Chapter 9: Someone who looks like me
768 Words
Portia smoothed down the hem of her pleated skirt again. She’d ironed it three times that morning, even though it barely wrinkled. Her edges were laid, her lip balm fresh, and her anxiety wrapped neatly around her ribcage like a tight scarf.
“Are you okay, baby?” Dodo asked from the driver’s seat.
Portia didn’t answer immediately. She watched the unfamiliar road signs, the unfamiliar houses. Her heart thudded low and hard.
“Will he know me when he sees me?” she finally asked.
Dodo glanced at her daughter, surprised by the rawness in the question. “He’ll know you’re his. You have his nose.”
Portia half-smiled. “I’ve googled him. Did you know there’s an old photo of him playing rugby on the school website?”
Dodo chuckled softly. “He was a golden boy once.”
“What happened to him?”
Dodo sighed. “Life. Choices. He made some good ones. Some bad ones. Just like me.”
---
When they arrived, the house was bigger than Portia expected—but smaller than the one she had drawn in her head all her life. It was modern, pastel-painted, with a clean driveway and lush green lawn. A woman stepped out before they even knocked.
She wore a lavender headwrap, gold studs, and an apron over a flowered dress. Her eyes were already shining.
“You must be Portia.” Her voice cracked.
Portia nodded. “Hi... Gogo?”
The woman opened her arms without hesitation, and Portia stepped into them like she’d always belonged there.
“I’ve waited so long,” her grandmother whispered.
---
They sat in the living room—polished mahogany coffee table, family portraits hanging neatly. Dodo felt strangely calm, like the eye of a storm she wasn’t sure had passed yet.
“I want to apologise again,” the older woman said. “You were just a child, and we should have supported you. Shaun was scared. But we should have been adults.”
Dodo nodded, too tired to be angry. “Thank you for saying that.”
Portia wandered to the photographs on the wall. She lingered at one of a younger Shaun. Smiling. Arms around two boys. A girl in a red dress beside him.
“Are those his kids?”
“Yes. Your half-siblings,” her grandmother said. “They’ll love to meet you.”
Before Portia could ask anything more, the front door creaked.
They all turned.
A tall man stood in the doorway, dark-skinned, clean-cut, his shirt tucked into fitted jeans. He carried a cautious smile and the weight of too many years.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Shaun.”
Portia nodded slowly. “Hi.”
They stared at each other—both knowing this moment could not be casual.
“You look like my cousin,” he said awkwardly.
Dodo almost laughed at how father and daughter mirrored each other—reserved, watchful, overwhelmed.
“I’ve waited a long time,” Portia whispered.
“I know,” he replied, eyes misting. “And I don’t deserve the chance. But I’d like to earn it, if you’ll let me.”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into her school bag and pulled out a photo of herself and Henry. “This is my brother.”
He took it gently, staring long. “I’d like to meet him too. And I’d like to show you around this side of your world.”
She finally smiled.
---
Later, on the drive back home, Portia leaned her head on the window, her voice quiet.
“I don’t know if I like him. But I don’t hate him.”
Dodo reached out and squeezed her hand. “That’s a start.”
---
Dodo sits on one side of her bad and writes on her journal.
Today I watched my daughter meet her father for the first time. A man who once held my body with a kind of careless charm now held her gaze like it might shatter him.
I don’t hate him anymore. I can’t. Not when I see how much it means to her just to know where she comes from.
Some people say letting the past go is weakness. But maybe it’s the bravest thing I’ve done in years.
Portia didn’t call me ‘Mom’ once in that house. She called me Dodo like she used to when she was three and sulking. It hurt. But I also understood. She’s growing into a world bigger than mine.
I hope she finds the parts of herself I couldn’t give her.
- Writer
