Chapter 18 #2
I was responsible, after all. It was my suggestion to open up that bag, wading through tricky memories I had no clue about and no idea how to navigate.
Edith looked up, face stoic. Once again, she reminded me of my own big sister. As I left the room, she mumbled, ‘She’ll be under her bed. That’s where she always goes.’
It took less than a minute to coax Bonnie out. More than anything, she needed a cuddle. She knew what she’d done was wrong but couldn’t realistically comprehend what it meant to lose something so precious.
I felt devastated, a complete failure. How could I let this happen?
How on earth could I begin to explain it to Will?
This was another excellent reason to not have friends or get involved with other people’s lives.
I’d been so sure about the inevitability of other people letting me down, yet here I was, doing the same to someone else on a scale so awful I felt sick.
Four lovely someones, who had lost a wife and a mother, and now because of me getting carried away at playing ‘fun babysitter’, they’d lost an irreplaceable memory of her, too.
I made three hot chocolates, chopped a yule log into giant slices, figured out how to play Christmas music through the fancy wall speakers and after Bonnie had squeaked a mournful apology to her sister, persuaded Edith to move from the floor to a chair while Bonnie and I sat on the sofa.
I was fully prepared for this to be the last time I hung out with this family, sure that even if Will forgave me, he wouldn’t be able to trust me.
However, as a Fixer, I would do what I could to make it, while not right, as least as not-wrong as possible.
‘Tell me about the blanket,’ I asked Edith, after a few moments of quiet.
Edith blew out a long sigh. ‘When Jordan was a baby, Mum made this special blanket out of lots of different squares. They were all Christmas things, like a tree and a robin, or a stocking, but she used it all the time, not just at Christmas. If she was ill, or tired, or we were sad or anything, she’d say, “Let’s find the blanket,” and we’d all curl up under it, then she’d get us to choose a square, and we would make up stories about it.
’ She finally managed a small smile. ‘I liked the penguin best. Jordan used to say penguins had nothing to do with Christmas, they don’t even live in the North Pole, but Mum would say, “Oh, no, Jordan. Didn’t you know, these are special Christmas penguins?
” Then she’d tell a story about how penguins would have to pull the sleigh when the reindeers got flu.
Or how a lonely penguin ended up living with Santa and becoming his favourite elf, after my best friend decided she didn’t want to play with me any more.
It became like a thing, me picking the penguin and Jordan pretending to moan about it. ’
‘I wonder if Bonnie would like to hear one of those stories,’ I dared to suggest.
Bonnie sat up so eagerly, she spilt her hot chocolate.
When Will and Jordan came home, the two girls were lost in a new story about penguins, polar bears and two sisters who only had tatty old decorations for Christmas, so an elf came and helped them make some new ones.
‘I’m guessing it went well?’ Will asked, his silvery eyes crinkling as he leaned against the doorframe.
Once he had expressed suitably enthusiastic praise for the decorations, he sent the girls to go and investigate the huge takeaway pizza Jordan had proudly borne into the kitchen, the reward for beating the escape room.
I then told Will how it had gone well, until it hadn’t, blinking back tears as I explained about the blanket square ending up in the fire and bracing myself for his reaction.
‘Let me show you something.’
I followed Will down the hallway to a locked room at the end – his workshop. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with boxes, tubs and tools, a worktable in the centre and, below the large window, a bench laden with equipment.
Will took a plastic box down from a top shelf. Opening the lid, he showed me a stack of quilt squares inside.
‘The blanket was massive. Since Edith threw up on one before I had a chance to encase it in the resin, Jordan dropped one finished casting down the stairs and a couple of other mishaps I’ve forgotten, we’ve got at least thirty squares left.’
‘Will you make a new bauble out of another one? Edith said the penguin square is her favourite.’
‘Which is why that’s already encased in an epoxy resin snow-globe and safely stashed in her bedroom where Bonnie can’t reach it. All of them have one.’
‘She could have told me that. Spared me feeling even more of a failure than when I announced my loserness to the entire planet.’
‘Yeah. Edith hates the thought of any feelings going spare.’
I swallowed, hard. Today had been a lot. The past week, even more.
‘If you want to stay for some pizza, I’ll show you how all this works once Bonnie’s in bed.’
I sucked in a shaky breath. A part of me was tempted.
I was genuinely interested in Will’s art and even more interested in Will.
However, a much bigger portion was on the brink of disintegrating into a full-on emotional mess.
I’d carefully crafted a life where I was in control, self-contained, the only major stressor my family.
I was not equipped for this kind of pressure.
Holding two little hearts in my clumsy hands for the past three hours had wiped me out.
‘I’d best get back. I’ve loads of stuff to do for Tucker’s, and need to call my sister.’
Lacey had phoned that afternoon without leaving a message.
I found Ernest waiting hopefully underneath the table for a stray scrap of pizza and got us both ready to go.
‘Thank you so much, though. For the past few days.’
Will held open the front door for me. ‘Uh, thank you. I haven’t seen Jordan that happy in… so long it’s shameful. The girls have clearly enjoyed themselves, despite – or, probably including – the dramatics. And look at the house!’
‘Did Jordan share anything about the black eye?’
He shook his head. ‘No. But if we keep working on things, it might make it easier to tell me another time.’ Will paused, eyes growing serious.
‘Honestly, it’s hard to explain the pressure of widowed-Dad Christmassing.
Today has meant more to me than I can say.
I only hope we haven’t put you off ever coming back. ’
‘Well, I can’t say you didn’t warn me,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘It was 90 per cent lovely.’
‘And you handled the other ten like a pro. A pro fixer.’
For a second, we stood there, smiling at each other in the doorway. Okay, it was a lot of seconds. A breath-stealing, heart-fluttering, dreamy-eyed load of seconds.
‘Oh, whaaaaaat?’ A screech pierced the hallway. ‘Please tell me Bonnie wasn’t right. If I’m forced to see my dad kissing, I will literally barf on this floor right here. That is the most disgusting, rank, repulsive… Ugh. I am genuinely traumatised right now.’
‘Bye Edith!’ I called as cheerily as I could manage, then tugged on my dog’s lead and hightailed it to my car.