‘I know. It’s huge – it’ll be a lot of work. But she also has a massive budget,’ Lucy says soberly. ‘You and I both know, that makes a difference.’
That evening, after tidying the kitchen, I put a load of washing on; think back briefly to that interlude when Ryan was sober. If he’d stayed sober, would our lives have worked out differently? Yours, mine and Ollie’s? If you hadn’t had to live through that most unpredictable of rollercoasters, the relentlessly twisting ride you couldn’t get off between inebriation and sobriety, forced to weather each lurch, each sucker-punch moment your stomach plummeted?
I should have done what I’d fought against doing and left him so much sooner. I swallow down my anger. Remember how we were. You, Ollie and me, moving into our own little place up a quiet street somewhere Ryan couldn’t touch us. Where for the first time, we started to believe we were safe.
And for a while, we were. But nothing lasts.
12
NOW
Dear Lexie,
I’ve become used to you and Ollie leading your own lives. But Christmas is a time that’s always drawn you back. It isn’t going to be the same this year! Funny, given the thought I put into it, that for all kinds of reasons, as you grew older, you weren’t a fan of Christmas. But while I was focused on everything I loved about it, for you, it shone the spotlight on your troubled brother and drunk father; the mother who did her best that was never enough.
I can’t see what the fuss is about, Mum. It’s just one day.
I tried to explain to you that it was a time of bringing family together.
I know. But Dad gets plastered and has a go at Ollie. I just get mad at him. You try and keep everyone happy – but you always know, whatever you do, you can’t.
You’d summed us up perfectly; I didn’t know what to say to you.
Christmas is always one of the busiest times of year for a florist and as another one approaches, Petals’ workshop is crammed with the seasonal amaryllis and narcissi I’ve grown; with newly cut stems of holly, the scents of eucalyptus and blue spruce, as Lucy and I work around the clock.
It’s also the time of year we get our most off-the-street customers, wanting a few stems to decorate a table or a fireplace. Despite the seasonally inflated prices of what we buy in, Lucy and I have a core principle – no order is too small; there are times a single flower can make a difference. So, too, can a little kindness.
A week before Christmas, a girl comes in. She picks up one of our ready-made table decorations and brings it over to pay.
‘Twenty pounds please.’ I wrap it in crunchy paper and tie a ribbon around it.
There’s something familiar about her as she gets out her purse, her face turning red when she sees it’s empty. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she falters. ‘I don’t know where my money is.’
Then I realise there’s something about her that reminds me of you. Her eyes are haunted, a hundred thoughts filling my mind that someone has stolen her money, an alcoholic parent coming to mind. She doesn’t look like a chancer. Or maybe she’s just an ordinary girl who’s down on her luck for some reason.
Once, I wouldn’t have done this. But I know what you would have done. I pass the flower arrangement to her. ‘It’s on the house,’ I say quietly.
‘I can’t.’ She looks taken aback.
‘Please.’ I smile at her. ‘Take it. Happy Christmas.’
‘Nice one,’ Lucy says quietly after the girl has gone. She frowns at me. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’ But something about the girl has got to me; left me with the strangest feeling. It comes to me that maybe it’s shades of how you used to feel. Your recognition that we never know what’s going on in someone’s life; that in the same way, there are things going on in this world that we are powerless to change.
‘Are you seeing Ollie over Christmas?’ Lucy asks.
‘Yes. I’m going over on Christmas Day.’
‘And Ryan?’
‘I’m not sure if he’s doing anything. I’ll probably drop some food in to him at some point.’ I am still in the middle of the drunk ex-husband and a son who refuses to have anything to do with him.
‘This is Ryan’s doing,’ Lucy reminds me. ‘If he even tried to deal with his issues, I know you’d be the first to support him.’
‘I know.’ I try to smile. ‘It’s just that with it being Christmas…’
‘It’s an emotive time.’ Lucy sounds sympathetic.
