Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Oh, this is the life.
Emma sank down onto the couch, exhaustion setting in now that things were prepared for the big day tomorrow.
The table had already been set because Vanessa didn’t trust herself to focus fully on it tomorrow, and the scent of cloves and orange peel continued to waft around the place.
Vanessa had insisted on making mulled syrup just in case anyone wanted it, and it had to be homemade.
Not from a bottle. The potatoes were scattered in multiple pans, ready to be parboiled in the morning, the batter for the Yorkshire puddings was resting in the fridge beside the pigs in blankets, and Carmen had texted Emma an hour ago to say Ben had become insufferable trying to get the gravy ‘bang on.’
Everything was running smoothly…and everything was as it should be.
She tugged the blanket up to her chin and tipped her head back, closing her eyes for a moment and taking it all in. If she sat very still, she could hear the tiny squeak of the radiator cooling and the hiss of tyres on damp tarmac. It was officially Christmas Eve on their quiet street.
Vanessa tiptoed in from the kitchen with two festive mugs, her hair up in a loose knot that had waged and lost a war with the day. She set the drinks on the coffee table and slid onto the couch, tucking herself in along Emma’s length so perfectly that they clicked into place like two jigsaw pieces.
“Mulled cider,” she said. “Sip carefully or you’ll burn your tongue and blame me.”
Emma cracked an eye open. “I would never blame you for something so festive.”
“Oh, you absolutely would.” Vanessa nudged a mug into Emma’s hands and leaned back, their shoulders pressed and their thighs touching through flannel pyjamas. “How’s that head of yours doing?”
“Loud,” Emma said truthfully, then blew into her mug. “But in a ‘shit, what have I forgotten to do’ way. Not a ‘fucking hell, my sister is coming for Christmas dinner’ way.”
Vanessa studied her profile and smiled. “You did well today.”
“I chopped an obscene number of carrots,” Emma deadpanned. “That’s what I did.”
“You didn’t spiral once,” Vanessa corrected. “You didn’t check your phone every five seconds, waiting for someone to change their mind.”
Emma laughed and took a cautious sip of her mulled cider. Sweet and spiced. The perfect combination. “That’s because if I kept checking my phone, I’d have dropped a tray of parsnips on it.”
Vanessa smiled against her mug. “Mm. That, too.”
They settled into the quiet, sipping their drinks and allowing the weight of the day to fall away.
Emma stared at the Christmas tree across the room—busy with mismatched ornaments and Daisy’s handmade crooked star near the top—and felt a familiar ache swell behind her ribs.
Love and fear always seemed to live close together in her chest. Tonight, love was winning.
“You know,” Vanessa said, “I was thinking earlier while I was wrestling the foil over that stupid turkey—”
“Hey, go easy on him. He didn’t ask to be the centrepiece.”
“I was thinking,” Vanessa continued. “About all the versions of us that have lived in this room.”
Emma sighed. “You’re going to make me cry before I tackle the sprouts, aren’t you?”
“Probably.” Vanessa bumped her knee gently. “Remember the first Christmas we had here together? Just us.”
“It’s a Christmas I’ll never forget,” Emma said with a smile. “Because it was the first time I felt like I really had you.”
“It was magical to me.”
“It was magical to me too, babe.”
“I was terrified I’d fuck it all up and you’d have a terrible day because of me.
” Vanessa lay her head back on a cushion and sighed.
“Then you turned up in the hallway after being at Lauren’s, wearing that ridiculous bobble hat, and I knew I had nothing to worry about.
Because it was you…and it was me…and it was always going to be perfect, no matter what. ”
“Hey! That bobble hat had character.”
“Mm. It also had its own postcode, it was that big.” Vanessa lifted her head, grinning. “But it was the first time I realised that this could be a home again. Not just walls and noise as it had been since Richard left.”
Emma swallowed. She remembered all of the moments with Vanessa.
The good, the bad, the terrifying. But that Christmas really had been beautiful.
They’d wanted to be alone for it, and Lauren and Rob had wanted to be alone for theirs.
With Daisy’s arrival imminent, it made sense to enjoy the calm before the storm.
“I loved you, so I never once worried about that day.”
“I know.” Vanessa tightened her hand around her mug. “And then there was the year after. Lauren was still a bit on and off about us being together, even though she kept telling us everything was fine.”
“Yeah. That was the year when she kept looking at me like I’d stolen you from her.”
“You didn’t steal me,” Vanessa scoffed. “I wasn’t an object to be stolen. But look at us now. We rebuilt and it’s more beautiful than ever.”
“We did, babe.” Emma saw the years stack themselves on top of one another.
The prickly cold months of cold shoulders and half-answers.
The tentative coffees and the clipped apologies that eventually softened into real ones.
The day Lauren had walked through the door and flopped down on the couch like she used to. “We really did.”
“And then last year…” Vanessa trailed off.
“You were in pain and discomfort still.”
Vanessa shifted a little on the couch. “Mm.”
“I kept pretending you weren’t,” Emma said, aware that she was saying this for the first time. But that was the beauty of how much progress they’d made. Emma felt as though she could say it now. “Because if I’d acknowledged it, I’d have to admit I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix you.”
“You fixed what you could,” Vanessa said. “You kept me breathing when I wanted to curl up and never face the world again.”
Emma sat up and searched the familiar lines of her wife’s face in the low light.
