Chapter 29
When I’d found an isolated few minutes where I could trust my voice not to wobble, I called Lacey so we could share updates. Lacey started off.
‘Trudy Barnes came over. She was impressed with the changes to the house. And me. Said if I carry on in this direction, there’ll be no need for any further involvement if I’m not incarcerated.’
‘That’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you.’
‘I almost felt a bit proud of myself.’
I filled her in on my own meeting, how Trudy had poked about before giving me a good grilling.
‘She told me you’re planning on moving here if I get banged up,’ Lacey said once I’d finished.
‘Did she tell you she thinks it’s a terrible plan, me and the kids living with Mum and Dad?’
‘Don’t worry, I reminded her that no one needs to tell either of us how grim living with them is. But I agree with you. Moving the kids to a random new place, new schools and everything is going to make it all infinitely harder than dealing with Mum’s caustic comments.’
We chatted briefly about how Mum was doing.
Not great was the short answer. Lacey was trying not to worry about a situation she had tried and failed to get any control over.
It seemed Mum and Dad were determined to ignore how rapidly she was deteriorating until it reached a crisis point.
As much as we told each other there was nothing more we could do for a grown woman who refused our help, she was still our mother. Even if she’d rarely acted like one.
We agreed to leave it be and get back to focusing on things we could take responsibility for.
‘I’m wondering whether, if the worst happens—’ I said, before Lacey interrupted me.
‘You mean if I go to prison.’
‘I mean if you go to prison for more than a year or two.’
‘Damn, Alex. Kick a woman when she’s down, why don’t you?’
I pressed on, because I had to say this while I could squeeze the words out. ‘I think once the kids have got used to me, we could find a house near to school. Then, when you’re back, you can move straight in, and I’ll find somewhere else.’
‘How am I going to afford that? It’s not like I’ll be able to get a job any time soon.’
I took a deep breath. ‘If I sell up here, there’ll be enough to buy a decent three-bedroom house in Crandon, and a small place wherever I end up.’
‘You’ll buy me a house?’ My sister’s voice had gone flat. I could picture her face setting hard. A solid door of resentment slamming shut.
‘You can pay me rent, if that makes it easier for you to accept.’
‘Right. So my little sister offering to raise my children for the years she expects me to spend in prison, then buying a house for us so I get to pay her some token-gesture pity rent once I’m finally free, because, let’s face it, no one is queuing up to rent a house to an ex-con, is supposed to be easy to accept?
Please, Alexis, do tell me how any of this is in the same universe as easy?
When will you finally accept you cannot fix my effed-up life? ’
‘I’m talking worst-case scenario.’ My instinct was to back off, tell her to forget I’d ever said anything and submit to Lacey’s dominant will as usual.
But this was too important. This was four children.
And me. ‘If you let things go to trial, then get found guilty – and why wouldn’t you?
Whatever you tell Hana Pinter, however much we pay her, you are guilty – you will go to prison.
Please, Lacey, I am begging you, tell the truth.
Admit how sorry you are, that you were a desperate mother fighting for her kids.
Don’t risk this. Hana said it’s your best chance of avoiding jail. ’
I didn’t add that it was the right thing to do. All Lacey cared about was the right thing for her children.
‘But zero chance of avoiding a criminal record. How is that the best option for our future? When I’m applying for a job, a house, a credit card, no one is going to care that I was a “mother fighting for her kids”. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life relying on my sister to bail me out.’
Lacey sounded so much like Mum when she impersonated me, it turned my stomach.
‘All anyone will care about is that Lacey Nixon is a drug dealer. You know what it’s like to go through your childhood with the stigma of a convicted felon for a parent.
I won’t put my kids through that.’ To my distress, Lacey’s voice cracked with tears.
‘You know what, screw you, Alexis. This is the one thing I needed you to back me up on.’
She hung up.
The only thing I could think of to text her was how much I loved her, that I believed in her, and we would get through it all somehow.
My message sat there, unread.
Ernest and I arrived at Tucker’s first thing on Tuesday morning to find the café buzzing with activity. The ‘Christmas Eve Eve Friendship Dinner’, as Joel had named it, was tomorrow, and there was a lot to do.
