Chapter 9
CHRISSIE
Doctor Todd, one of Chrissie’s favourite doctors – on account of how much he reminded her of her dad, both in age and demeanour – came into reception at the surgery looking for the forms Chrissie had already set aside.
‘Try one of the mince pies in the kitchen,’ he urged her. ‘My wife made them, you’ll love them.’ And with a smile he headed back to his rooms, ready for his next patient.
She was on her own at reception for the time being. Maria had called in to say she had to take her father-in-law to urgent care after he’d burnt his arm, and Lesley was en route from her son’s nativity production at the school but would be here any second to join her.
With just today and tomorrow to go at work before she was on holiday Chrissie should’ve been excited like she usually was in the second week of December, but with her continued agonising over Sarah, it was hard to feel anything other than stressed.
The phone call with Rhys had revealed Chrissie wasn’t the only one worrying, and in a strange way that had made her feel less alone.
Chrissie and Anthony had had their hearts set on having two or three children, but a second child never came, and slowly they’d accepted that their family was one of three.
She’d felt lucky to have Sarah, but Chrissie had always wished she could’ve given her daughter a sibling to confide in, someone to have on her side.
She’d had that with Meg once and no matter what had happened since, she would always remember it fondly.
The phone at the desk rang again and again. She triaged patients – or at least those who would let her – and she booked appointments, and almost an hour later she looked up to see Rhys coming through the surgery door.
She stood up. ‘What’s happened?’ She ignored the ringing phone this time.
‘Nothing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you panic,’ he said. ‘I can wait till you have a moment.’
She answered the call, but she immediately felt under pressure.
The person on the other end started yelling, accused her of not caring, said the NHS should be ashamed of themselves.
Chrissie was usually calm when this happened but right now the temptation to hang up the call so she could talk to her daughter’s fiancé almost won.
She stayed on the line, of course – she was too professional to do anything else – and the rant continued for a bit longer before the line went dead. Presumably the woman on the other end had run out of steam. Chrissie felt a surge of relief when she saw Lesley coming into reception.
As Lesley relieved her for a break Chrissie went over to Rhys who was seated out of the way of patients in one of the chairs next to the blood-pressure machine.
Sarah had said she was only going to Switzerland for Christmas, but Chrissie was beginning to wonder whether she would be back here in time for her New Year’s Eve wedding.
And that would mean she was in a really bad place and hadn’t felt able to tell her own mother about it.
Her parents didn’t seem worried about anything, but their focus would be spending time with their granddaughter rather than thinking about the bigger picture. That was Chrissie’s job.
‘Have you spoken to Sarah?’ She hoped Rhys would say yes because she was finding it difficult to back off and not call her daughter to try to find out more of what was happening.
‘I’ve had a few texts but she hasn’t called,’ Rhys replied. ‘She sent some photographs as well. I think she’s having a good time.’
She could hear the fear in his voice, the concern that Sarah’s visit meant more than he’d first thought when she left England.
Chrissie wondered if he was panicking that Sarah was slipping away.
She knew just what that felt like. She’d been feeling it for years as Sarah grew up and started to be more independent.
She’d felt it again when Sarah met Rhys, when she announced her engagement and moved in with him.
The difference was, it was inevitable for a parent to have to face this stage, but it wasn’t for a fiancé.
Sarah and Rhys should feel closer together over time, not like they were losing each other.
‘Can I see the pictures?’ Perhaps it might make Rhys feel a bit calmer and it would be nice to see some photographs of Sarah.
But when he showed her, Chrissie realised the photographs weren’t of her daughter. They were of Chrissie and Meg. ‘Sarah has been going through these?’
‘She has. And she mentioned a place called Frostkinder Hill where she went sledging when her dad was alive. Does that ring a bell?’
Chrissie smiled. ‘It does. We all went there on Christmas Day.’ The last perfect Christmas.
The Christmas before the one that was blown apart with the devastating news that Anthony had been killed.
