Page 21 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

She noticed how tired he looked. ‘Don’t apologise. You’re worried about Sarah, and Sarah comes first.’ She always had, particularly after they lost Anthony. Chrissie had had to be both Mum and Dad rolled into one and she’d constantly questioned whether she was doing things right.

‘Has she called you?’ Rhys asked Chrissie.

‘We’ve had a few text messages between us, but that’s it.’

‘Do you think she’s lying about the job over there?’

Chrissie hesitated because yes, she did.

He didn’t push for an answer. Perhaps he already knew anyway. ‘I don’t get it. You and she are close,’ he said. ‘Has she really not said anything to you about why she really went to Switzerland?’

‘I know she is still really sad that her grandparents can’t come to the wedding.’

‘I get that,’ he said.

She was still thinking about his comment that she and Sarah were close. He was right, they had been close once, but now she thought about it, Sarah had also been pulling away for a long time. Chrissie had talked to her mum about it over the last few years and her mum had told her what all the good-parenting books alluded to – her daughter was growing up, plain and simple. Astrid had also cited examples of her and Meg over the years, although Chrissie tended to move the conversation on whenever her sister’s name came up.

‘I think we have to try to leave her to it for now,’ said Chrissie. ‘Sarah tends to think things through in her own time. She’ll talk about it eventually, but she likes to get her head straight first. She’s always been that way.’

Rhys put his head in his hands. ‘I don’t want to make it harder for her by demanding answers. But how many fiancées go away right before Christmas, and for Christmas, and how many fiancées go away when their wedding is just around the corner?’ He looked directly at Chrissie as if she might know the truth. ‘Unless she’s changed her mind…’

Much as she’d doubted this union her heart went out to him. ‘She certainly hasn’t said that to me. And if she had changed her mind, I think she would tell you.’ Although she didn’t add that the answer might not come straight away, that if Sarah had changed her mind she’d be considering everything before she made a final decision. What she’d said about her daughter was true – Sarah usually wanted to get her own emotions and thoughts in order first. The sudden trip to Switzerland was an avoidance tactic, whether it was right or not. If she was here, then she’d be face-to-face with Rhys and have to deal with things. If she was away, she could have some time for herself before she dealt with whatever was bothering her.

Chrissie had been the same way after Anthony died. Her parents had desperately tried to get her to open up but she just couldn’t. She kept it all inside while she went through the motions as a single parent and tried to find work when she hadn’t had a job for years. Employment was one of the scariest parts of all because the moving around with the RAF had meant she’d never forged a career. Her work history was patchy at best, and whenever her parents had tried to talk about it, she’d got really stressed. In the end she’d joined an online Facebook group for mums returning to work after having kids, and another for women over forty trying to enter the workforce. From there she’d found other women who were either in or had been in a similar situation. She’d formed a plan, identified a career path, arranged training, applied for jobs. It had been a long time before she sorted herself out and made progress, and only then did she talk to her mum or dad about any of it.

Chrissie thought back to the hunt for a wedding venue, the folder of planning, the talk of Sarah’s big day with the dress, hair, make-up, invitations. She thought about Sarah’s face that day at the bridal boutique when she had another fitting for her wedding dress. Her daughter had some doubts, which was why Chrissie had asked Sarah again as she stood there in her bridal gown if she was sure about getting married. If she hadn’t picked up on Sarah’s worry, Chrissie would’ve kept her mouth shut for once.

Or perhaps she’d been wrong. Maybe she’d read doubt on her daughter’s face because that’s what she’d been hoping for. And if that was the case, this could easily be fixed.

‘Maybe she’s just overwhelmed with it all,’ she said to Rhys.

His shoulders dropped a little. ‘That’s what my mum said to me.’

‘You’ve told your mum what has happened?’ She hoped it didn’t turn his parents against Sarah or make them think she was treating him badly. If Chrissie was his mother, she would probably feel that way.

‘I had to talk to someone.’

She genuinely meant it when she said, ‘You can keep talking to me too.’ Rhys coming here, talking to her like this, had impressed her. All she’d seen when they got engaged was the rush, the threat to the stability Sarah had in her life, the need for Sarah to grow up a little bit before she rushed into this. Now she could see what her daughter meant to this man. He loved her deeply.

‘Mum told me that if Sarah was anything like she was as a bride-to-be, then she’d be nervous as anything.’ He allowed a small smile to escape. ‘She had a mini panic attack before she married Dad. Gran had to get her to breathe into a brown paper bag outside the church. It sounded like she didn’t want to marry Dad, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth.’

‘What brought on the panic?’

‘Mum said it was all a bit much, all the fuss, the attention.’

‘If you don’t mind me saying, your mum doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who would be bothered by any of that.’ When they’d looked at wedding venues his mum seemed confident, unfazed by a large wedding to be organised in a relatively short space of time.

‘She was eighteen when she married my dad. They’d only known each other six weeks.’

‘That’s very young to be getting married.’

‘It was. She had the panic attack and told me that once she’d calmed down her best friend had asked her if she was sure about getting married. Mum said in that moment she knew it was the right thing. But it had taken someone else asking her to clarify.’

She’d asked Sarah the same question at the wedding boutique and then the next thing she knew Sarah had gone off to Switzerland. Was that a bad sign?

‘Do you think Sarah is having second thoughts?’ Rhys asked.

‘I really can’t answer that question, Rhys.’