The Making of Us

by Lisa Jewell

  “What—in front of you?”

  “Yeah. He was awake when we got there on Saturday, he was talking and stuff. It was cool. Then his girlfriend took us to his flat and we all spent the night there, went back this morning and you could tell he was on his way out. Literally an hour after we arrived, he was gone.”

  “Shit,” said Tommy.

  “Yeah. Well.” Dean stretched his legs out beneath the table and sighed.

  “So, what was he like?”

  Dean squinted and rolled up his top lip. “Kind of ill, really.”

  “No, I meant—what did he look like?”

  “Well, he looked fucking awful, but his brother was there and they’re identical twins, so I could kind of see what he—my dad, the donor, you know—what he must have looked like when he was normal.”

  “So what did he look like, the twin?”

  “A bit like me. A bit like Lydia. A bit like Robyn . . . that’s the other sister. And quite a lot like the baby . . .”

  “Your baby?”

  “Yes. My baby.” Dean smiled and then laughed quietly to himself.

  Tommy looked at him quizzically. “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, smiling, “nothing.”

  “And so, what happens now?”

  “Fuck knows. There’ll be a funeral, probably next week. I’ll be going to that. And then, I don’t know. I’ll be staying in touch with all of them, I reckon. The girls, his brother, even his girlfriend seemed like a really nice person . . . And I’ve decided something else too. About the baby. About Isadora. I want to get involved with her. Maybe have her to stay sometimes, take her out on my own. Because, one day, when I’m ready, I’d really like to be her proper dad, you know. Maybe get an education, get a job, get a flat, and then she can come and live with me. Lydia says she’ll help out, and the other one, Robyn, she’s really into the idea of having a little niece in her life.”

  Tommy nodded approvingly, silently demonstrating his unspoken thoughts about the whole issue.

  “And it’s like suddenly there’s all these people around, good people. It’s like it’s all . . .”

  He wanted to break into a massive grin and say: It’s amazing! I’ve found this new world and I’m totally a part of it and it’s kind of a tribe and I’ve got these stunning sisters and this cool new French uncle and it’s like I’ve joined some exclusive club and I’m a VIP member! But he didn’t say any of that. Because his father had just died and it was inappropriate for him to feel this happy. But he was happy. Happier than he’d ever felt before.

  He’d felt it that morning, just after his father had pulled in that shocking last breath, then let it trickle back out again. They’d all stood like sentries around him and Daniel’s brother had wailed and shouted out something in French and the girlfriend had twittered like a lost baby bird. But he and his sisters had just stood and stared.

  “Is that it?” he’d whispered to Lydia.

  She’d nodded tersely and squeezed his arm. Robyn had looked around nervously. “Oh my God,” she’d said quietly. And then she too had begun to cry. He couldn’t remember now how long they’d stood like that. Maggie fiddled with Daniel’s hair. His brother pulled down his eyelids. And then eventually they had all left the room. They’d gone outside and stood together next to a pond full of golden fish and, without saying a word, the three siblings had embraced. And it was then that Dean had felt it, the awesome reality of them all. Within their embrace had been unspoken words of commitment and trust. Within their embrace had been the future.

  The sun sat overhead, behind a thin veil of cloud, and Dean laced his fingers together across his stomach, and, for the very first time, he considered the universe. He thought about the endless dense blackness of it and then he thought of this one tiny sunlit speck of earth, on top of which wriggled the overwhelming swarm of humanity, billions of people, billions of lives, and for so long he’d thought himself just another speck of dust. But now it was as though a giant hand bearing a giant magnifying glass had lurched toward him, through the cosmos, and shown him what he really was.

  He waited until Tommy’s phone rang again and then he pulled out his own phone. He scrolled through his contacts until he got to the name Kate, and then, without stopping to think about it, he wrote her a message.

  Hi there. This is Mr. Dead Girlfriend. Just to tell u that I met them all, sistas, dad, the lot, and everythings cool. Hope your good. Let me no if u want to meet up. Thinking bout college and stuff, maybe u could help?

