Page 58 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

With no more argument she passed Jonathan downstairs. He obviously wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet. He was worried, and she knew that this wasn’t just a generous or kind neighbour. This was a man who had feelings for the woman upstairs. And the thought made her smile. She’d never met Grant but from the little her parents had said, given they didn’t talk about Meg much, he wasn’t exactly who they’d envisaged their daughter ending up with.

Everyone was in bed when she nipped inside her parents’ chalet and she quietly got what she needed.

Back at Jonathan’s she warmed the soup and lightly toasted the bread before spreading it thickly with butter.

Meg hadn’t fallen asleep and she looked more alert than before when Chrissie went back up to her bedroom. She settled the food in front of her on the bed tray table, and as Meg started on the soup she went to the window again. ‘I’m glad the blizzard stopped when it did.’

‘Me too.’

‘Dad was really worried about avalanche.’

‘So was I. In fact, I was terrified. I thought I heard a rumble when I was out there.’

‘Crazy how quickly conditions change.’ To look at it out there now, or at least what you could see from the lights coming from the downstairs of Jonathan’s chalet, you’d never know it could be so dangerous and cruel. The snow on the ground out back was smooth, untouched, and conjured up the happier memories of winter, the ones she’d pushed to the back of her mind thinking they’d bring pain rather than comfort.

Meg looked over at her. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me off for being irresponsible and causing no end of trouble?’ The soup made a trickling sound as it fell from the base of her spoon back into the bowl before she put it into her mouth.

She went over to the bed and sat down. ‘No, I’m not. Because that would make me a total bitch.’ As suspected, her comment made Meg not only smile but relax a bit, given the drop of her shoulders. ‘I didn’t sit here and wait for you to wake up, or fetch you food, just so I could have the pleasure of having a go at you.’

Meg finished her mouthful of toast. ‘It really was a mistake… My phone wasn’t charged, I didn’t think about the weather… I just wanted to walk and get some headspace.’

‘You always did that when you needed to think.’

‘Hard habit to break.’

Chrissie admitted, ‘I didn’t help matters when I showed up here, assuming you’d left, and then told you that I hadn’t ever wanted to see you again. I wish I hadn’t said that. If I hadn’t, perhaps you wouldn’t have gone outside without thinking about the consequences, maybe you would’ve turned back earlier if you weren’t so consumed with the way I’ve treated you.’

‘Probably.’

Now it was Chrissie’s turn to smile. ‘Finish your soup.’

As Meg ate she said, ‘I knew you didn’t ever want to see me again.’

‘That was the case for a long time.’

‘And now?’

Meg had finished and Chrissie set the tray down away from the bed. She pulled the chair closer to the bed.

‘You hurt me, Meg.’ The room was cosy and comforting, ready for the words she should’ve probably said to her sister a long time ago.

Over the years, one thing Chrissie had been thankful for was that Meg had never told anyone else why they were estranged. Or at least nobody who Chrissie knew. She’d wondered whether it was because Meg was too ashamed, but she also knew deep down that while Meg had done bad things, she hadn’t helped matters either. She’d refused to hear her sister out for so long. All the hurt she held inside had had nowhere to go when she lost Anthony. She’d almost reached out to her sister on the day of the wake, but seeing Meg disrespect the occasion by making out with Anthony’s former best man, she’d snapped, drawn a line under the relationship for good. Years later, after ignoring any attempt from Meg to reach out, Chrissie had heard from their parents that her sister had a great job at a really successful chocolaterie in London. Chrissie had been genuinely pleased for Meg, but it felt like too much had happened by then and so Chrissie drew a protective shell around herself. She threw herself into single parenting, making sure Sarah had everything she needed, and didn’t have to face unnecessary hurts, and her protection of Sarah included not bringing Meg into her life. Her sister might have found her way with her career, but who knew what the rest of her life was like and what she had or hadn’t shared with their parents.

‘I know I hurt you, Chrissie.’ Meg waited for Chrissie to meet her gaze. ‘I never stopped being sorry for the things I did and said, you know. I never once thought I was in the right, I never once thought any of it had been okay. There are reasons why I did the things I did, but none of them excuse my actions. All I could do was say sorry. But you ignored all my letters, phone calls and greeting cards. Mum and Dad didn’t want to get in the middle of our argument, and so, after a while, I decided the nicest thing I could do for you was to leave you alone.’

‘I was always scared you’d do something worse than you’d done already.’ Chrissie was tired but adrenaline pushed her on. She’d contemplated leaving this until the morning, but she’d decided if Meg woke up and was all right, then she didn’t want to waste any more time.

‘You know what I’m most sorry about?’ Meg asked. ‘I’m sorry I never got to know Anthony.’

Chrissie felt a burst of emotion. Hearing the words was unexpected and her heart both expanded with joy and contracted with the pain of what had never been.

Meg continued, ‘From what Mum and Dad have told me, and from what I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been able to get to know Sarah, he was a wonderful husband and father. And I never gave him a chance. You have no idea how much I regret that.’

‘He was a wonderful man.’

‘You fell in love so quickly.’ She leant back against the pillows. ‘I was worried about you when you first met him. I think I assumed you were all over the place in the same way I was, but I should’ve known you weren’t, I should’ve seen that. I was in a bad place back then. That didn’t help.’

‘I know you were. Your life in London was nothing like I expected.’