The strength, the softness, the story in her eyes.
“When I think of you on the bedroom floor the first time we took the dressing off together, I…” Emma exhaled and shook her head.
“I wish I could have fixed you there and then.”
“You got in the shower with me and washed my hair for weeks. You learned how to change dressings without making me feel like a patient. You told me I was beautiful so often I started believing you…and I’m very stubborn.” Vanessa reached out and took Emma’s hand. “You did everything I needed, baby.”
“You are stubborn,” Emma agreed as her voice broke. “But you’re also the bravest woman I know.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Vanessa whispered into the quietness of the room.
“I was so frightened,” Emma admitted. “Not just of losing you, but of you vanishing behind it all. I never wanted the light in your eyes to go out.”
“It didn’t, and that was because of you.” Vanessa squeezed Emma’s hand. “And now we have Freya.”
Emma’s heart stuttered. “We have Freya.” God, that name still felt like a miracle whenever Emma uttered it. Still… “Do you ever worry that we’ll wake up and it’ll be gone? That Carmen will say she’s changed her mind…or that Freya will decide it’s too complicated and stop coming over?”
“At one time, yes,” Vanessa said, as honest as ever.
“But then I remember how happy she was at the cinema with us. I remember that dinner wasn’t the end of the world, and we’ve had enough of them now to know that Freya is fully here in our lives.
I remember that she’s requested matching pyjamas tomorrow night… and then the worry is gone.”
When Vanessa put it like that, it was hard to worry. “You’re right.”
“She calls and texts you now. She’s not afraid of what any of this is. The distance you’ve walked is astounding, and I know you don’t see that yourself, but I do.”
“I’m just so used to being abandoned that my mind naturally goes there.” Emma cast her gaze at her mulled cider and sighed. “That I’ll take a wrong step.”
“I’m sure you will at some point. And then you’ll apologise, and she’ll roll her eyes and call you dramatic…and then you’ll go again.” Vanessa leaned in and kissed Emma’s temple. “You and I have done harder things than learning how to love someone new.”
Emma frowned. “Have we?”
“We told the truth about our relationship when it would have been easier to hide. We’ve forgone the easy version of our lives for the true one. We’ve held each other up when the ground went from under us, and we’ve come out of it happier.” Vanessa’s voice softened. “We can do this.”
Emma’s shoulders relaxed as everything fell away around her. “I’m so grateful for you.”
“I know, and I’m grateful for you. For all of it. Even the parts that hurt.”
Emma rested her head back, her mind wandering through the reel of the last few weeks.
Freya at the table blowing on her hot chocolate.
Freya lighting up at the sight of Emma collecting her on the doorstep.
Freya leaning over the arm of the couch to ask a question about a film and accidentally fitting into the gap between as though she’d been designed specifically for that moment.
The arcades, the laughter…the belonging.
“What are you most looking forward to tomorrow?” Vanessa asked as she stole half of Emma’s blanket.
“My Yorkshire puddings not deflating,” Emma narrowed her eyes towards the living room door. “I swear to God if they do…”
“You do set the bar low, baby.”
Emma lifted a shoulder. “Freya walking through the door and not hesitating on the mat,” she admitted. “Just stepping in like she belongs here, kicking her shoes off and flinging her jacket over the nearest surface.”
Vanessa grinned. “So, exactly like you then?”
Emma toyed with the corner of the blanket. “I guess so. You?”
“Ben trying to pretend he’s not impressed by my roasties, then asking exactly how I got them that way.”
“You’ll lord it over him.”
“Briefly,” Vanessa said with a straight face. “I’m gracious in victory.”
Emma bumped her knee. “And Carmen?”
“I’m looking forward to handing her a glass of wine and telling her to sit down and rest,” Vanessa said. “And I’m looking forward to her seeing what I see when I look at you and Freya together. That the person in front of her is good news and cares a great deal.”
Emma swallowed down her emotions and stared up at the ceiling. Vanessa always noticed the little things, while Emma was blissfully unaware of her own courage and determination half the time.
“I’m proud of you, Emma.” Vanessa shifted into Emma’s lap. “I’m proud of the way you’ve kept showing up and the way you’ve let yourself be seen, even when you felt like a mess. And I’m proud of the way you love her without making it about proving something.”
Emma’s throat constricted. She leaned in and kissed Vanessa instead. Slow, sure, and grateful for the life they had together. When they parted, their foreheads rested together.
“I’ve got an idea,” Vanessa said, a hint of mischief present in her eyes. “We go to bed like sensible people because tomorrow’s enormous.”
“I’m listening.”
“And in honour of our first Christmas with your little sister,” Vanessa went on, “I’ll refrain from any excessive…festivities, shall we say?” The glint in her eyes told another story. Emma wasn’t fooled. “Unless, of course, my wife insists.”
Emma laughed. “I might insist a little.”
“Just a little?” Vanessa drew her thumb across Emma’s bottom lip and smirked. “I’ll take it.”
Vanessa stood and folded the blanket, while Emma switched off the fairy lights and followed her wife towards the hallway.
The whole place smelled like Christmas, but Emma was too tired to tackle anything else tonight, so she found Vanessa’s hand at the bottom of the stairs, and they climbed them together.
As Emma stepped into their darkened bedroom—everything ready and waiting for the big day—she believed that whatever tomorrow brought, they would meet it the way they had met everything else.
Together.