The café itself looked almost ready to go. Even the tiny bathrooms had undergone a refurb, with more woodland wallpaper, a freshly laid lino floor and shiny new taps. I loved the local heather hand soap.
Samira had opted to make all the desserts when no one else was here.
Merry would then message her once it was time for them to be served, and she’d nip in, plate them up, then scoot off again.
That left Merry, Darya and Donovan peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, wrapping up pigs in blankets and sorting everything else needed for a traditional Christmas dinner.
Joel and Ray were setting tables, including Christmassy napkins and centrepiece snow globes that Will had made containing winter leaves and berries.
It was the perfect distraction, mixing Merry’s grandmother’s not-so-secret stuffing recipe while we all sang along to Joel’s festive playlist. A surprise addition to the café was an upright piano, which Donovan said one of his ex-students had donated, having realised they preferred listening to music than attempting to play it.
When we paused to eat the bulging pitta breads Samira had left us for lunch, Donovan treated us to his jazzed-up interpretation of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, and we joined in with gusto.
It was so invigorating (the word Darya then swiftly sent out for the advent challenge) that after watching Merry and Ray jiving together, when Joel held out his hands for me to dance, I readily twirled, whirled and had literally been swept right off and plonked back on my feet when a calm voice asked if he could cut in.
Joel’s slender hands were replaced with a pair of rougher, broad ones that sent a rush of heat sizzling through my whole body.
‘Hi.’ Will’s eyes crinkled in a smile as Donovan coincidentally switched to the far more romantic ‘White Christmas’.
‘I’m sorry about cancelling yesterday,’ I replied, catching sight of Joel now dancing with Darya and Bonnie petting Ernest as I struggled to meet Will’s gaze.
It felt wonderful, his steady hand resting against my lower back, the now familiar scent of sandalwood blended with a whisp of work chemicals.
It was everything I yearned for, so close I could lose myself in it, yet rapidly slipping out of reach.
After Trudy Barnes had left the day before, I’d obsessively scoured the internet for a suitable house in Crandon, in between fretting, getting an online valuation for my current house, full-on flipping out and trying to work out what I could afford.
I’d wasted yet more time conducting numerous conversations with my parents in my head, where I laid down the rules for us living together, the imaginary outcomes of which included them kicking me out, me kicking them out or even one disturbing scenario where Mum had a heart attack.
More pacing, second-guessing and checking my phone for the millionth time to see if Lacey had replied, and even if I had been in a fit state to see Will, because he’d surely help my lungs remember how to function properly, it was the school holidays and his children were home.
I couldn’t see them right now. I shouldn’t see them, because it was bad enough that Bonnie had already asked me to be Will’s girlfriend.
I mustn’t allow myself to get any more entangled in this family, when there was a solid chance I would have to rip myself away again.
‘I want to say it’s okay,’ Will said as we swayed back and forth in a ballroom hold. ‘But I hate that you’re shutting me out of this.’
I ducked my head, throat aching with words withheld.
‘Please let me help. Even if there’s nothing I can do except listen. I know you’ve spent your whole life dealing with problems alone, but I want to be there for you.’
‘I know,’ I said, looking up again so he could see how much I meant it.
‘And I appreciate that more than I can say. I will tell you, I promise. But not here, with everyone around, when we’ve so much to do.
I feel bad enough about leaving them in the lurch last week.
The best way you can help right now is let us enjoy our first dance together. ’
Will agreed, but his smile faded along with the sparkle in his eyes.
I was grateful that once Donovan had ended with a flourish and Merry ushered us back to work, we were too busy to think about anything other than Christmas Eve Eve Friendship Dinner logistics.
There were nineteen people booked in, as well as the usual group of Friends, and we were determined to make the event a triumph.
It was no longer about the grand reopening, hoping Tucker’s could turn around their lacklustre reputation.
There were nineteen people in Bigley who were brave enough to not only admit they would be alone on Christmas Day, but to entrust us to offer some comfort and joy.
Once we stacked the final tray of parsnips in the fridge, checked the to-do list one last time, flicked off the lights and said goodbye, every one of us was thrumming with nervous anticipation.