Chapter 16 #2
Chrissie sniffed. ‘May I see your photographs from Jungfraujoch?’ She didn’t miss the hesitation before Sarah went to get her phone from her coat pocket. She came back to the sofa. ‘I expect to see Meg in them, don’t worry.’
Sarah passed her unlocked phone to her mum.
Chrissie went through the pictures. The scenery was jaw-dropping, thrilling, and she remembered some of it.
What she had totally forgotten was Meg’s smile.
Meg, her sister, the woman she’d all but lost from her life, staring back at her in this picture with a smile Chrissie hadn’t seen in years.
Meg’s whole face had come alive, and Chrissie realised she looked happy.
A howling wind had them both look up.
‘It’s a whiteout,’ said Sarah, looking out of the window. ‘Grumps loves it when it’s like this, cars covered and houses almost buried, snow swirling up everywhere.’
Chrissie went over to the window and shivered, despite the warmth coming from the roaring fire. ‘It’s magical out there, but really dangerous. I worry about Mum and Dad when they get weather like this.’
‘They’ve been here long enough to know what they’re doing. And remember Grumps’s obsession with the avalanche bulletin.’
‘That’s true. They wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.’
‘Plus, they have Jonathan looking out for them too.’
Chrissie nodded. ‘He is very kind. And you’re doing some work for him.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But the job wasn’t arranged before you came.’ She looked to her right where Sarah stood next to her. ‘Mum told me how it came about.’
Sarah went and sat back down on the sofa.
She toyed with the sleeve of the jumper Chrissie had bought her last winter – red with a white snowflake design.
‘I lied about the work so it would make more sense that I came now, as a favour to Grumps, but I didn’t lie about needing to see Grumps and Nanna.
Them not being at my wedding… well, it’s a big thing for me. ’
‘I know it is, for me too.’ She paused. ‘Were you struggling to know what to do for Christmas as well?’
Sarah nodded the same way she’d done as a kid if she had to confess something, like the time she and one of her friends used Chrissie’s make-up on their Girl’s World styling head and pretty much ruined the whole lot. ‘Me and you have Christmas together every year. And I always love it.’
‘But now you have Rhys.’
‘I hated the thought of leaving you on your own. And I wasn’t sure how comfortable I’d feel in Northumberland, even though his family are lovely.’
‘They are nice.’
‘Yes, but there are so many of them.’
Chrissie laughed and put an arm around her daughter. ‘Bit different to our Christmases for two.’
‘Do you think I’ll fit in with his life, Mum?’
‘What? Are you really worrying about that?’
‘I am.’
‘You’re already living together. Getting married changes things, but maybe he will have to fit in with your life too.’
If only she could say the right thing, do the right thing, and magic away Sarah’s worries, but she couldn’t, and she shouldn’t.
Holding back didn’t come naturally to her, because ever since Sarah was born, she would’ve done anything for her daughter.
And that had ramped up after Anthony died.
But Chrissie knew she had already put enough doubt in her daughter’s mind, and the last thing she wanted to do now was to create more panic.
She had to tread carefully. Perhaps part of parenting was knowing when the right time was to step back.
Instead of asking specifics, putting words in Sarah’s mouth or offering up a ton of advice that might make her daughter feel suffocated, she asked, ‘What’s your biggest concern at the moment?’
Sarah took a deep breath. ‘I’m worried that Rhys is so much older than I am.
’ She added, ‘Maybe it wouldn’t matter if I was thirty and he was thirty-seven, but at twenty it feels sometimes like I’m in a different place to where he is.
I love him, he loves me, but should I be focusing on work for a while and going out with friends, having fun, being a bit wild, before I settle down?
Rhys is comfortable when he’s around big groups, he knows what to say, he knows how to read a wine list. He wears suits and can charm people.
I wear scruffs to work, I prefer the local chippy to a swish restaurant, and I don’t love being in a big group. ’
‘Those are differences. But opposites often attract. I know it’s cliché, but they do.’
‘What if Rhys wakes up one day and realises I’m not the one, that I’m too immature, that I don’t fit in?’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘The speed this is all happening is making me stressed, the enormity of it too. The guest list makes my eyes water.’
Chrissie agreed. ‘It’s a big guest list.’
‘You know Maggie at work?’
‘Oh yes. Didn’t she get married recently?’
‘She did. And she had cold feet more than once. Kind of similar reasons, or perhaps opposite reasons to the ones I just said. Her husband was a farmer but gave it all up to come to Oxfordshire and live with Maggie. She was convinced he would wake up one day, miss his old life and leave her and their baby.’
Chrissie gasped. ‘Maggie is pregnant?’