  He didn’t pause when he’d finished typing, just pressed send with a confident smile. He was ready now. Ready for anything: love, fatherhood, family, learning, even rejection.

  Tommy finished his phone call and looked curiously at Dean. “What you up to?” he said.

  Dean smiled. “Nothing, mate,” he said, “just getting on with stuff.”

  A moment later his phone buzzed. It was a text message, from Kate.

  Best news EVA! Love to meet up again soon. How about Friday?

  Friday good for me. I’ll text u later. And see u then.

  Dean smiled and switched off his phone.

  ROBYN

  Robyn turned the key in the lock of the front door and drew in her breath. She felt like she’d been away for at least a week and she felt like she was coming home as a different human being entirely. Her heart was filled with love for everyone, but particularly and overwhelmingly for Jack. She pushed open the door, dropped her bag and raced into the study. Jack turned from his computer at the sound of her arrival and they threw themselves bodily at each other, burying their faces in each other’s hair. “I missed you so much,” said Robyn.

  “Not as much as I missed you,” said Jack.

  “Much more than you missed me, I can assure you,” she laughed. “Much more.”

  Jack made them some tea and Robyn sat upon his lap and drank it while she told him all about her beautiful sister and her sweet brother and the weird numbness of watching her father pass away while standing in the same room as his identical brother. She told him about the fun she’d had with Lydia and Dean in their father’s flat, drinking wine, getting stoned and staying up so late that they’d only had three hours’ sleep. And then she told him about the conversation she’d had with Lydia.

  “You know,” she began carefully, “I was talking to Lydia about something, last night. I was talking to her about us. About that time when we split up. Remember, when I went all weird on you?”

  Jack looked at her with interest. “How could I forget?” he said drily.

  “There was a reason for me being weird with you, for me not seeing you all that time, and I never thought I would tell you about it. But Lydia said I should. Lydia said you’d understand. Because you love me . . .”

  Jack’s expression turned to one of concern. “Go on,” he said cautiously.

  “Well, there was a time, just after we met, when I thought . . .” She took a deep breath. “When I thought you were my brother.”

  “What!” Jack began to laugh.

  “It’s not funny!” she said. “It’s true. I thought you were my brother. In fact, I was totally convinced you were my brother.”

  “Good God! Why?” He was still laughing.

  “I don’t know. Because you look so like me. Because you don’t know your dad. Because I didn’t know my dad. Because your mother was all weird with me when we went to see her that evening, when we were talking about me being a donor child. And then mainly because the Registry sent me a letter telling me that I had a donor brother who was born the same year as you.”

  “What, really?”

  “Yeah. Really. So you can see why I might have had my suspicions. And I just freaked out.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I couldn’t,” she said, “I just couldn’t. I couldn’t deal with being the person to tell you that your dad was a donor. I couldn’t deal with us both knowing that we’d been incestuous. I couldn’t deal with anything at all unt
il I knew for sure that I was wrong. And the minute I knew I was wrong, I came straight back to you. I mean, literally, within minutes.”

  Jack fell silent for a moment. “So when did you know? That I wasn’t your brother?” He stifled a laugh at the end of the question.

  “Your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes. I asked her. She told me. And, of course, if she had conceived you through a donor, she wouldn’t have lied about it, would she? I mean, she had to be telling the truth.”

  “Unless she secretly wanted two-headed grandchildren?” said Jack, with a mischievous smile.

  “Well, yes,” said Robyn, feeling her heart lighten with relief. “I hadn’t considered that possibility.”

  “She’s a strange woman, my mum. You never know.”

  Robyn smiled and leaned back against Jack’s chest. She felt the last residue of awkwardness leave her body and she breathed out contentedly. “My real brother was called Thomas,” she said, after a moment. “He died when he was a baby. But if he hadn’t died, he’d have been exactly the same age as you. And maybe you could have been friends . . .”

