‘I don’t know about any of that. I just know that I made a promise to Helen that I would take care of Brady, and I would never break that promise. But... I can’t reach Brady. I can’t connect with him. He doesn’t seem to notice whether I’m there or not and I don’t know that I’m the right person to bring out the best in another human being.’
He didn’t mention the fact that love wasn’t even an emotion he was sure he possessed. At least, not in that all-consuming way that parents had for their kids. Or even couples had for each other. Because the fact was that the more time he and Brady spent with Flávia and her family, the more he began to wonder if maybe he could learn to love after all.
The way Helen had believed he would. And the way Flávia had told him he could.
‘I know he was close with his mother. He was Helen’s little prince. But I can’t seem to build a relationship with him and I feel he is withdrawing every month that goes by. Then I try to make amends by letting him get away with behaviour that I know school would pull him up over. I don’t want to be so poor of a guardian to my nephew that I actually end up somehow damaging him.’
He didn’t know what he expected Flávia to say; he certainly wasn’t expecting her to say something which would make him feel instantly better. So why was he so compelled to talk to her?
Either way, she was silent for so long that Jake began to regret voicing the plaguing doubts.
‘It’s an impossible balance,’ she conceded. ‘Maria makes it look so easy, but it isn’t. Kids do need boundaries, though. They have to know their limits. But have you talked to Brady about his mother since that day in the visitor centre?’
‘I tried...’ Jake thought back. ‘I asked him if he missed her, but he didn’t respond.’
Certainly not the way he had with Flávia when he’d broken down in her arms. And he hadn’t pushed. Who would want to make a child cry, anyway?
She tilted her head. ‘Maybe there’s another way to approach it.’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged when she fell quiet. The crackling of the fire was almost a comforting sound in the noises of the jungle.
‘Maybe instead of asking him about his feelings, you should tell him about yours, first.’
‘Talk to him about my...feelings?’ Jake blew out sharply.
‘It isn’t a dirty word,’ she chided gently.
‘I know that. I just... What would I even say?’
‘I don’t know—tell him some of the good things you remember about his mother.’
‘I didn’t even know Helen these last ten years. What would I tell Brady?’
‘Then tell him about your memories of her as a kid. She told Brady you were once a good big brother to her—can’t you talk about that?’
‘I don’t even know how I was a good brother.’ Jake shook his head in the darkness, and he wondered if she could hear the same ring of anger to it that he could. ‘I guess I was just...there...someone to talk to about what was going on in our lives. Not that we did all that much, but God knows our parents never talked to us about anything other than homework, or school, or something equally educational.’
‘You once said they did their duty by you?’
And Jake didn’t expect himself to answer; this was far too personal for his liking. Yet he heard himself speak, all the same.
‘They were academic surgeons. High-achieving, focused, but detached. If they weren’t learning on a practical level, they were writing medical papers, securing research funding, travelling the world for conferences. They sent Helen and me to good schools, dressed us in new clothes and kept a clean, albeit old-fashioned home. They believed there was nothing my sister and I couldn’t learn from books.’
She didn’t answer, but he knew she was listening. Absorbing it all.
‘They provided for us well, but they were detached. Cold. You could go to them for practical, medicinal care if you were ill, but forget a show of affection, or a word of love. That wasn’t who they were.’
‘I can’t imagine that,’ Flávia said quietly, and he could well believe it having met her sister and her father, who had given him an exuberant bear hug the first time he’d met him at that family barbecue.
‘You’ve seen how I am.’ Jake shrugged. ‘I never really thought anything was lacking. Until Brady came along.’
‘I think you did,’ Flávia countered after a moment. ‘You just didn’t have any reason to tackle it. But his mother wasn’t like that, clearly.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Somehow, Helen managed to change things for herself. For Brady. I don’t know how.’
‘Why did you fall out?’
‘We didn’t.’ He shrugged, scarcely able to believe he was still talking. Still confiding about things he had barely even let himself think about in the past. ‘We just...drifted apart when we went to uni.’