Page 112 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘It happened to me, before I met Joe,’ Mum said matter-of-factly, as if it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken about Anneka’s dad in many, many years.

Anneka immediately sat bolt upright. ‘You never told me this, Mum.’

‘Well, I assumed you wouldn’t want to know that I’d been in love with someone else before your dad.’ Mum shifted herself into a slightly more vertical position, crunching her shoulders one by one, as if resetting her body after its hospital trauma.

‘Maybe not when I was a kid, no. But I’m in my forties now; I think I can handle it.’

‘Can you tell us what happened?’ I asked, also sitting up. We shuffled around so we were all sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other, like the world’s weirdest girly sleepover, the muted TV the only source of light.

Mum shrugged. ‘There’s not that much to tell. I met someone at the shoe shop where I worked when I was seventeen, we fell in love and were due to get married about a year later. But a fortnight before the wedding, he just… disappeared. He quit his job, left his flat. I was heartbroken. My mum reckoned he was living a double life, said she never really trusted him. Not that she’d ever bothered to share her misgivings with me before he vanished. But it was that very heartbreak that led me to Joe.’

Anneka and I glanced at each other. She’d never spoken about this part of her life before – nor had she ever mentioned her mum. I could tell Anneka wanted to keep the conversation going as much as me, but we’d have to tread carefully.

‘How did you meet Dad, Mum? You’ve never told me anything beyond the fact he was your milkman.’ Anneka clutched a pillow to her chest.

Mum smiled, wistfully. ‘Well, after my ex upped and left, I found it impossible to sleep, and I often used to sit in the living room with the curtains open, just staring at the sky. I started waving to Joe and his dad when they did their early morning milk rounds. Then Joe took over the round by himself, and I found myself getting up early just so I could see him, even though my insomnia had passed. And then, on Christmas Eve, I swung open the front door just as he was posting a Fudge bar and a Christmas card through the letterbox for me and asked him to take me out on New Year’s Eve. The rest, as they say, is history.’

Anneka hugged the pillow tight, as if letting it go would somehow disrupt this unprecedented flow of revelatory conversation. ‘That’s why he used to give you Fudge bars every Christmas.’

‘Yes, Christmas was always a special time for us after that.’

My mouth dropped open. ‘So you only started hating Christmas after Joe died?’

‘I don’t hate Christmas, Flora. It just felt too hard without him.’ She dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her pyjama top and I squeezed her knee.

‘Thanks for telling us this, Mum. It’s such a nice story,’ Anneka said, still hugging the pillow.

‘Yeah, shame my own parents didn’t see it that way.’

‘Because he was Black.’ Anneka spoke the words as a statement, not a question, still stroking the pillow and not looking up from it.

Had they ever spoken about this before? Or had Anneka put the pieces together herself about our fractured family history? I had to presume it was the latter if Mum’s emotional unavailability to me was anything to go by – up until this moment, this conversational territory was a no-go zone.

Mum nodded grimly. ‘Bingo. Dad was furious, and Mum just went along with him. Eventually, they gave me an ultimatum. It was the easiest choice I ever made.’

Anneka discarded the pillow and hugged Mum, instead.

‘So that’s why you cut ties with them?’ I asked, leaning my head on Mum’s shoulder. I’d never been told why I’d never met my maternal grandparents. I did know that Joe’s parents had both passed away before Anneka had even been born. But I’d been brought up to never question why our family didn’t extend beyond the three of us – it had always been the Bells versus the world.

‘I think it’s more accurate to say they cut ties with me,’ Mum replied.

‘Are they still alive, Mum?’ I asked.

‘No, love, they’re not. I went to both their funerals when Anneka was very little. They did leave me some money, though, which I never touched – until now.’

‘For this trip?’ I whispered, eyebrows raised.

Mum nodded and Anneka gasped. ‘Mum! You told me you won on a scratchcard!’

‘I did!’ she said. ‘It was just… a fiver, not five thousand.’

After a beat of silence, the three of us burst into laughter, which had nothing to do with hilarity but everything to do with relief and release about everything today had thrown at us. As the endorphins surged through my system, and all Mum’s revelations settled in my soul, it felt like my brain was rewiring itself. I’d always known Mum had had a rough time when Joe died, but now I understood that she’d already been through the wringer long before that had even happened. No wonder she’d always found it easier to bury her feelings – and when I’d arrived in the midst of her grief, having lost the person she’d sacrificed everything for, she’d had no choice but to keep going. And neither had Anneka.

I suddenly felt like the worst person in the world for begrudging them all the small cracks of joy they’d stubbornly carved out for themselves over the years – micro-acts of defiant optimism they’d always tried to involve me in. Sure, neither of them was the most calming influence on my nervous system. But, given the chance, they’d always opted to live life to the full, rather than wallowing in any sadness that must have threatened to overwhelm them over the years.

My constant eyerolling must have been tough for them. But never once did they lose their temper or force me to see things from their point of view. Maybe they should have done.

‘I wish I’d said this months ago, but I’m so sorry Will left you like that, Flora,’ Mum said quietly, once our laughter had subsided. ‘Have you seen him since it happened?’