So instead of waiting for him to join them in Winterbruck, she’d been packing up her things and going back to England and a life she no longer recognised.
Frostkinder Hill brought back other memories too. She and Meg had been there a lot when they first moved to Winterbruck, and in the years after until Meg upped and left for London. Those snow days were some of Chrissie’s happiest memories with her sister.
Rhys put his phone away. ‘I don’t know what to do about Sarah. I’m worried about her.’
‘Me too, Rhys. And I don’t know what to do either.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Aren’t you working today?’ He was usually so busy in his job. Sarah had told her how incredibly hard he had worked to get where he was and that a promotion probably wasn’t too far off for him.
‘I’m between jobs on site. I should be getting to the next one but found myself coming in here as I passed. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have turned up at your work.’
She noticed how tired he looked. ‘Don’t apologise. You’re worried about Sarah, and Sarah comes first.’ She always had, particularly after they lost Anthony. Chrissie had had to be both Mum and Dad rolled into one and she’d constantly questioned whether she was doing things right.
‘Has she called you?’ Rhys asked Chrissie.
‘We’ve had a few text messages between us, but that’s it.’
‘Do you think she’s lying about the job over there?’
Chrissie hesitated because yes, she did.
He didn’t push for an answer. Perhaps he already knew anyway. ‘I don’t get it. You and she are close,’ he said. ‘Has she really not said anything to you about why she really went to Switzerland?’
‘I know she is still really sad that her grandparents can’t come to the wedding.’
‘I get that,’ he said.
She was still thinking about his comment that she and Sarah were close.
He was right, they had been close once, but now she thought about it, Sarah had also been pulling away for a long time.
Chrissie had talked to her mum about it over the last few years and her mum had told her what all the good-parenting books alluded to – her daughter was growing up, plain and simple.
Astrid had also cited examples of her and Meg over the years, although Chrissie tended to move the conversation on whenever her sister’s name came up.
‘I think we have to try to leave her to it for now,’ said Chrissie. ‘Sarah tends to think things through in her own time. She’ll talk about it eventually, but she likes to get her head straight first. She’s always been that way.’
Rhys put his head in his hands. ‘I don’t want to make it harder for her by demanding answers.
But how many fiancées go away right before Christmas, and for Christmas, and how many fiancées go away when their wedding is just around the corner?
’ He looked directly at Chrissie as if she might know the truth. ‘Unless she’s changed her mind…’
Much as she’d doubted this union her heart went out to him.
‘She certainly hasn’t said that to me. And if she had changed her mind, I think she would tell you.
’ Although she didn’t add that the answer might not come straight away, that if Sarah had changed her mind she’d be considering everything before she made a final decision.
What she’d said about her daughter was true – Sarah usually wanted to get her own emotions and thoughts in order first. The sudden trip to Switzerland was an avoidance tactic, whether it was right or not.
If she was here, then she’d be face-to-face with Rhys and have to deal with things.
If she was away, she could have some time for herself before she dealt with whatever was bothering her.
Chrissie had been the same way after Anthony died.
Her parents had desperately tried to get her to open up but she just couldn’t.
She kept it all inside while she went through the motions as a single parent and tried to find work when she hadn’t had a job for years.
Employment was one of the scariest parts of all because the moving around with the RAF had meant she’d never forged a career.
Her work history was patchy at best, and whenever her parents had tried to talk about it, she’d got really stressed.
In the end she’d joined an online Facebook group for mums returning to work after having kids, and another for women over forty trying to enter the workforce.
From there she’d found other women who were either in or had been in a similar situation.
She’d formed a plan, identified a career path, arranged training, applied for jobs.
It had been a long time before she sorted herself out and made progress, and only then did she talk to her mum or dad about any of it.
Chrissie thought back to the hunt for a wedding venue, the folder of planning, the talk of Sarah’s big day with the dress, hair, make-up, invitations.
She thought about Sarah’s face that day at the bridal boutique when she had another fitting for her wedding dress.
