Chapter Nine
The next few days passed in a blur of work, sleep and Christmas preparation.
It was a little late to be putting up the tree, but Maddie and her parents had been busy with preparations for the retreat, planning their travels and learning how to take care of Pigglesworth Snortimer, so a haphazard and rushed effort was all they could manage this year.
They left a few branches bare for Benjamin to decorate, much to his delight.
Maddie and James found some time one afternoon after school to make paper streamers with him, which he insisted should be wrapped around the banister.
He made a paper star at school on the Friday before he broke up, which he placed ceremoniously on top of the tree a mere five days before Christmas.
That same day, Pip came home for the holidays.
He barrelled through the front door ahead of his parents, screaming Maddie’s name.
She was painting the skirting board in the hallway between the kitchen and living room with James.
Stevie Licks jumped up from her spot in front of the radiator — where she could snooze and keep an eye on them both — and shot off towards the kitchen, barking as she went.
Pip let out an excited little squeal and a barrage of baby-talk, which clearly sent Stevie into a wagging frenzy.
They could hear her tail hitting the walls and the clicking of her claws on the floor as she circled this new person excitedly.
Since she’d been spending so much time with the Whittles, she was so much better at being without James.
It was as though she now knew that her human would always come back to her.
It made James happy. Maddie smiled at him.
She had warned him that Pip was a bundle of energy, but she wasn’t sure he’d understood just what an extrovert her brother was.
Pip bellowed so loudly that James started and almost dropped his paintbrush.
“We’re in here,” Maddie shouted. Pip stalked through the kitchen and into the hallway, holding his arms open for her to run into.
She put down her paintbrush and complied.
Pip swung her around several times, squeezing her tightly to his tall, slender frame.
Maddie loved her entire family, but she absolutely adored her little brother.
Because they had both been so busy — Maddie with the retreat and Pip with work — it had been almost three months since she had last seen him.
That was part of the reason he’d taken extended leave over Christmas, so he could spend some proper time with his sister and help her with retreat preparations.
Maddie was as grateful for the promise of quality time as she was for the offer of help.
She was fairly sure Pip’s existence had saved her from years of feeling like an outcast. Just as Ben was not Bowie’s, Marley’s or Bluebell’s father, Emma was not Maddie’s biological mother, and she’d felt some pretty big feelings when she’d found that out at the tender age of six — though she hardly ever thought about it now.
Because Emma’s biological children were so close in age and not technically her real brothers and sister, Maddie had felt suddenly very separate from them — until Pip had come along when she was nine.
Her older step siblings had never once treated her differently, or ever referred to her as anything other than their sister, nevertheless, there was something unhealthy there, inside her head.
It had caused her to act strangely. She was old enough now and had done enough work on herself to know that she’d felt rejected by her biological mother as a child and had tried to protect herself from pain by ‘othering’ herself in case Emma decided to leave her too, and take her children with her.
She had never understood how Bowie, Marley and Bluebell had avoided this feeling.
Their biological father had disappeared from their lives never to be heard from again, and they had just accepted it.
They never spoke of him. Never felt rejected by him.
The only time Maddie had ever heard them mention their dad was when Marley once referred to him as a ‘sperm donor’.
“Now that I’m a dad myself, I’ll never understand how that sperm donor could just walk away from his kids and never look back,” he’d said. “I doubt he even knows Bowie is dead.”
For three years after she’d found out Emma was not her ‘real’ mother, Maddie had struggled to find her place in their family, but when Pip had come along, suddenly, there was a little baby brother tying her to these people so much more than her dad’s marriage to Emma.
A living, breathing human being. He was her brother and he was their brother.
They were finally biologically linked. Pip solved everything, and Maddie adored him for it.
They didn’t speak as much these days, as Pip was so busy in London, but she was utterly devoted to him.
“I’ve missed you so much.” He wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her completely.
