EPILOGUE #2
‘No flicking horseradish into his eye with a spoon,’ I warned, pointedly reminding Megan of her previous Christmas with her ex, which had been much less amicable than this one.
‘That was Alfie,’ she insisted. It was not.
Simon was suitably red-faced and flustered, straining Brussels sprouts while also closing the oven door with his foot and balancing a jug of gravy with his spare hand.
‘Let me take that,’ Megan said, taking the jug before it spilled. Denise flew in instantly to claim it and place it on the table, all the while jabbering away to her beloved grandson from across the house.
Our home was a cacophonous bundle of noise and I was loving it.
In a moment of peace before the Yorkshires were due to be finished, I leaned into Simon’s chest, and he wrapped his arm around me to savour the moment, but just at that moment the oven beeped.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ he said, returning to his worker-bee status as the doorbell went for a final time.
‘Do you want to get it?’ I asked Simon, but he shook his head as the steam of the oven blasted in his face.
‘Tell him I’ll be out in a minute.’
Opening the door, Michael Holland stood awkwardly. Even after countless lunches, phone calls, and the occasional FaceTime, he still failed to loosen up, always appearing like he was about to grill you on the political nature of your decisions or shout about something unimportant.
It was a very bad case of resting bitch face, but I had grown to enjoy it.
Clearing his throat, he thrust a stunning bouquet of red tulips at my face. They were copious in number and clearly very expensive. ‘My favourite. Thank you, Michael,’ I said, moving aside to let him in.
He stepped in cautiously, dropping a few gift bags on the floor before he started to remove his coat.
‘You can just leave it on the banister,’ I said, gesturing to the other coats that had become mountainous with everyone’s arrival. ‘We haven’t got the hooks on the wall yet,’ I clarified.
Michael said nothing.
‘Michael!’ Bob said, entering the hallway and offering his hand. ‘It’s lovely to see you again.’
Michael shook Bob’s hand, though he looked as if he had no idea who the hell he was.
‘I’m Bob,’ he reminded him. ‘The Man City fan.’
‘This is my dad,’ I said over him – not wanting to get onto football before Michael had even had so much as a cup of tea.
‘My dad,’ I said warningly, re-using the term I had become more comfortable with using after returning to my childhood home in Kent for the first time since I was eighteen.
For over a year, I lived with Bob and Denise, as Simon and I developed our relationship and I started my new job in White City.
And in that year my love for them became so strong I asked the question if I could call them Mum and Dad for the first time.
And their response was tears and tea. Which was a very British way of saying yes, while being unable to speak due to tears and strangled emotion.
I’d barely been home, too wrapped up in the bubble of first real love, but the time I did stay with them again was precious and changed our relationship only for the better.
‘He’ll show you where you’re sitting,’ I told Michael.
Who muttered, ‘Of course,’ his tone softening, mostly from embarrassment. ‘Lead the way.’ I let them go but distinctly heard Michael lean over and add in an undertone: ‘What do you think of Pep’s latest midfielder?’
‘Now we’re talking!’ Bob slapped him on the back jovially, though he was distinctly shorter than Michael. It was like Danny Dyer inviting Stephen Fry in for a pint.
‘Dad,’ Simon said, suddenly appearing, tea towel in hand, as he wiped condensation off his wrists. Michael seemed to stand to attention, stepping forward and offering his hand for a shake. Simon looked at it, scoffed and reached forward, embracing his father before Michael could protest.
It was the briefest of embraces but it was done, and it broke the tension like a Christmas cracker being pulled.
‘Do you need help with anything?’ Michael offered.
‘I could do with someone serving up the potatoes,’ Simon said, immediately walking back into the kitchen grateful for the help. Michael rolled up his sleeves and got to work, while Bob wrapped an arm around my shoulders and smiled warmly at me.
‘All’s well that ends well,’ he whispered.
‘It took some time,’ I said, thinking back to the many nights when Simon had raged at his father’s lack of emotional ability and then to the days when he actually began to smile when he saw his dad was calling him on the phone.
But something had changed in recent months; the odd coffee became a regular habit, and Michael even figured out how to use emojis, though he still signed off every text with ‘Michael’, as if he thought his son might forget who it was.
‘If you two ever decide to get married,’ he once began, while Simon was in the toilet during one of our post-work dinners.