  Jack nodded sadly. “I would have liked that,” he said, breathing into the crown of her head.

  “Yes,” said Robyn, “so would I.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Two hours later, Robyn and Jack sat side by side on a bumpy train. The carriage was mainly empty. At four in the afternoon, very few people had cause to be traveling from London to Buckhurst Hill. Jack held Robyn’s hand in his. They didn’t talk. Robyn’s head was too full of strangeness and wonder to find anything as solid as words in there.

  Her parents were doing a barbecue. “Just some steaks and a potato salad,” her mum had said apologetically when Robyn had phoned this morning to tell her she wanted to see them. “Is that okay, love?”

  Robyn had made her decision as she sat alone on the train, heading back to London. She thought about the way that man had looked as he’d exhaled his last breath. She couldn’t shake it from her mind. It was so essentially shocking. She’d never seen anyone die before. She’d fiddled with cadavers in anatomy classes but she’d never before seen the life pass from someone. It replayed in her head, over and over again, the way his face had gone slack, the sudden terrible silence after an hour of nightmarish death rattle. The whole experience had been overwhelming. She could barely remember what had happened now, barely remember what they’d all talked about while they waited for him to die, what they’d all done. She’d left the hospice before the other two, desperate to get back to Jack and to some semblance of normality.

  She shouldn’t have gone to the hospice. She was not mature enough to see a man die. And she was not, she now knew with some clarity, mentally prepared to spend the next five years of her life studying medicine.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Her mother was wearing a strappy top and a floral cotton skirt when she opened the door to them both forty minutes later. Her hair was freshly brushed through and hung about her rather fleshy face like a billowing pair of brown curtains. She’d also sprayed herself with perfume and put on a pretty necklace and was quite clearly making an effort for the sake of her daughter’s handsome young boyfriend.

  “Come in, come in, so lovely to . . . mwah—” she kissed them both effusively on their left cheeks “—see you both.”

  Robyn’s father was out in the back garden, tenderly prodding a pile of juicy steaks with a large metal fork. He had a cup of tea in his other hand and was wearing a sunhat and shorts. Robyn’s heart lurched at the sight of him. He was so big and so soft and so strong and so solid. She thought of him compared to the shriveled man in the bed at the hospice. That man had been just a vessel, literally, as his soul had passed away from it, but also nineteen years ago when he’d given away his sperm to a stranger. That was all he was. Nothing more than an empty bottle. She’d felt sorry for him, of course she had, he looked like a nice person. She’d liked his brother, been taken aback by the resemblance they bore to one another, but apart from that she had felt absolutely nothing.

  “Hello, Dad,” she said, pushing herself into his big solid arms and waiting for the familiar, wonderful sensation of his embrace. “I love you,” she said into the cotton of his T-shirt.

  “And I love you too, little one,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “How are you feeling?”

  She shrugged. “I’m okay,” she said, sitting herself down on a wooden chair on the patio.

  “Nice to see you again, Jack,” said her dad, putting out a beefy hand for him to shake. Jack sat down next to Robyn and then her mother came out with a chilled bottle of Tesco’s own brand rosé and four wineglasses.

  “So,” she said nervously, passing the bottle to her husband to open, “how did it go?”

  “It was horrible,” said Robyn, shuddering. “Totally horrible. I never want to see anyone die, ever again. It was the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Her mother pursed her lips knowingly and said nothing.

  Robyn sighed. Of course, she thought, of course, my mother has seen both her elder daughters die. My mother understands. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. It’s just . . .”

  “I know,” said her mum. “I know. But tell us about the rest of it? About the brother and the sister? What was it like? What were they like?”