Maddie squeezed him tight. Pip looked as good as he always did, and Maddie, who had always been proud of her brother, felt even prouder of him today.
She felt a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. In just a few days, Bluebell would be home, too.
Nothing made her happier than having her family all together.
She gently pushed him away so she could get a better look at him, holding him at arm’s length.
He posed comically for her, grinning. “I’m just the same as always,” he said.
She hugged him again. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
He gave her one last big squish. “Me too, babes.” She could tell from his stance and the change in the tone of his voice that he’d spotted James behind her.
She couldn’t remember whether or not she’d told Pip about James.
She was sure she must have, but so much had been going on lately, it was entirely plausible she hadn’t.
“Hi,” James said, setting down his paintbrush and holding his hand out for Pip to shake. “I’m James.”
“Pip,” Pip said, turning to Maddie and raising his eyebrows suggestively. Maddie rolled her eyes and biffed him. James glanced between the two of them, confused.
“Ignore him, James, he’s a tease,” Maddie said, heading for the kitchen. James and Pip followed her dutifully, as she’d known they would.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” James said.
That was entirely true. Maddie had told James all about Pip.
James knew that her little brother was communications manager for an LGBTQ+ rights organisation based in London, a campaigner for the Green Party, a civil rights protestor, a social butterfly and all-round good guy.
She knew he was seriously considering pursuing a career in politics, something he’d joked about for a really long time.
As he’d grown older, his skills in communications and kind heart had led many people to remark that he’d manage candidacy well, but Pip wasn’t so sure.
He wanted it more than anything, but he’d confessed to having seen a different side to himself after Bowie died and when Marley and Autumn had admitted what they’d done to him.
Pip had experienced thoughts dark enough that he wasn’t so sure he was a good person at all anymore.
“I’ve heard absolutely nothing at all about you,” Pip remarked.
Maddie took two wine glasses out of the cupboard and raised a third towards James in place of a question.
It was not simply ‘would you like a glass of wine?’ it was also ‘are you staying over?’.
Recently, James had fallen into the habit of drinking with the Whittles in the evenings and making use of the bedroom they had given him, usually because he was too tipsy to walk in a manner that reassured Emma he and Stevie would be safe on dark and slippery winter roads.
He thought about it and nodded. Maddie was glad.
Pip watched the exchange, then continued, “I’m very disappointed in you, Madison,” he said.
“I didn’t know your name was Madison,” James remarked.
“Did you think it was Madeline?” Pip asked. James nodded. “A common misconception.”
“Nobody calls me Madison.” Maddie sliced the plastic cover from the top of the bottle with a kitchen knife and flicked it at Pip. He caught it, grinning mischievously. “And they never will.”
Pip scoffed and made James laugh. “It suits her, don’t you think?” Pip asked.
“Pip,” Maddie warned him. Madison was her biological mother’s surname.
Julianne Madison and Ben Whittle had not been married when Maddie was born, so they’d named her Madison Whittle so that her name was an amalgamation of both of theirs.
Pip knew Maddie was technically his half-sister, but he did not know where her moniker had come from, he thought she just hated the name.
If she didn’t nip this in the bud now, he’d call her it all winter.
He stuck out his bottom lip and murmured an apology.
Maddie forgave him immediately, handing him a glass of red wine.
“Where did Mum and Dad go?” she asked her little brother.
“To take my bags upstairs, I think,” he said. Maddie slowly shook her head. “I told them to leave them. It’s not my fault.”
It was an ongoing joke between Maddie and her siblings that Pip was the favourite child.
Because he was the youngest and had been a complete surprise, everything had always been done for him, especially by Bowie and Marley, who were fifteen when he was born and had thoroughly enjoyed having a baby brother.
The three boys had been exceedingly close, so Bowie’s death and Marley’s betrayal devastated him.
His brothers had spent Pip’s entire life preventing him from experiencing a single ounce of angst, only to cause him more pain and torment than anyone else ever had, albeit for very different reasons.