7
Sara
“ W e should get the Christmas tree next weekend.” Sara spread butter onto toast and deftly cut it into the shape of a house. She was not going to worry about her mother driving up to London. It was ridiculous. What exactly did she think was going to happen?
“Is that mine?” Patrick sounded amused. “Nice house.”
Sara stared at the toast in disbelief as she realized what she’d done. “Sorry. I was operating on automatic.”
“I know. You obviously have a lot on your mind.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Do you want to offload some of that anxiety that is making your forehead crease?”
“No, but thanks.”
“Fine. But at least drink your coffee. You know you’re not human until you’ve had your first cup of the day.” He put a cup down next to her. “Drink. It might help.”
She felt his hand on her back, the gentle rub of his fingers against her spine.
Comfort.
She could never hide any of her moods from him. Happy, sad, worried, thoughtful—he recognized them all. And she was grateful for that. She’d known him since she was four years old and they still had the same circle of friends they’d had back then. Lissa, Shona, Paul and Rick. They’d met in kindergarten and moved through school together as a tight-knit group until university had finally forced them to take separate paths. Paul and Rick had got together almost immediately and now ran the bookshop in the village. Sara and Patrick had lived together and then married a few years later. Lissa now had her own interior design business and was based in London, but she’d renovated a cottage in the village and came down once a month for “respite” as she called it, and also to see friends and her younger brother Miles, the vet. Lissa threw stylish dinner parties, with elegant food and extravagant flower displays courtesy of Shona, who was a florist. Shona mostly handled weddings and large events and traveled a great deal, but every three months the six of them got together no matter what and caught up on life. Lissa provided the food and the elegance, Shona the flowers, Sara and Patrick the wine, and Paul and Rick were the entertainment. They kept everyone supplied with their favorite books, and Sara knew for a fact that the closest Shona got to “Christmas shopping” was sending a list of people, ages and interests through to Paul and Rick. They chose an appropriate book, gift wrapped it and delivered the whole box back to Shona to mail. Since she was on that list, Sara had started dropping hints to Paul about the book she’d like from Shona. Which reminded her, she still needed to do that.
“Have you given Paul your book hint this year?”
“No. But I saw a book on volcanoes reviewed last week. Thought it looked interesting.” He scooped up his plate and studied the toast. “This is an architectural masterpiece. I want to eat the door, but if I eat the door how are we going to get into the house?”
Ava gave a gurgle of laughter. “It’s just toast, silly.”
Patrick studied it and shook his head. “It’s a house. It has windows, chimney, doors.”
“You have to eat the whole thing.”
“I do? Well, if you insist.” He bit into the house and Sara rolled her eyes.
“Send me the link for that book and I’ll send it to Paul. I’ve fixed a date for our next get-together, by the way.”
“Good.”
“I still can’t believe I cut your toast up.”
“No worries. Ava was given a toast house, so I deserve one too. It’s called equality.” He leaned across and kissed her. “It’s great, although next time could I have a castle with battlements? Or maybe a toast yacht?”
“Go and sit down.” She gave him a gentle push. “You’re lucky I made your toast.”
“I know. But I made you strong coffee, so that makes you lucky too.” He carried his plate to the table and sat with the girls. “You were saying something about Christmas trees.”
“We should get one at the weekend. Make a trip of it, like we usually do. Forest. Hot chocolate.” She sipped her coffee, inhaling the smell. “What do you think?”
“Why would you want a tree? You don’t like Christmas.” He winked at her as Ava gasped.
“Mummy loves Christmas.”
“Does she?” Patrick bit into a toast window. “I didn’t know that.”
“You do know that.” Ava frowned at him. “She decorates everywhere, and she makes a big cake and she cuts all that green stuff from the garden and wraps it around the stairs. And she puts lights everywhere. We make Christmas cards, we do paintings and make decorations and we count how many sleeps there are. She reads us Christmas books and we have twinkly lights at bath time.”
“That sounds like altogether too much fun,” Patrick said. “But if we’re going to Nanna’s for Christmas, perhaps we don’t need our own tree this year.”
Sara shook her head, smiling. “Patrick—”
“We’re not having a tree?” Ava’s lip wobbled and Iris put her toast down and patted her hand.
“We are having a tree,” she said. “Daddy is just joking.”
“I don’t get it. Why is that funny?”
“He’s teasing us.”
“Nine going on ninety,” Patrick murmured and finished his toast. “Iris is right. I’m joking. We’re going to get the biggest tree in the forest. So big that we’re going to need a ladder to put Iris’s fairy on top. And I know Mummy loves Christmas. It’s one of the reasons I married her.”