  Robyn told them everything; about her first incredible sight of them, about their train journey, the way they all talked over each other in their rush to get to know one another and to share their stories. She told them about the other brother, Thomas, who hadn’t made it to his first year. She told her parents about the handsome twin and the lovely girlfriend with the pretty blond hair and how they’d told her that Daniel had never made it through medical school, that he’d never been a doctor, that he’d lived his life mysteriously and alone, never had any children and never been married. She told them about the way she and her siblings had all reached out for each other in a spontaneous embrace by the fish pond after Daniel had died and how nice it had felt and how they’d already arranged to meet up next weekend, for a barbecue at Lydia’s house. She told them how her brother Dean had a little baby girl called Isadora whom he was going to bring with him, and how Lydia had a huge house in North London and had invented a special kind of paint and was a millionaire, but didn’t act like one, she was so down-to-earth with her lovely Welsh accent. She told them about her strange train journey home, sitting alone on a near-empty train, mulling over the extraordinary events of the day and using those thoughts to plan her future. And then she told them something else. Something bizarre. Something she could barely believe she was about to say.

  “I made a decision today,” she said, her hand clutching Jack’s knee, slightly too hard. “A really big decision. I don’t want to be a doctor anymore. I’m going to leave uni.” She paused. “The thing is, I never even gave myself a chance to consider doing anything else, just thought it was preordained, that it was in my blood. And maybe it is in my blood, but then the other two, Lydia and Dean, they’ve done their own thing. They haven’t based their decisions on our donor or on who he was. So I’m going to see my tutor tomorrow, tell him I’m leaving, and then . . .” She paused, because this was the hardest thing to say: “Earlier, as I was walking home to the flat, I saw an advert, taped inside the window of a café. For a waitress. And I just had this weird, overwhelming feeling that it was, like, a sign. It’s a really cute little café, tables on the pavement, run by a really nice woman. So I went in and asked about it and, well, she offered me the job! It’s only six pounds an hour but I’ll get tips, and better still it closes at seven o’clock so I won’t have to work evenings, and it’s like the hub of the community, you know, so I’ll get to know all the locals. I’ll really be part of where I live. And maybe while I’m doing that, when my head’s clear and the pressure’s gone, I might work out what it is that I really want to do. It might just, you know—come to me.”

  She stopped
and stared at her parents. “What do you think?” she said. “Are you really disappointed in me?”

  There was a moment’s silence and then both her parents smiled and her father laughed. “Oh, yes,” he said, his arms folded across his fat belly, “oh, yes, we’re terribly disappointed in you. Always have been. Always will be. I mean”—he turned to his wife—“we really only wanted a child who was going to be a doctor, didn’t we, love? Anything less than that, well, frankly, it’s a bit pointless . . .”

  Her parents laughed then, and so did Robyn. She stood up and crouched between their chairs and held them both around the neck, kissing them on their cheeks.

  “How could we ever be disappointed in you?” asked her mother, running her hand over Robyn’s hair. “You’re our life. You’re our everything. We don’t care what you do, as long as you’re happy.”

  And Robyn rested her cheek against her mother’s shoulder and considered her sweet, loving parents, her gentle, beautiful boyfriend, her crazy best friend, and now her childlike brother and her quiet, elegant sister, and she thought that, yes, she was, most definitely, certainly, completely and totally, happy. And she smiled.

  MAGGIE

  Maggie sat flat against Daniel’s sofa and allowed her body to leave a firm and undeniable imprint in the upholstery. Daniel was gone and would not be coming back. She no longer felt it was necessary to leave no trace of herself inside his home. Marc was upstairs, getting changed, and she was waiting to take him back to the hospice, where Daniel’s body had been prepared for burial.

  When she’d gotten home from the hospice the night before, she’d been unable to switch herself into the state of normality necessary to find sleep. So she’d pulled out the shopping bags, the ones she’d filled at Daniel’s house a few weeks earlier, and begun to leaf through the notebooks. She had brought them with her today. She wanted to show them to Marc because they were written in French and because she thought they seemed, from what little she was able to translate, somewhat significant. Marc came downstairs a moment later and smiled at her. “I am ready,” he said. “Shall we go?”