'Hey, Merri, are you okay?' Joining her in the courtyard, Felix came to a stop beside her and reached out, touching her arm.
'Sorry, I...' She shook her head. 'It was my mum's necklace. The snowflake pendant was my mum's and now it's gone.'
'I'm sure it'll turn up.' Felix spoke quietly but without conviction.
Shaking her head sadly, Merri searched her pockets for a tissue. 'No, if it was going to it would have done by now. Anything could have happened to it. It could have got muddled up with some rubbish somehow and thrown away, fallen down the sink back at the bakery or a drain here, or someone may simply have picked it up and decided to keep it.'
'We don’t know that. There's still every chance we could find it.' Felix pulled a tissue from his pocket and passed it across to her. 'I'm guessing it has sentimental value?'
Nodding, Merri dried her eyes. 'It was my mum's and it's the only thing I have... had of hers.'
'She's passed away? I'm so sorry to hear that. That must have been such an awful thing to go through.' Felix met her gaze.
Taking a shuddering breath, she blinked back fresh tears. 'I didn’t know her. there were complications when I was born, and the necklace was the only thing of hers I had. It's the only thing she gave me. Well, not gave but you know what I mean. besides my name.'
'She gave you your name?' Felix gave a small smile. 'It is a beautiful name.'
'Thanks. Short for Meredith but apparently my mum had always planned to nickname me Merri so that's what stuck.' She supposed she'd always have her name. No one could take that form her at least.
Rubbing his hands together, Felix gave a slow nod. 'Right, let's get this necklace found. We'll walk side by side because two pairs of eyes are always better than one and we'll walk the entire courtyard and pathway towards the car park. Does that sound like a plan?'
'Yes, it does. Thanks.' She smiled at him. They hadn’t even been on their first date and yet she'd already cried at him and now he was helping her look for her necklace. If this was what he was like before they were dating, she couldn’t wait to find out what he'd be like after they'd had their first date.
Chapter Eight
Forcing her eyes open, Merri rolled over and hit the snooze button silencing the blaring alarm. She'd have five more minutes of sleep before she got up to help Elsie with the mornings baking. Five more minutes.
She pulled the duvet over her head. After tossing and turning until the early hours, she’d finally accepted she wasn’t able to sleep and instead read until one int he morning before trying again. Every time she closed her eyes all she could see was an image of her mum's necklace, the snowflake pendant glinting front the sun’s rays as it lay abandoned in a dingy corner somewhere.
She still couldn’t understand how she'd lost it. No, that wasn’t true, she'd known the clasp was dodgy, she should have gotten it fixed. It had been on her list of things to do for months now, but she'd never imagined it would give out completely. The clasp only usually failed when it was tugged. Although her first day back here in the bakery it had fallen, hadn’t it? Whether it had got caught on the neckline of her jumper or not didn’t matter, that could have happened again this time, when it had fallen and she'd lost it.
Taking a deep breath in, she threw the covers back and jumped out of bed before she could snooze off again. She’d just have to get on with life today. However many times Elsie insisted she didn’t expect her volunteers to help first thing in the morning, it wasn’t fair on Elsie if she didn’t and, besides, she needed to keep busy. She needed to push losing the necklace tothe back of her mind or she'd be mulling it over every second of eery day and that wouldn’t be good either.
AS SHE WIPED A VACATEtable down, Merri fought back the urge to yawn. In a few minutes time she'd be going on her lunch break and the only place she was heading was up to the flat and straight to bed. Even if she could just grab a twenty-minute nap she knew she'd feel better.
'Mum, mum, that’s the lady who fixed my angel.'
Huh? Looking up, Merri grinned at Evie, the young girl whose willow angel she'd helped fix yesterday evening at the Christmas tree farm. 'Hello.'
Tugging on her mum's coat sleeve Evie pointed towards Merri. After paying for their purchases, both Evie and her mum, Hannah, walked over to where Merri was cleaning.
'Hello again, Evie wanted to come over and thank you again for helping yesterday.' Hannah smiled. 'She had Show and Tell this morning and everyone in class loved the angel, didn’t they Evie?'
Evie grinned as she stubbed the toe of her polished school shoe against the tiled floor. 'Yes.'
'Oh, that's lovely. I bet they all said how clever you were for making it.' Straightening her back, Merri folded the cloth and placed it on the table.
Nodding, Evie smiled.
'She told them all about the kind lady who had magically fixed her.' Hannah grinned. 'I'm glad we ran into you, I felt I rushed off last night without thanking you properly. you really did save us a lot of tears.'
'Aw, it was my pleasure. I'm glad it all worked out in the end.'
‘We're just on our way to a dentist's appointment hence buying lunch enroute as she'll be missing her lunch break.' Hannah held up a paper bag before slipping it into her handbag.
'I hope the dentists goes well. I bet you'll get a sticker to say how good you were there.' Merri grinned. She remembered as a child how much a sticker had meant to her. The tiny sticky bit of paper had had the power to make up for the pain of a filling or a scraped knee. She just wished that was all it would take to eliminate how guilty and bereft she was feeling knowing her mum's necklace was lost forever.
Evie tilted her head back and looked up at the Christmas tree next to the coffee and cake counter. 'That's very pretty.'