Ava sprang up and hugged him and Iris smiled quietly.
Sara felt a glow of contentment. She did love Christmas. For a good few years that hadn’t been the case. After her father’s stroke and the dark days that followed, the emphasis on family had been bittersweet. But so many years had passed and she’d taught herself to compartmentalize. She ignored the bad memories and focused on the happy ones. And she had many happy ones.
Patrick had proposed to her at Christmas. She’d discovered she was pregnant with Iris at Christmas. And children had given her the excuse she’d needed to indulge her own love of the festive season. The truth was she wanted to enjoy Christmas. She made an active choice to enjoy it and ignored any feelings that threatened to dampen that enjoyment.
Patrick checked the time and stood up. “Time to move or we’ll be late. Ava? Teeth.”
She bared them at him and growled like a tiger.
“Great. Now go and clean them.”
Ava ran off and Iris picked up the breakfast plates and carefully loaded them into the dishwasher.
“Thank you.” Sara gave her a hug. “Don’t forget to take your project in today.”
“It’s already in my bag.” Iris followed her sister out of the room and Patrick raised his eyebrows.
“The arctic project is finished?”
“It’s done.”
“No more drawing polar bears?”
“You have drawn your last polar bear. The next time you see those bears will be at parents’ evening in a week. They are having an exhibition of all the projects.”
“Hers is the best.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t think you’re biased?”
“No. Did you see how hard she worked on it? She gives everything her all.”
“I know.”
He put his plate on top of the dishwasher, caught her eye and loaded it inside instead. “So now tell me what’s wrong. Is this still about your mother?”
“She still punishes herself, and I hate it. Even after all these years, she still thinks it was all her fault.”
“Maybe that’s part of being a parent. I suppose it’s natural to ask yourself what you could have done differently.”
“Maybe, but I also think there’s a point where you have to accept that your children are individuals. You can raise them with all the right values, but you’re not responsible for their choices.” She stopped herself. “Let’s not talk about it. You know I hate talking about it. I’ve learned to lock it in a box that I never open. I wish my mother could do the same.”
“It’s the time of year, you know that. She always finds this time of year difficult.” Patrick’s phone rang, but he ignored it and tugged Sara into his arms.
“You should answer that.”
“It can wait.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I hate the fact that she feels guilty. It actually makes me angry that she blames herself.”
“I know. You feel helpless and you want to fix it, but you can’t, honey.” He rested his chin on top of her head. “Remember that there are plenty of good things in her life. For a start she has you. And you’re pretty great.”
“Pretty great?” She lifted her head to look at him. “I’m more than pretty great.”
“You are. You’re certainly great at making toast houses.” He trailed his fingers over her cheek. “Is there something more? Tell me.”
She sighed and rested her hand on his chest. Part of her didn’t want to bother him with her anxieties, but another part of her needed his reassurance.
“She makes me worry about the girls. She’s always asking how they’re doing, if they’re getting on well, if they have good friends. And I know why, of course, but it makes me jumpy. I find myself analyzing everything they do and say.” She felt a rush of frustration. “It makes me wonder if I need to visit all their friends’ houses spontaneously just to check things out. It makes me wonder if I’m doing enough as a mother.”
“We do visit all their friends’ houses.” As always, Patrick was calm and logical. “This is a village. We know almost everyone.”
“I know. But still—”
“Just because something bad happens once, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again.”
“I know that too. I didn’t say any of this was rational. But it’s how she has made me feel.”
“I know.” He stroked a strand of hair away from her face. “We’re going to do what we’ve always done. We’re going to be the best parents we can be to the girls. We’re going to pay attention and make sure they know they can talk to us about anything. We’re going to keep talking to each other. Keep checking in. We’re going to encourage them to look out for each other. And it’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be okay.”
She knew he believed that, and she loved that about him. He looked for the good. Expected the best. And she was grateful for it. She needed that.
Patrick didn’t do what she did and wait with her breath held for life to crumble in her hands. He didn’t touch wood or wear a lucky snowflake charm or look desperately for a second magpie when just one was perched outside the window.
He pulled her closer. “I do know that. I mean, look at us. And look how great our friends are. There aren’t many people who have known their friends since before they could tie their own shoelaces.”
“I know. And I want the girls to have that. I want them to have what we had. Good people in their lives who know them well and love them.”
“They have that. The girls have great friends. They’re lucky.”
It was true, for the moment at least. But luck, as she knew, could change. And sometimes there was nothing you could do about that.