Chapter 3
CHRISSIE
Chrissie came back through to the reception at Chetbury House Surgery in the little village of Chetbury, Oxfordshire, where she’d been living for the last seven years.
She’d updated Doctor Harris after taking a call from one of his patients who needed a home visit and brought back a pumpkin spice latte for herself and one for her colleague and friend, Maria.
Maria gave her a heartfelt thank you and picked up her mug as Chrissie sipped the coffee, courtesy of the new fancy machine in the kitchen. ‘This is bliss. Whatever would we do without coffee?’
Chrissie laughed. It was the start of December, and they were on the cusp of cold and flu season as well as other winter bugs that might rear their ugly heads.
Being a doctor’s receptionist was hard work, something she hadn’t realised until she started the job.
After an intensive training course, she’d applied here and had been doing this for almost as long as she’d been living in Chetbury.
‘At least you’re not working over Christmas.’ Maria lifted her coffee cup in a cheers gesture and Chrissie met it with her own cup.
‘I was surprised to be given leave at the last minute. I know how crazy it gets around here.’ She’d put in for the holiday ages ago, but it was only confirmed that morning that she could take a whole month off spanning Christmas and the New Year.
She hadn’t fancied her chances of getting a yes to her request when she originally submitted it because reception still had to be covered between the three receptionists on the payroll, and all of them had families they wanted to spend time with.
She would’ve accepted just five days for Sarah’s wedding if she couldn’t get the full leave, but it seemed she was in luck. Kind of.
Now, Sarah had gone to Switzerland and Chrissie wondered whether she might end up cancelling her leave this side of Christmas and coming into work after all.
She’d had such big plans to spend December with Sarah, not only to ensure she was making the right decision about getting married, but to support her if she insisted the wedding would be going ahead.
She would’ve done anything to help out but it seemed her efforts so far had been damaging rather than helpful.
She kept saying the wrong thing, her good intentions making it worse.
‘You deserve it,’ said Maria interrupting her thoughts. ‘You’ve worked the last few years in a row. It’s about time.’
That was true. She usually worked right up until Christmas Eve. ‘Thank you.’
‘So, what are you going to do with yourself for an entire month?’
‘Watch movies, eat a lot of chocolate, drink mulled wine, then come Boxing Day have a massive panic that I won’t fit into my wedding outfit.
’ Perhaps the more she talked about Sarah’s wedding the more she’d get used to the idea, accept that it was happening.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Rhys, she did, but she was cautious about him.
He was older; Sarah was still just twenty, and no matter that Chrissie had married at the same age she didn’t want her daughter to miss out on being young.
Sarah should forge her own career and path, before decisions became joint and she might not always get what she wanted.
She’d never regretted marrying Anthony and the life she’d had with him, but she wanted Sarah to have everything she possibly could.
Maria handed Chrissie a file to put back into the cabinet on her side of the desk. ‘Your Sarah is going to be a beautiful bride.’
‘She really is.’
As a single parent Chrissie was always worried she wasn’t doing a good job, but she’d done things right with Sarah, hadn’t she? At least up until now.
Sarah had shared her reasons for going to Switzerland but was she really telling her everything? Chrissie doubted it. She suspected her daughter wasn’t entirely sure about the wedding, although she hadn’t said that. But the clues were there.
Not long after the engagement, Chrissie had driven her and Sarah up to see Rhys’s family.
It had been a long six-hour drive from Oxfordshire to Northumberland, and they’d stayed in a gorgeous B she always said she wanted to settle and never have the nomadic life again, and that was fine.
What wasn’t all right was when Chrissie met Anthony and Meg had declared what she thought of her sister marrying a man in the RAF and embarking on the same sort of life they’d had as girls.
And she’d picked one of the worst times to really voice her opinion.
She’d done it in public, in front of everyone they knew.
And Chrissie had never forgiven her for ruining her wedding.