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“For a short time it brought us together again. Chrissie was her old self. After the funeral, she came and stayed and we talked a lot. It was a great comfort to me after losing Walter. We even did some writing together. There was no more mention of babies. I hoped she’d seen sense and decided against it.” Mabel bent to pick up Crumpet, who had appeared by her chair. “Things improved between us and then a few months later she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t handle it well. Chrissie was all I had left. I couldn’t imagine how I’d survive if I lost her, too. I said awful things to Tom. Accused him of being selfish and thinking only of what he wanted and not what was safe for her. Chrissie was so upset she ended up in the hospital, and I know they blamed me for that. Chrissie said she couldn’t take the stress of our relationship anymore. The fact I wouldn’t respect her choices. The fact that I held Tom responsible for something that was her choice. The pressure I was putting on her felt unbearable. She said that her family was Tom and the baby and she had to put them first and I had to accept that. That was the last time we spoke.”

Mabel stroked Crumpet, who nestled closer to her. “And I feel ashamed. I can see now that I was a terrible mother. But no one ever tells you that being a good mother can mean exposing yourself to extraordinary pain. I was upset because I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about what losing her would mean to me, rather than focusing on her needs and listening to what she had to say. I should have encouraged and supported her, even though it might ultimately have meant that I lost her. She was doing what she wanted, and what she wanted should have been all that mattered to me. It was her life, and she had a right to live it.”

“You loved her,” Izzy said. “Chrissie was lucky to have someone who loved her that much.”

She tried to imagine how it would feel to be loved like that.

She felt Jason’s hand close around hers under the table and she squeezed it gratefully.

“Izzy’s right. You’re hard on yourself.” Brooke wiped away tears. “You loved Chrissie. Truly loved her.”

“But a parent’s job is to accept their children’s choices,” Mabel said. “Seeing the pressure your parents put on you, Brooke, has made me see things even more clearly. It would have been hard, but in the end, I made it even harder for myself. I saw an announcement in the paper that she had a little girl. Sylvie. She’d be around Elsie’s age.”

Izzy thought about Sylvie, who had missed out on having Mabel as a grandmother.

“You never reached out?”

“I sent a card when I read about Sylvie. What I should have sent was an apology.”

Brooke let go of Mabel’s hand and stroked Crumpet behind the ears. “But now Chrissie is a mother, too. Surely, she understands? If one of my girls did something that was going to risk her life, I’d react exactly the way you did.”

Mabel looked at her. “You would?”

“For sure. Oh, I’d want to play the ‘perfect mother’ and say and do everything the way a textbook would tell you to, but in reality, we’re all human, aren’t we? If my child was going to do something risky when she’d been warned it could cost her life, I’d be locking her in a room and encasing her in bubble wrap.”

“I’d love to have been loved as much as you love Chrissie,” Izzy muttered. “No one has ever cared about me to that degree. I think you’re very hard on yourself.”

Jason’s fingers tightened on hers and she wondered how such a small gesture could be so comforting.

“I should have done better.”

“We could all do better,” Brooke said. “Maybe Chrissie could have tried harder to see it from your point of view. It feels tragic that it reached this point.”

“None of it was Chrissie’s fault. I forced her to choose, you see. I blamed Tom, but it wasn’t Tom’s fault, either. He was just better at loving her than I was. Looking back, I can see he was equally terrified at the thought of losing her, but he understood how much she wanted to be a mother. For her, the risk was worth it, and he loved her enough to put her needs above his own. He was afraid for her and for himself, but in the end, he supported her. I should have followed his lead instead of alienating them both. But life is full of regrets. The irony is that my life has been about words and the way they make people feel, and yet when it mattered most, I used the wrong words and left all the right ones unsaid.”

“But it’s never too late to say the words you wish you’d spoken,” Brooke said quietly. “And maybe it won’t make a difference to the relationship, but knowing that you said them might make a difference to you. It might give you peace.”

Izzy wished she were more like Brooke, who always seemed to know exactly what to say in any situation.

And then she remembered that Brooke struggled to balance the relationship with her own parents. Maybe it was easier to be wise about a problem when it wasn’t your own.

She could see now that her thinking had often been simplistic. She’d assumed that having parents who loved you set you up for a smooth life, but Brooke’s life wasn’t smooth, and neither was Mabel’s. Relationships were complicated, even strong, healthy relationships. And they shifted and changed over time. Chrissie had fallen in love with Tom, and the shape of her family had changed as Izzy’s had. Handling that change wasn’t always easy.

“I’ve probably said too much,” Mabel said, “but thank you for listening. And now I think it’s time we talked about something else. Something more cheerful.”

There was a pause and then Brooke cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter. “Why don’t we take our coffee into the library? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it’s always chaos—allow me to apologise in advance for that. But it’s all the more reason for us to enjoy a little time watching the snow and relaxing while we can.”

Everyone agreed and they cleared the table, and Matt and Jason made coffee and brought it through to the library.

Brooke produced a plate of chocolates in the shape of Christmas trees and handed them around.

Izzy snuggled next to Jason on one of the sofas. She stared into the darkness, watching the snow fall and fall, seemingly without end.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, although part of me is hoping it will clear.” Brooke put the plate down on the low table next to the sofa. “It would be a treat for Poppy to build a snowman.”

“I’d like to build a snowman,” Jason said. “I’m a champion snowman maker.”