Her daughter had some doubts, which was why Chrissie had asked Sarah again as she stood there in her bridal gown if she was sure about getting married.
If she hadn’t picked up on Sarah’s worry, Chrissie would’ve kept her mouth shut for once.
Or perhaps she’d been wrong. Maybe she’d read doubt on her daughter’s face because that’s what she’d been hoping for. And if that was the case, this could easily be fixed.
‘Maybe she’s just overwhelmed with it all,’ she said to Rhys.
His shoulders dropped a little. ‘That’s what my mum said to me.’
‘You’ve told your mum what has happened?’ She hoped it didn’t turn his parents against Sarah or make them think she was treating him badly. If Chrissie was his mother, she would probably feel that way.
‘I had to talk to someone.’
She genuinely meant it when she said, ‘You can keep talking to me too.’ Rhys coming here, talking to her like this, had impressed her.
All she’d seen when they got engaged was the rush, the threat to the stability Sarah had in her life, the need for Sarah to grow up a little bit before she rushed into this.
Now she could see what her daughter meant to this man. He loved her deeply.
‘Mum told me that if Sarah was anything like she was as a bride-to-be, then she’d be nervous as anything.
’ He allowed a small smile to escape. ‘She had a mini panic attack before she married Dad. Gran had to get her to breathe into a brown paper bag outside the church. It sounded like she didn’t want to marry Dad, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth. ’
‘What brought on the panic?’
‘Mum said it was all a bit much, all the fuss, the attention.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, your mum doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be bothered by any of that.’ When they’d looked at wedding venues his mum seemed confident, unfazed by a large wedding to be organised in a relatively short space of time.
‘She was eighteen when she married my dad. They’d only known each other six weeks.’
‘That’s very young to be getting married.’
‘It was. She had the panic attack and told me that once she’d calmed down her best friend had asked her if she was sure about getting married. Mum said in that moment she knew it was the right thing. But it had taken someone else asking her to clarify.’
She’d asked Sarah the same question at the wedding boutique and then the next thing she knew Sarah had gone off to Switzerland. Was that a bad sign?
‘Do you think Sarah is having second thoughts?’ Rhys asked.
‘I really can’t answer that question, Rhys.’
He took a moment to accept her answer. ‘Were you nervous when you got married? Did you have to breathe into a brown paper bag, or did you ever run off like Sarah?’
She smiled. ‘Sarah and I are alike in many ways, but not in that. No, Anthony was the one who was a bit skittish before the wedding.’ Her Anthony, her brave Anthony, had been a bundle of nerves.
A pilot in the RAF and usually full of confidence, not one to falter, a man who made decisions in the blink of an eye, was different in his private life.
‘Sarah’s dad had the tenderest of souls, something I think Sarah got from him.
He said proposing was the easy part. Every day up until the wedding he would overthink things.
He was worried he wasn’t good enough for me, that I’d change my mind, that my family didn’t like him enough.
’ Actually, that last one had traction, but she wasn’t going to explain that now.
‘I used to ask him how he could be so sharp and focused as a pilot who had to make decisions under pressure when everyday choices were something he’d overthink.
He told me he was a different person in his job. And he was.’
‘But he told you those things.’
‘Yes, I suppose he did.’ And Sarah wasn’t talking. At least not to Rhys or to her.
‘I’m sorry you lost him so young. I know it was hard for Sarah, but it must’ve been really hard for you.’
Rhys was sincere, a man in love, and he was rising in her estimation by the second. ‘Thank you, Rhys.’ It was also clear how deep her daughter’s relationship ran with this man, and it topped up her guilt for having doubts.
Rhys ran a hand around the inside of his shirt collar. ‘I wish she’d call me, talk to me properly.’
‘She’s in safe hands over there in Winterbruck.’
‘That’s the main thing,’ he said.
After they each promised to keep in touch if they heard anything more, he left the surgery, dejected and sad.
And Chrissie hated knowing she’d probably played a significant part in all of this.