Page 53 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

After a while, she was tempted to get up and jump about to stay warm but that wouldn’t conserve the energy she needed to survive, so she huddled up some more.

She suddenly remembered something about keeping her circulation going so she wiggled her fingers, clapped her hands, flexed her arms.

It was getting even colder. And now it was getting dark. She’d been out for hours. How had that happened? She felt like she’d only just sat down. She’d lost all sense of time.

Should she get up again, try to stagger her way out of this mess?

She wanted to go back to her family.

She wanted to see Chrissie. To see Sarah.

She wanted to be at Jonathan’s chalet. She didn’t want to be here any more.

Her head bobbed so deeply it woke her up. She could barely keep her eyes open, and it was difficult to stay awake now. Her body was burning a lot of energy just trying to stay warm and there wasn’t a lot left for anything else.

Would anyone be looking for her?

Probably not. Jonathan would assume she was with her family; her parents would think she was with Jonathan.

Every time she saw Chrissie’s face, not the one that despised her, but the sister she’d grown up with, she was determined to stay awake.

But she couldn’t. It was impossible. And as her eyes closed yet again, she felt herself succumb to sleep.

19

SARAH

Sarah went over to her mum’s side. ‘Mum…’ She put a hand on the small of Chrissie’s back. ‘Mum…’

Chrissie didn’t look at her when she frowned and asked, ‘Do you remember if she had a scarf?’

‘A scarf?’

‘Meg… when she left Jonathan’s, did she have a scarf? Some layers?’ She kept her focus on the swirling snow beyond the window. ‘If she’s stuck out there, she should cover her face with a scarf, so it warms the air she’s breathing in. Dad taught us about that when we moved here.’

‘I think she had a neck gaiter on.’ Sarah was sure about that. ‘It was a bright pink too, easy to spot against the snow.’

‘Even better. That should work.’ She spoke almost robotically, like she was on autopilot. ‘She’ll dehydrate quickly out there, you know.’

‘Why don’t we go and make a cup of tea?’ She led her mum out of the lounge and into the kitchen. The last thing Grumps and Nanna needed to hear was all the dangers that were going through Chrissie’s mind right now.

She opened the tin with the teabags and dropped one into each of the four mugs Chrissie set out on the counter. She found some gingerbread stars Nanna had made and put those next to some shortbread on a plate. The platter with the cheeses had long gone, but it had been a while since Jonathan left, and the emergency services had been called.

As the kettle rumbled to a boil, she turned to see Chrissie looking out of the kitchen window now instead of the one at the far end of the lounge.

Over the years, Sarah couldn’t remember any time where her mum had needed her. It had always been the other way round. Even when her mum was sick with a winter bug, or when she was stressed at work, she’d just carried everything on her shoulders and got on with it. But perhaps part of what she needed to learn was that she could lean on other people and not have it all one-sided.

When Sarah joined her at the window, Chrissie said, ‘One year Meg and I built an igloo. Did you know that?’

‘I didn’t.’

She was looking outside as if she could see the igloo now. ‘Dad helped us, but it was mostly our hard work. We’d never had as much snow in England, and it was all part of the adventure. The igloo stayed up for days. We could even go inside. You’d think that anything made of snow would be cold, but it wasn’t. We’d crawl inside and out of the wind, and it felt warm. We took thick mats to sit on so we didn’t lose body heat.’ Her voice caught as her nostalgia turned to panic and she covered her mouth as her lips began to wobble for the first time since Sarah had come back down the stairs.

Sarah put an arm around her mum, shushed her, and hugged her. It still looked more menacing outside than beautiful. The wind hadn’t yet died down and you couldn’t even see the foot of the garden. ‘They’ll find her, you know.’ She thought of the sound of Rhys’s voice reassuring her that Meg would be okay. Rhys, considering her and her family, even when he was worried about their relationship and their wedding that was supposed to be happening in ten days’ time.

‘What if they don’t?’ her mum asked. ‘The last thing she’ll remember is that I told her I hadn’t ever wanted to see her again. That was how I felt for a really long time. I had all this anger balled up inside me, and you know, part of the anger is still that I lost your dad. I think over the years it was easier to direct all of it at Meg than let myself fall apart in a heap with grief.’

‘You have always been strong.’