Chapter Thirty-One
Thirty-one
It was finally here, the day Harriet had been dreading, even more than putting on a play in front of the entire town. Christmas Day. And now that she was in it, she found she didn’t mind it all.
She had begun her morning early with a hot, deep bath heady with exquisite English rose bath oil and slathered herself afterward in the matching body butter; had there been anyone around to hug her she would have swished out of their embrace like a garden-scented soap bar.
When she was dressed—in her very favorite navy blue tunic dress with deep pockets and favorite cardigans one and two—she unboxed the orange-and-cinnamon candles and lit them in the sitting room. Then she warmed up a plate of raspberry-and-dark-chocolate rugelach that she’d stashed in the freezer after Josef’s Hanukkah feast and ate them for breakfast, feet up on the coffee table, a giant mug of coffee beside them while a black-and-white Alastair Sim Scrooged it up on the TV.
By eleven o’clock, the smallest turkey she could find—which would still feed her for a week—was stuffed and smothered in streaky bacon, butter, and sprigs of thyme. She covered it over with foil and had just slipped it into the oven when her phone rang with a FaceTime.
“Merry Christmas!” blared out when she answered it as Emma, Pete, and their three kids all yelled at once. Emma’s hair was a bird’s nest and all of them were still in their pajamas.
Harriet laughed. “Merry Christmas to you too!”
“Now you’ve proved that you can do Christmas all by your own self, will you please get your arse over here?” Emma begged. “I’ll come and get you.”
“She hasn’t hit the booze yet,” Pete chimed in. “But the clock is ticking.”
Emma elbowed him out of the frame only for Taylor to muscle in.
“Harriet, please don’t leave us here with Mum’s cooking!”
“Taylor! You traitor, what’s wrong with my cooking?” Emma addressed her daughter.
“It’s fine for everyday, but it’s not Christmas-worthy, not like Harriet’s. Harriet uses goose fat for the roast potatoes, you put yours in the air fryer.”
“Harriet, we miss you!” called Phoebe from under a blanket on the sofa.
“Yeah, come on, Harriet,” added Jordan. “It’s bad enough Maisy’s not here without you splitting the family up.”
“I’ll be with you all day tomorrow.” Harriet managed to get a word in edgewise.
“It’s not the same, we always have Christmas together!” whined Phoebe.
Emma put her face up close to the screen. “Can I come over to you, then? I’ll leave this lot here, just let me come, as your faithful bestie.”
“If Mum ditches to go to Harriet’s, I’m going too!” shouted Taylor.
“Nobody’s ditching Christmas!” Pete called jovially, pouring himself a glass of Buck’s fizz. “You’re all stuck here for the duration, mwahahahaha!”
A small pang of longing tugged inside Harriet’s chest, which she acknowledged and then quieted. She needed this day to be hers alone. What had started as a glorified sulk had morphed into something she had planned for and looked forward to. Next year, like all the years before, and probably forever after, she would do the big family Christmas, with or without Maisy. But this Christmas Day was her gift to herself, and she deserved every moment of it to be her own version of perfection.
“Seriously, though.” Emma cocked her head to one side. “If you want to join us, any time of the day, just get in a taxi and come on over.”
“Thanks, Em. But I won’t. I think I really need this.”
Her friend smiled at her. “I think you do too. Enjoy your day and we’ll catch up tomorrow. I love you.”
“I love you too.” It was a good feeling, to know that she was loved enough that she could be alone and never be lonely.
A loud unharmonious chorus went up of “We love you, Harriet!” from her family on the screen. “And your goose-fat roast potatoes!” yelled Taylor.
Harriet laughed when Emma’s face loomed up close again and whispered, “Give me strength!” before the screen went black and the call ended.
She looked with satisfaction at her neat piles of vegetables for one, ready to be prepped—plus extra for bubble and squeak to go with the leftovers, of course—and got to work.
At midday, just as she’d tipped the parboiled potatoes, hissing and spitting, into a tray of hot goose fat, her phone rang again. She pressed answer as she slid the tray into the hot oven.
