Chapter 5 #2
‘Cinnamon rolls.’ Sarah grinned, her tummy giving an enthusiastic accompanying rumble.
‘Dive in, don’t be shy.’ Grumps poured a cup of tea for each of them from the ceramic teapot.
Sarah took a cinnamon roll and a small plate and sat in one of the single chairs to devour the dough with its swirls of butter and cinnamon, and sweet-tasting raisins. ‘Have you done your deliveries yet, Nanna?’
‘I started them this morning, and then the snow started again.’
‘I could help you.’
‘Are you sure? You’re not too tired?’
What was it with grandparents feeling like they had to check you wanted to help out or spend time with them? ‘I’d be happy to, Nanna.’
‘Well, I appreciate it. If you and I work together we can make the deliveries while the rest of the batch are still fresh.’
‘Have another,’ Grumps urged when Sarah licked her fingers after the first cinnamon roll.
She laughed. ‘Maybe later.’
‘How are the wedding plans going?’ Nanna asked.
‘We’re ready,’ she replied. What else could she say? That she was here because she didn’t know what to do?
‘It’ll be wonderful having it at Rhys’s family home, really special,’ said Grumps.
‘It will be. But I hate that you won’t be there.’ When Sarah’s voice wobbled, she quickly recovered. ‘I do understand though.’ She didn’t want to make them feel more guilty than they likely already did.
‘We hate it too,’ said Nanna.
Nanna had some heart troubles and had been through lots of tests during the past year.
She was still being closely monitored, which meant no travel for her, and Grumps had mobility issues – osteoarthritis in his knee – that was worse on some days than others.
Even Sarah could see that any sort of long journey would be stressful, painful and too hard for him now.
At first, she’d thought they could marry over here instead, but there were complications with that, permissions that needed to be granted, the logistics of it all.
And then there was Rhys’s enormous family and his friends and connections. No, England made much more sense.
‘Promise us you’ll record the wedding and send it to us immediately,’ said Grumps. ‘I’m quite good on an iPad these days. Talking of which…’ He picked up his iPad. ‘I need to check the avalanche bulletin.’
‘Avalanche?’ Sarah felt a flutter of panic.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Nanna. ‘He checks it every day, sometimes twice.’
Grumps wasn’t long looking at his iPad. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he confirmed.
While Grumps opted for an afternoon nap, Sarah and Nanna bundled up in coats and scarves and boots with a good grip for the snow and off they went with more boxed-up cinnamon rolls for the neighbours.
‘At least the pavements have been gritted so we’re not risking life and limb,’ said Nanna.
The little boxes were readily accepted by everyone, although delivery took some time given people wanted to ask about Nanna’s health, chat about Christmas, about the snow.
By the time they got back to the chalet Sarah was grateful for the toasty flames of the fire. ‘I’m not used to this sort of cold.’
‘We’ll have you warmed up in no time,’ said Nanna, with a playful roll of her eyes as they both spotted Grumps still snoozing.
A familiar ping sounded from Sarah’s bag where she’d hung it on a hook in the hallway. It was a message from Rhys, a reply to her earlier text to say she’d arrived safely. She quickly tapped out a message to tell him about the cinnamon rolls, the snow, and then went back to join her grandparents.
She liked that Rhys thought about her so often, that he, like the groom she’d seen in Interlaken, would hold her hand as much as she wanted or needed him to.
But she couldn’t get it out of her head that they were rushing things.
When he’d proposed, of course she’d said yes, she loved him, but she hadn’t even thought to suggest they wait a while.
He’d gone all romantic talking about a New Year’s Eve wedding he’d been to years ago.
He’d told her about the dark, the cold, the fairy lights and the magic of the occasion, and she’d been swept away by it all.
She’d laughed at the time that he was so excited but as the days went on, her mum’s disapproval came again and again, and as the reality set in, she wished they’d held on for a bit.
But they’d gone too far to change things.
Sometimes she wondered whether they were suited.
She’d only had a couple of boyfriends and had never been in a long-term relationship.
How compatible were they, really? Had they given it long enough to really know?
She wore dungarees and old T-shirts to work, not a scrap of make-up; she hated the miniscule portions dished out in posh restaurants so preferred to go to more casual or rustic places; she’d grown up moving around because of her dad’s job in the RAF, and when they eventually settled it had been in a normal terraced house in a village.
Rhys wore well-cut suits to work; he was au fait with fine dining; he could talk about wine as if he knew it intimately; he’d grown up in a huge house in the countryside and, like his parents, had a vast circle of friends.
Her life was quiet, much quieter than Rhys’s.
Maybe the seven-year age gap meant her mum saw what Sarah saw herself sometimes: that Rhys had a confidence she was yet to gain, a life that had moved on several steps ahead of hers already.
Rhys’s parents, Louise and Jeff, had welcomed her into their Northumberland home the first time Rhys took her there to introduce her.
They were lovely, they’d been great hosts and entertained her, and embraced her into the fold.
But the problem was that fold was big. Enormous.
Rhys was one of five children, whereas she was an only child.
All of his siblings were married so that added in partners, and three of his siblings had a couple of kids each.
She hadn’t had to meet them all that first day, which was a relief, but she’d met them all a few weeks after for his sister’s thirty-fifth birthday.
That was fine too, but now they were planning a wedding, somehow with everyone the Newberrys knew the guest list had exploded to some two-hundred people, because of course you couldn’t invite Aunt Penny without inviting Aunt Millie, and of course the couple three doors down who babysat Rhys and all the other siblings at one time or another would want to see the fifth and last Newberry married off.
The house the Newberrys lived in and where she and Rhys were going to have their New Year’s Eve wedding was amazing, and when they’d decided on that as their venue, Rhys had shown her photographs from the Christmas just gone.
He’d said that was what the house would look like again this year.
The home had looked like it was a feature in a magazine.
The colour schemes were perfect. A big, old table seating ten had been dressed for the main meal, candlesticks in the centre, winter flowers and greenery, place settings with shiny cutlery and glassware.
All the lights in the rooms and on the outside of the house looked fabulous, and the Newberrys didn’t have just a single tree inside, they had five dotted around the property.
The pictures showed a pine tree on either side of the front door, each bedecked in white lights, another big tree in the lounge, one in the vast hallway and the fifth (and tallest of all) was in the big country kitchen where Christmas was hosted every year.
Those pictures had let Sarah envisage what their wedding would be like, and in some ways that helped. But in others, it only fuelled the feeling that this was all happening so fast.