I very nearly choked on my tiramisu. He politely ignored the fleck of coffee cream now soaking into his shirt sleeve and added, without missing a beat, ‘Don’t sit me next to Pim Hardcastle. ’
It was a wise request, and one I was slightly tempted to ignore if marriage was ever part of our future.
It probably was, I thought deliciously that evening, my mind suddenly awash with fantasies and daydreams about what I’d like to do: a winter wonderland theme, with all of Simon’s busker friends as our replacement string quartet, lots of glitter, and maybe even a wedding-cake race, with a themed-costume contest at the reception!
It would be an amazing day. If it ever happened. For now, a family Christmas was my daydream-come-true.
Sitting down at the Christmas table, surrounded by our family, arguing over the last of the roast potatoes and Yorkshires, it took me a moment to remember that not that long ago I thought that none of this would have ever been possible.
A family, a full life, roots.
Now, I looked at the tableau of faces from my parents-in-all-but-legal-status and my beloved nephew to Jack-Jack the yappy family pet, to a screen featuring Josh and Leo, the hunky Santa on FaceTime.
Not a face was out of place and, for the first time, it felt as if not a face was missing.
Over lunch, conversation flowed easily. Denise caught me up on her new piano lessons: ‘I still sound like a toddler smashing their fists on the keys, but I have fun,’ and Simon and Bob got into an intense debate about whether or not Die Hard was a Christmas film (it was).
‘I feel like I should be paying my life coach for more than just gossip about reality TV shows,’ Megan admitted between mouthfuls of trifle later in the evening.
Nearly everyone else had left the table to half-sit-half-lie on our makeshift seats and sofa.
‘How is the life coach?’ I asked her, keeping her company on the sofa.
‘He’s fine.’ She smirked, and I nudged her shoulder.
We wouldn’t discuss her latest beau with Alex still in the house, but I’d be sure to find the time later that evening.
Sure, it was a bit weird to be dating your life coach, but the two of them seemed to be making it work at a pace that was remarkably slower than Megan’s norm.
‘And the job?’ I asked. ‘That new CEO driving you mad?’
She rolled her eyes, so yes. ‘CEOs tend to get their positions through a lot of IOUs and this woman is the blatant example of that statement. I’ve never known someone to have so many fingers in so many pies.’
‘Except you, you mean.’ She had sold her business to a conglomerate and then gone to work with their competitor.
She wasn’t exactly fingerless, and she knew it.
She smiled proudly but authentically and it was uplifting to see her this way.
The Megan I knew and loved from childhood to adulthood.
She was returning to her true self after a few tough years.
‘I love you,’ I told her, because when else would I, if not Christmas Day?
‘Ditto.’
Later, while washing up in the kitchen as Denise and Megan tortured the men in the house by singing ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’ during BBC’s annual showing of The Sound of Music, Simon nudged me in the ribs lightly.
‘So did you complete your Christmas bucket list this year?’
I thought about it for a moment. ‘Mostly.’
‘Mostly?’ he repeated, confused.
‘We had mulled wine in Covent Garden, went to that carol concert, took part in the Santa run—’
‘My legs are still recovering from that, by the way.’ But he was very proud of the medal he received for it; it held pride of place with the trophy from our Great Christmas Pudding Race.
‘—and we went to a pantomime with Alfie.’
‘I will never forgive you for seating us in the front row.’ Yes, he would. He secretly loved being Dame Twinkie’s boyfriend for the entire show.
‘But there’s one thing left.’
Simon raised an eyebrow. ‘And that would be?’
I grinned, leaning up to whisper in his ear, soap suds dripping down my arm and onto the floor. ‘Your old Grinch costume is upstairs.’
He groaned. ‘Evie, no.’
‘Simon, yes.’
He laughed, blushing already, but I could sense the intrigue and desire in him. We were still as playful as we had been two years prior, and I was hoping that wouldn’t change for quite some time. He cleared his throat. ‘And what exactly will you be wearing?’
I reached up and tapped one of my bauble earrings, making it jingle. ‘Merry Christmas!’
Simon groaned again but he was smiling and, when he pulled me in for a kiss – slow, lingering, and warm – I knew without a doubt that this was exactly where I wanted to be.
Surrounded by love. Surrounded by family.
And, soon enough, surrounded by a very, very reluctant Grinch.