Hic —“Merry”— sniff —“Christmas”— sob —“Mum.”
Harriet looked into the red-rimmed eyes of her daughter, a messy bun piled on top of her head and the collar of her Rudolph pajamas just visible in the frame. Her heart squeezed like someone was using it as a stress ball.
“Maisy, sweetheart, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Another sob escaped. “I just miss you. I miss everyone. I think this was a terrible mistake.”
“Oh, my darling girl, I thought you were having a wonderful time.”
Already her brain was calculating how much it would cost to get her daughter home on Christmas Day from upstate New York.
“I am,” she sniffed. “I’m having the best time. It’s amazing here.” Another huge tear rolled down her flushed cheek. “But I woke up this morning, and you weren’t here. And Savannah and her family are great, and they’ve been so kind to me, but they aren’t my family and I miss you, Mum, and it hurts, it hurts really bad. I feel like I can’t breathe, and I’ve left you all alone, and you won’t go to Dad and Emma’s, and it’s all my fault for being so selfish.”
“Okay, let’s just calm it down, shall we? Now I want you to take some deep, calming breaths for me. Can you do that?”
“Uh-huh.” Maisy sniffed again but did as she was told and began to take deep, shaky breaths in and out.
“That’s great, my love, now you keep breathing and I’ll do some talking. All right?”
“All right.”
Harriet could hear her breathing calming already.
“This is simply a spot of homesickness, nothing more, and it will pass, my love, I promise. It’s okay to miss your family, that’s completely normal. You’ll have loads more years to spend Christmas with us. But this might be your only chance to spend Christmas in a cabin in the mountains. How amazing! And I miss you too, my darling, of course I do, but you’ll be home soon enough, and I’m having a gorgeous Christmas, I promise, so don’t waste your time thinking about me when you need to soak up every fabulous moment with Savannah. My love is wide enough to reach all the way to New York and back again, Maisy my darling.”
“But. You’re all. Alone,” Maisy hiccupped.
“I am choosing to be by myself today because I want to be. But I’m not lonely. I am spending some quality time with me. I’ve never done that before. I am on my own personal journey this Christmas.”
Maisy laughed snottily. “You sound like a self-help book.”
“I do a bit, don’t I?”
“Don’t enjoy yourself too much, or you won’t want me back next Christmas.”
“Oh, there will always be room for you in my Christmases.”
“Thanks, Mum. Sorry I blubbed.”
Her voice was still a bit shaky, but Harriet could tell that the storm had mostly passed.
“You don’t need to apologize. Now, what are your plans today?”
Maisy blew her nose. “Um, well, after presents, we’ve got a champagne breakfast. Then we’re going to walk down to this little hotel that’s got an ice rink on a lake, and we’ll do skating and have drinks and dinner and then come back for candlelit fondue and Christmas movies.”
“Eugh! That sounds awful. No wonder you miss me.”
That made Maisy laugh. “I love you, Mum.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. Will you be okay now?”
A big sniff. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Call me later?”
“I will. I’ll call you before you go to bed.”
“Okay, love. Merry Christmas! Have the best day ever!”
“Merry Christmas, Mum.”
The call ended, and Harriet had a little sob into one of her Christmas tea towels, but it was only brief, and in another moment, she was back to basting her parsnips.
By four p.m., she was nodding off on the sofa, the remnants of a most delicious dinner cleared away and the dishes drying on the drainer.
She had eaten her three-course dinner—pan-fried scallops to start, full turkey dinner with all the trimmings for main, and Christmas pudding with brandy butter and clotted cream ice cream for dessert—on a tray, on the sofa, with her feet up and Die Hard 2 on the TV. She had never before eaten Christmas dinner in front of the telly.
Today had been decadent: decadent because she had permitted herself to accept that she, Harriet Smith, all by herself, was worthy of good things. Next year, bedlam would reign once again as their two households collided, and maybe James would even join them. Maybe. She had no expectations on that front, she was simply happy to see where life might lead them.
But today she had celebrated her own Christmas, just for herself, and it had been good.