Chapter 19
SARAH
Sarah went over to her mum’s side. ‘Mum…’ She put a hand on the small of Chrissie’s back. ‘Mum…’
Chrissie didn’t look at her when she frowned and asked, ‘Do you remember if she had a scarf?’
‘A scarf?’
‘Meg… when she left Jonathan’s, did she have a scarf? Some layers?’ She kept her focus on the swirling snow beyond the window. ‘If she’s stuck out there, she should cover her face with a scarf, so it warms the air she’s breathing in. Dad taught us about that when we moved here.’
‘I think she had a neck gaiter on.’ Sarah was sure about that. ‘It was a bright pink too, easy to spot against the snow.’
‘Even better. That should work.’ She spoke almost robotically, like she was on autopilot. ‘She’ll dehydrate quickly out there, you know.’
‘Why don’t we go and make a cup of tea?’ She led her mum out of the lounge and into the kitchen. The last thing Grumps and Nanna needed to hear was all the dangers that were going through Chrissie’s mind right now.
She opened the tin with the teabags and dropped one into each of the four mugs Chrissie set out on the counter.
She found some gingerbread stars Nanna had made and put those next to some shortbread on a plate.
The platter with the cheeses had long gone, but it had been a while since Jonathan left, and the emergency services had been called.
As the kettle rumbled to a boil, she turned to see Chrissie looking out of the kitchen window now instead of the one at the far end of the lounge.
Over the years, Sarah couldn’t remember any time where her mum had needed her.
It had always been the other way round. Even when her mum was sick with a winter bug, or when she was stressed at work, she’d just carried everything on her shoulders and got on with it.
But perhaps part of what she needed to learn was that she could lean on other people and not have it all one-sided.
When Sarah joined her at the window, Chrissie said, ‘One year Meg and I built an igloo. Did you know that?’
‘I didn’t.’
She was looking outside as if she could see the igloo now.
‘Dad helped us, but it was mostly our hard work. We’d never had as much snow in England, and it was all part of the adventure.
The igloo stayed up for days. We could even go inside.
You’d think that anything made of snow would be cold, but it wasn’t.
We’d crawl inside and out of the wind, and it felt warm.
We took thick mats to sit on so we didn’t lose body heat.
’ Her voice caught as her nostalgia turned to panic and she covered her mouth as her lips began to wobble for the first time since Sarah had come back down the stairs.
Sarah put an arm around her mum, shushed her, and hugged her.
It still looked more menacing outside than beautiful.
The wind hadn’t yet died down and you couldn’t even see the foot of the garden.
‘They’ll find her, you know.’ She thought of the sound of Rhys’s voice reassuring her that Meg would be okay.
Rhys, considering her and her family, even when he was worried about their relationship and their wedding that was supposed to be happening in ten days’ time.
‘What if they don’t?’ her mum asked. ‘The last thing she’ll remember is that I told her I hadn’t ever wanted to see her again.
That was how I felt for a really long time.
I had all this anger balled up inside me, and you know, part of the anger is still that I lost your dad.
I think over the years it was easier to direct all of it at Meg than let myself fall apart in a heap with grief. ’
‘You have always been strong.’
‘Strong and stubborn.’ She wiped at a tear which strayed down her cheek. ‘Meg reached out to me enough times, but I didn’t want to know, I didn’t trust that she wouldn’t hurt me again in some way. And I’ve had enough of being hurt.’
‘Let me take Nanna and Grumps the tea and biscuits and I’ll come right back. Okay?’ When her mum nodded, she filled two mugs, topped them with milk, added sugar and took them into the lounge.
Grumps was watching the phone, waiting for it to ring. Nanna apologised that she hadn’t been the one to sort the tea and biscuits.
‘I can’t sit here feeling so useless,’ said Nanna, who was always better busy in the kitchen.
Sarah got down on her haunches. ‘You’re not useless.’ And she tilted a head towards Grumps.
