LITMIR.BIZ

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looked at her aunt’s looping, elegant and unnecessarily swirly handwriting, and felt her stomach drop.

      ‘They want us to go for a week?’ She felt her throat go dry. ‘We’ll never make it to Christmas Day! I thought it would just be popping in, saying hello, eating some dry turkey and disappearing again!’

      Anna patted her hand. ‘Well, I think now they’ve finally got you to visit after ten years, they probably want some time to get to know you both. Plus, some of my guests are visiting from overseas, so having the spare room will be helpful. That’s all right, isn’t it, darling?’

      Megan had the overwhelming desire to stomp up to her room like a teenager and not speak to Anna until she changed her mind. Instead she just downed the rest of her drink, and went for a much needed nap.

      ***

      December 2005

       The first Christmas at Anna’s was not something Megan had been expecting. When she awoke that morning, Skye cuddled in beside her, cooing and gurgling in delight, she’d thought they’d tiptoe down, make some tea and toast, and wait for Anna to wake up. Most days she was a late riser. Megan was embarrassed about the present she’d bought for Anna, but she had so little spare cash, even working that bar job right up to Christmas Eve, that it was all she could afford. A small vintage-style compact mirror, which hopefully looked more expensive than it was. Nothing was going to be good enough, when Anna had taken them in, supported them, looked after Skye whilst Megan went to work. Encouraged Megan to start thinking about part-time university courses. She’d saved them.

       ‘Merry Christmas, little girl!’ She tickled the baby’s stomach. ‘This is your first Christmas!’

       The sadness tightened her stomach as she thought of her family, sitting around Piney in the living room, all in their Christmas pyjamas that they would have opened the night before, and put on especially. Matty would be snarling, roused from his bed with kicking and desperate pleas. Except he wouldn’t, because she was the one who always woke him up. Even as they’d grown older, she still insisted on waking him up and opening their Christmas stockings together in the early morning.

       She looked to the small fireplace in her beautiful bright room in Anna’s house, where she’d hung two stockings – one of her old socks that she’d sewn a red trim on, and a phantom red baby sock that had no partner, that she’d sewn the number ‘1’ onto. Next year, she would afford a real stocking, and great presents. For now it was lucky that Skye didn’t really understand the concept of gifts, or the concept of Christmas at all.

      ‘We are going to have a great day, little miss!’ she said, buoying herself up. That had been her biggest lesson of motherhood so far. Learn to seem happy. She hitched the baby up on her hip, and trundled down the large wide staircase to the kitchen. Anna’s huge fake tree was in the hallway, looking like something out of a movie, which was, of course, what she had been going for. They stood briefly together, looking at the lights twinkling, and Megan felt her heart fill as Skye’s chubby little face broke into a grin, the lights reflected in her eyes. They were lucky, they were so lucky.

       ‘Merry Christmas, darlings!’ Anna appeared in a long red kimono, perfectly made up. ‘Come on, come on!’ She pulled on Megan’s hand, giving Skye a brief kiss on the cheek.

       She brought them through to the kitchen, where there were two fluted glasses of champagne and orange juice, and Skye’s bottle with orange in it.

       ‘There’s no champers in hers, is there?’ Megan asked with a grin. But sometimes with Anna you had to check these things.

       ‘Of course not, darling, I just wanted her to feel involved.’ She handed Megan a glass and they clinked in a cheers.

       ‘Merry Christmas, Anna,’ Megan smiled, ‘this is wonderful.’

       ‘You have no idea, darling!’ Anna grinned.

      ***

      After a couple of days dwelling on it, and trying to figure out what one bought for one’s parents at Christmas when you’d been estranged for ten years, Megan gave up and called Matty.

      ‘Hello?’ He sounded exhausted.

      ‘Matty, it’s me…Megan.’ She paused here, unsure of the last time she spoke to her brother.

      ‘Meg!’ His voice was slightly more invigorated. ‘I hear you’re joining us for Christmas this year.’

      ‘Apparently so.’

      ‘I’m glad,’ he said warmly. ‘They are too, you know. Mum won’t say anything, but…’

      Megan shook that thought away, the same knot of dread building up in her stomach again.

      ‘Well, they’re actually why I’m calling – I’m trying to find Christmas presents. Also wanted to know what Jasper was into, and Claudia, obviously,’ she added, thinking of the ice-cold blond that Matty had introduced her to only a few weeks before she’d had to leave home, and the weird fact that somehow that woman was now her sister-in-law.

      ‘Maybe if you ever replied to any of my invitations, you’d know both of them well enough,’ he said pointedly.

      ‘Matty –’

      ‘And maybe I could buy my niece something she’d actually like, instead of sending her an array of impersonal gender-specific pink gifts that Claudia picks out every year, because she’s upset we never had a girl.’

      ‘She’s a smarty pants,’ Megan said, because talking about Skye was easier than trying to explain to her brother why she’d cut him out with her parents, when he’d never done anything wrong. ‘Anything that lets her learn something new – books, art stuff, science set. She also wants to be a detective when she grows up.’

      ‘Private investigator!’ Skye shouted from the other room.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said to Matty, ‘private investigator. Apparently I’m smart enough to know the difference by now.’

      ‘Jas is a little more difficult. He’s one of those kids that saves up his pocket money for months and months for the one thing he wants. And rarely wants anything else.’

      ‘So what’s he saving for?’ she asked.

      ‘A time machine.’ Her brother laughed. ‘He’s good with books. He’s a little quiet, always has been, but he’s a good kid. I’m glad you’ll get to meet him.’

      ‘Me too,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry, Matty –’

      ‘Hey,’ she could hear him shrugging, that same docile look he always had, like nothing could upset him, ‘shit happens. You made good, kid. Come back home and show off about it.’

      She grinned, and was about to say goodbye when she suddenly had a thought.

      ‘Matty, are Mum and Dad… Well, has there been any health scares or anything?’

      ‘Well.’ He considered it. ‘The fact that they’ve made a move to get things going with you again would suggest it, wouldn’t it? I’ve not heard anything, but there has been some hush-hush, whisper-whisper stuff going on. I thought all was revealed when I found out you were coming to dinner.’

      ‘Huh.’

      ‘Don’t worry kid, you know if it was serious, Mum would be running around playing drama queen for all she could get. No point letting something run its course when you could have a big to-do about it all, is there?’

      ‘Good point!’ She really did feel much better, and spared a guilty thought for how much better she might have felt over the years if she’d reached out sooner. Still, no time for that now.

      ‘I’ll see you next week then,’ she said, wondering why after all these years, when

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