacted her doctor and asked for help. Across that year, she made great progress. She got a part-time job in a pub and took on a lot more responsibility for me and then, shortly after I turned five, she was on her way home from work when a drunk driver travelling the wrong way down the dual carriageway ploughed into her.’

My stomach plummeted. ‘Oh, Poppy. No!’

‘He didn’t even have his lights on, so she stood no chance. He’d been out for his work Christmas do, took advantage of the free bar and was too stingy to pay for a taxi home. He walked away with a few bruises, a broken wrist and a two-year suspended sentence. Don’t even get me started on the injustice of that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘After that, my parents officially adopted me, and they were the best parents I could ever have dreamed of.’

‘I’m so sorry about Evie. Do you remember her?’

‘I have vague recollections of there being a woman in the house who had long, dark hair, but nothing concrete.’

‘What about your birth father?’

Poppy shook her head. ‘Dad went to see him and his parents after I was born, but he wasn’t interested. They told him there was an open door if he ever changed his mind but he never came and I’ve never wanted to find him. Joy and Stanley Wells are my parents and I don’t want or need a relationship with the man who was effectively a sperm donor. But sometimes…’ She sighed heavily.

‘Sometimes…?’ I prompted as she stared off into the distance.

Her eyes met mine. ‘I’ve never told anyone this before. Sometimes I feel guilty for entering their lives when they’d made a decision not to have children. It’s my issue. They never made me feel like that and my logical mind is telling me that they’re the ones who found Evie, invited her in, insisted she stay and chose to adopt me. I wasn’t the one influencing it all. But I think about how different their lives could have been without me. Mum loved the quotedo one thingevery day that scares youand told me the scariest thing they ever did was become parents when they weren’t prepared for it. I worry that they’d have preferred not to face that particular fear and I guess that’s why I’ve devoted the past seven years to caring for them both. I love them and I’d have done it regardless, but I think I’ve taken it to the near-burnout extreme because I want to prove how grateful I am to them for throwing away their dreams to look after me.’

‘I see it differently. I don’t think they threw away their dreams. I think they found a different dream.’

Tears welled in her eyes and I noticed her swallowing hard. I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it, keeping my eyes on hers.

‘As for that quote, doing the things that scare us can bring great rewards. From what you’ve told me about your parents, that’s what raising you was – something scary and unexpected which changed their lives for the better.’

‘You really think that?’

‘I’m sure of it. When Tilly announced she was pregnant, I felt that fear. We hadn’t planned on a baby until after we were married. We both felt too young and unprepared and, while the situation with Tilly now is far from ideal, I’ve never regretted for even a second that Imogen came along. It terrified me, butImogen changed my life for the better and I’m sure your parents felt the same about you.’

We talked some more about Poppy’s childhood and I assured her it sounded idyllic with parents who loved her wholeheartedly and unconditionally.

As we were getting ready for bed a little later, I noticed a frame on the dressing table with that quote embroidered inside it. Poppy told me that her mum had made it and why.

‘Have you done anything lately that’s scared you?’ I asked as we settled under the duvet.

‘Everything about this trip has scared me, but it’s all turned out to be amazing. What about you?’

She’d been honest with me earlier about wanting to follow me to Scotland and I didn’t want her to have any doubts about my strength of feelings for her so I needed to be honest in return – more honest than I’d ever been with anyone.

‘Being with you scares me because I already know I can’t bear to be without you and my heart is going to break into a million pieces when I have to leave you in the morning.’

Tears glistened in her eyes as she cupped my face in her hands and drew me into a kiss.

31

POPPY

I pushed open the door to Dove Cottage on Tuesday afternoon and stepped over the threshold with a heavy heart. My eyes were itchy from shedding so many tears over the last half an hour. I’d left a piece of my heart behind in Whisperwood Farmhouse and the rest of it at The Larks where I’d just visited Dad.

Picturing his face when I gave him the felt birds set me off again as I closed and locked the door behind me. He’d insisted we go to his room, where he’d carefully hung each bird on the removable hanging strips I’d stuck to his wall. He was particularly captivated by the robin.

‘People think robins only come out at Christmas but you can see them all year round,’ he said, stroking the robin’s colourful breast. ‘The person who made this got the colour right. They’re orange rather than red.’

‘So they are,’ I said, as though I hadn’t realised. Dad always liked it when he could teach me something and I had no problem hearing his lessons hundreds of times because the joy in his eyes was worth the repetition.

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