Nanna nodded and moved closer to her husband. Her husband needed her right now and this wasn’t the time to hide behind cooking or looking after everyone else, even if it helped.
She left her grandparents and went back to where her mum hadn’t moved an inch from her spot, looking out of the back window in the kitchen.
‘Mum, have a biscuit,’ Sarah urged.
‘No, I’m not hungry.’
‘You have to eat something.’
Chrissie turned briefly and smiled. ‘I’m still full from the cheese.’
‘Actually, so am I.’ She stood next to her mum. ‘Should I go and see if Jonathan has come back yet?’
‘No, he’ll come here, I’m sure. Or he’ll call. Don’t go outside, Sarah.’
‘Okay.’ It felt like a good time to share something about her dad with her mum, if only to take her mind off Meg. ‘Jonathan told me about him and Dad making the sledge. It sounds like they worked well together.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘I like hearing about Dad from someone else.’
‘I’m glad. Jonathan is a good man, by the sounds of it. He must be to offer up a room to Meg.’ She looked across at Sarah. ‘I mean nothing mean-spirited by that comment, I promise you.’
‘I know that, Mum. You don’t have to tell me.’
She paused. ‘You and Meg seem to get on well.’
‘Mum—’
‘Again, I’m not saying it to be mean, or jealous. I’m merely making an observation.’
‘We went to a chocolate shop in town one day.’
‘Not the place where she used to work?’ She smiled.
‘We ate a lot of chocolate.’
Chrissie laughed. ‘I’ll bet you did. Some things never change.’
‘I think Meg probably has.’
Chrissie looked at her daughter. ‘Maybe she has.’
Sarah grappled with the right words. ‘Mum, you fix everything for me, or at least you try to. What I don’t understand is why you don’t seem to want to jump in and fix whatever happened between you and Auntie Meg.’
‘I struggled to believe she’d changed. But I did try to talk to her – once, after your dad’s funeral, at the wake.
And… well, it didn’t end quite how I expected.
That day I saw the Meg I knew, the Meg I remembered, the Meg who wasn’t the girl my sister once was.
That was it for me. That day she made things even worse. ’
‘What did she do that was so awful?’
‘It’s complicated, Sarah.’
‘But is it? Is it still complicated? It’s been a long time.’
Chrissie smiled. ‘Now who’s trying to fix things?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
‘Meg has always been strong, done things her way, and apart from the risk of getting hurt again I really didn’t think she could ever change enough to make a difference.
It sounds like I was terrible, unfair, but it was a way of protecting myself.
My parents… well, I know they’ve always wished we could work through things.
But I kept my armour on, I never took it off.
‘When I saw Meg outside the chalet yesterday, with you, I thought for a moment that your nanna and Grumps had set up the whole thing. But it was clear from their surprise that they hadn’t.
They haven’t interfered for a very long time.
They stopped trying to push me and I expect they did the same with Meg. ’
‘Meg said the same thing.’
Chrissie looked across at her, her fingers looped through the handle of her mug, the cold outside still as dramatic as it had been when they first realised Meg was missing.
‘I know Dad had a really good friend with two sons and those sons had a falling out, and then the whole family dynamic broke down. Dad’s friend hasn’t seen either son for years.
I suspect they never wanted that to happen to them. ’
‘It wouldn’t though, would it?’
Chrissie shook her head. ‘Definitely not. But they know that growing up wasn’t the easiest for me and Meg. I suppose somewhere along the way they thought the best way was to stay neutral. I’m not sure I could’ve done that if I were them.’
‘No way, you like to interfere too much.’ She grinned. ‘Do you think part of the problem is that you and Meg are similar? You’re both stubborn. Like Grumps.’
Chrissie thought about it. ‘Maybe.’
‘You should’ve heard Grumps and Nanna last night.
He was saying they needed the electric blanket on the bed but Nanna suggested they wait because it really wasn’t getting that much colder.
