“This year will be different then.”
I can’t look at her.
“There are presents for you under the tree. The have your name on and everything. Santa came.” She smiles up at me.
I respond back pulling her closer to me, kissing the top of her multicoloured hat out of which her blonde hair explodes.
“We should check on the horses. It’s going to freeze and the stable hands left early. The water will need redoing.” It’s the best I can do in acknowledgement and it’s pathetic.
Blair doesn’t press or make comment. She squeezes her hand into mine. “You’re right. We should.”
“You mind if we carry on?” Ivy says. “We want to head up to the top of Glen Rigg before the snow starts.”
There are reminders and warnings, Blair makes her check her phone for battery and there’s a plan to meet for mulled wine and whisky at seven, before dinner.
I think of last year, Christmas was in temperatures of more than forty degrees and December twenty-fourth was just a number and a name.
Not plans for three courses and watching the snow fall from safety. The only thing travelling across the sky were bullets.
We walk back along the path, the loch catching the moonlight as it ripples onto the stony shores. There’s talk of Christmas, supper tonight and Hogmanay next week. Where we’ll be.
The talk includes me.
I’ll be there, with them, taking part. Included.
A traitor in their midst because I’m the grenade and my sister could make me explode at any point.
The stables are locked up, the barns sealed. I unlock the stables first, hearing the whinnying and neighing from the horses as they greet us. Blair doesn’t waste time, she goes to each one, whispering words and offering them a treat of a carrot or apple.
“The waters look fine,” Isaac says. He looks at me, as if remembering what happened the last time we were in here.
It’s too cold tonight for a repeat. I can see my breath against the air, the breath of the horses as I walk passed them.
“In the new year we should take them out for a longer ride, like me and Lennox used to.” Blair pulls back on the gloves she’d taken off while she fussed the animals. “Get some fresh air, especially if we’re cooped up while it snows.”
“We can do that.” I hear a hollowness in the words that Blair doesn’t pick up on.
But Isaac does. I see him watching me, his face half in the shadows, studying.
“The three of us.” She looks from me to Isaac. “Before we all have to go back to the day jobs, although I suppose Ben’s never stops. You must get sick of everything being about me.” She says it with a laugh but I know she means it. I’m paid to look after her, keep her safe, but I’d do it anyway.
I promised.
“It isn’t just about you. It’s the idiots who make the threats.”
She gives me a grateful look and smiles. “I hate being the centre of so much attention. The focus is unbearable some days. I don’t know how Lennox and my father coped with it.”
“They always knew it was what would happen. It isn’t something you’ve had to prepare yourself for.” Isaac stands closer to her, but doesn’t touch.
He never initiates touch. He always waits to be invited and I don’t know how it makes me feel.
We haven’t talked about feelings. I was never sure I had any.
“Let’s go back in and get warm. Find the mulled wine.” She hugs herself, looking cold.
We follow her in, the courtyard glinting on the ground. For tonight and tomorrow I’m going to try to forget what came before and what might come after. I don’t have a crystal ball or a set of cards that can tell me the future.
I’m not my aunt.
