A December to Remember (12)

Even someone as patient and gentle as Evette could only take so much. They had known the stats, the success and failure rates when they began the process, but nothing had prepared them for the way the disappointment would crush them. IVF chipped away at their united front, splitting the rock they’d built their lives upon in two.

Every loss had stripped away more of Simone’s spirit until she was a walking wound, raw inside and out, and even kind words burned.

She dealt with her grief by bottling it and venting the excess pressure through anger. When Evette wanted to talk, she shut her down. When she expressed her need for closeness, Simone was an iceberg. Little by little, she had driven away the person she loved most in all the world, ruthlessly mining her sparkle until her wife’s reserves had finally run dry.

Simone picked up the expensive-looking envelope. “It’s for me,” she said, carefully running her finger beneath the self-adhesive strip and pulling the missive free. She swore as she read the contents.

“What is it?” asked Evette, still crunching her toast. Simone tried not to care about the crumbs dusting down onto the hall carpet.

“It’s a solicitor in Rowan Thorp. I’ve been summoned to hear Augustus’s will being read.”

“That’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? I didn’t think gathering for will readings was a thing these days. How very Agatha Christie! Rather intriguing, isn’t it?”

Simone was frowning at the small print. “Doesn’t look like I can get out of it.”

“Surely you would want to go?” said Evette, her head quirked to one side.

“Why?” She was sure these formalities could be done via email, or Zoom if Vanessa was going to be really picky.

“Don’t you want to hear your dad’s final words?”

She sighed. Of course she did. Augustus hadn’t been a traditional parent in any sense of the word, but he was kind and she had loved him and now he was dead. The problem here was that she was already replete with sadness and if she let in the loss of her father as well, she might lose the control she’d fought so hard to maintain.

Instead of telling Evette the truth, she rolled her eyes. “My father never said a sensible thing in his life.”

“For your sisters, then.” Evette searched her face as though trying to find her wife hiding behind the eyes of this imposter.

She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t have much choice, do I? I’ll book a room at the pub we stayed in for the funeral. I only need to be there for one night.”

Evette fell quiet and then said, “Maybe you should look at doing an Airbnb; there’s plenty of little holiday cottages around there. You could stay a bit longer. Have a little break.”

“What do you mean stay a bit longer? A little break from what?” She could feel the dread rising up into her throat, cold and thick. She swallowed and waited for the blow that she’d been dodging for the last six months.

“A little break from us,” said Evette gently, tears brimming. “If we don’t have some time apart now, I fear we’ll be looking at something more difficult later.” She reached up and rested her palm softly against Simone’s cheek. “I don’t want that.”

“We promised this wouldn’t break us,” Simone challenged.

Evette smiled sadly. “That was before we knew how hard it would be. For me, Simone. Take a break.”



* * *





Star bumped the drawstring laundry bag down the stairs and rested it against the bulging rucksacks, the battered pull-along carryall, and the scuffed guitar case: her worldly belongings.

“I am sorry.” Mr. Cavell looked pained, and for a moment Star wondered if he was going to cry.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “I completely understand.”

“But I have other tenants. The noise. The shouting. The older residents are frightened.”

“Honestly, Mr. Cavell, it’s okay.” She gave him her most reassuring smile. She’d never been evicted with so much remorse. And she’d been evicted a lot.

She’d been renting a nice room, one of the better places she’d lived in, in a tall Victorian mansion house share in Bradford. There were twelve other tenants in the building; some of them had bedsits, and others, like her, had rooms with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. She had enjoyed a peaceful existence in this place; she got on well with the other residents and nobody tried to sell her drugs or get her into bed. Unfortunately, Stu wanted to rekindle their relationship and living arrangements.

“How did a nice girl like you get mixed up with a man like him, anyway?” asked Mr. Cavell.

Star liked the way that Mr. Cavell always referred to her as a “nice girl” even though she was thirty-eight. She still felt like she was twenty—Simone would say she behaved as though she were twelve—and she didn’t look a day over twenty-five; she was like her dad in that way, never looking her age. She huffed out a sigh.

“Because I never learn. And because I thought that if I could make Stu happy enough, he wouldn’t need to use drugs to make himself feel better.”

The way Mr. Cavell looked at her then made her realize why he thought of her as a girl.

She slapped her forehead and shook her head. “Trust me, when I say it aloud, I realize how stupid it sounds.”