He got it out anyway, plugged it in to check it still worked, and no matter how many times Nanna suggested they wait and save on electricity, he was still up the stairs, laying it on the bed. ’
‘Sounds like Dad. What did your nanna do?’
‘She shook her head, muttered that man. I don’t think she realised I could hear.’ She liked that the lightness of the conversation brought a gentle look to her mum’s face, if only for a moment.
Chrissie asked Sarah, ‘Do you know why Meg has come here? It’s a bit odd, because according to your grandparents she never came for Christmas because there was too much to do at work.’
‘All I heard is that she wanted to take time out before a busy January at the chocolaterie.’
‘She sounds like she still loves the world of chocolate.’
Sarah smiled. ‘She makes very good chocolates, I know that much.’
‘She sure does.’
Sarah wasn’t sure how her next question would be received, but she still went ahead and asked, ‘Do you want to talk about what happened with Auntie Meg? I know you haven’t before and I know it must be complicated.
But I felt better when I talked to you about Rhys, even though I never had before. Maybe I can help.’
Her mum ran a hand across the top of her hair as if she was a little girl again. ‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Meg told me she found it harder than you did to move around all the time with Grumps’s job.’
It was an opener Chrissie would usually use to close down the conversation, but unexpectedly this time she began to talk.
‘Meg struggled with the moving around, whether it was a different house or a new school, or another bunch of peers to try to gel with. It wasn’t always easy for me.
In fact, there were times I got distressed about it, but mostly from my view it wasn’t the changes that it came with – it was missing Dad so much it almost caused me physical pain.
I hated him not being at home, I worried he wouldn’t come back to us, that something would happen.
And when we realised our mum, your nanna, worried all the time too, Meg and I kept it to ourselves.
We probably shouldn’t have. We should’ve talked to her. ’
‘Is that why you always asked me how I was feeling when Dad was away?’
‘Yes.’ Chrissie’s voice came out softly.
‘I needed to keep you talking. You didn’t have a sibling to turn to.
We always thought we’d have more children, but it just didn’t happen for us.
You had friends but I knew that didn’t replace having someone in the family to talk to, so I tried to be your mum, your dad when Anthony was away and then when he died. And I also tried to be your friend.’
‘My Meg in a way.’
Her remark made Chrissie smile. ‘I hated how much you were hurting when you lost your dad. I remembered how I’d felt as a girl, wondering whether my dad would come home safe. And yours hadn’t. It was the one and only time I wondered whether your Auntie Meg actually had a point.’
‘What do you mean?’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Meg told me I shouldn’t get married.’
‘Because there was a risk of getting hurt?’
‘Yes, and I know there’s no guarantee for anyone, but she somehow only saw history repeating itself. She knew I wanted children and she tried to talk me out of ever having to go through what Mum did or put my family through what we’d had to deal with.’
‘And that’s why you don’t talk? Because she didn’t approve of Dad?’
‘Kind of.’
She waited. She knew there would be more.
And her mum told her everything. How Meg had come to the wedding, stood up in front of the congregation and made her feelings known. She told her how Meg had ruined the reception by crashing into the table with the cake on top. And then she told her about her dad’s wake and what she did there.
Sarah stood beside her mum at the window in shock. Auntie Meg seemed nothing like the person her mum was describing.
‘This is the part where you tell me it’s been long enough,’ said Chrissie, ‘that it’s time we put the past where it belongs.’
When she leaned against her mum, she felt an arm wrap around her and the warmth of a hug as she said, ‘That’s up to you isn’t it?’
Sarah only hoped they’d get the chance to talk, because after all these years it sounded as though perhaps her mum realised how she might feel if she lost Meg for good.
As the snow and the wind continued to do their worst beyond the window, making the chalet shudder with unfamiliar noises, Sarah hoped beyond anything that Meg was okay. That she would be found.
And soon.