So I just told them I’d be with Jem for a second year running, as otherwise she’d be solo for Christmas. They knew she’d got a job in Washington for six months, but I was always a bit vague on the when, so it was all very simple.
“Why don’t you tell them the truth?” Lucas asks.
“They’ll feel sorry for me.” I look out at the activity on the lawns, the racks of old coats backdropped against the misty grey trees, the cars already pulling up in the car park. “They all have a lot going on right now. I don’t like being a burden on them.”
“I very much doubt they see it that way.”
“Coffee tables are in the corner by the holly bush,” I say. “You can put that one next to the mahogany one.”
He waits so long I sigh in frustration and straighten up, spinning to look at him.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I say. “I’m fine.”
He just looks back at me, and for a moment I have to fight not to tear up. This is stupid. I am fine. I’ve known about this Christmas business for months—it’s just a logistical problem, that’s all, and it’s easier to keep everyone in the dark so they don’t worry about me. I’ve not cried about it once, so I’ve no idea why I’m feeling so emotional now.
“Would you put that table down?” I say, exasperated. “It must weigh about twenty kilos.”
Lucas glances at it, uninterested, shifting its weight slightly in his hand. “Christmas will still be special, even though they’re all a long way away,” he says.
“I know. I know that.”
“Ooh, are these teacups a set?” asks a woman behind me.
I spin, never so grateful for an obvious question. “Yes! They all match. Saucers are just here . . .”
I chitchat until I feel Lucas move away. The woman is just the sort of customer I like—an over-sharer in a fabulous bobble hat—and by the time we’ve finished talking, I’ve managed to push all the Lucasness of the morning out of my mind. I’m back to bouncy Izzy again. Smiley, sparkly, and firmly in control.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
The next day is the twentieth of December, which means I’m off work for the day. It’s my mum’s birthday, and—even in the days when I couldn’t bear to be alone for a moment—I’ve always spent it solo. The year before Mum died, we’d had a girls’ day, just the two of us, and I like to do the same now.
I wake up late and have coffee and cereal in front of Nativity!, which my mother always staunchly declared was the world’s best Christmas film, though my dad was Die Hard all the way.
At first, after the accident, I missed my parents with an awful, gulping pain. The sort of pain that scoops all the breath out of you. It’s not like that now—the ache is duller, and I’ve adjusted to the emptiness, so it rarely catches me off guard. But as I watch the kids of Nativity! dance their way across the stage for the finale, I let myself sink back there for the first time in years. I double over, head on my lap, and remember the day when my life tore in two.
Maybe Lucas did have a point when he said nobody can live life to the fullest all the time. Sometimes it’s good to curl up under a blanket and wallow. Afterwards, I pick myself up, chuck the tear-and-snot-soaked blanket in the wash, and wipe my face. I shrug on my mum’s old denim jacket, pin back my hair, and head to Southampton for some Christmas shopping.
I’m just browsing through the rails in Zara when I spot Tristan. My ex-boyfriend.
Tristan and I lasted about three months. I ended it with him, but it could have gone either way—in a matter of weeks, he’d gone from writing me lengthy WhatsApps about how much he loved me to the occasional Hey, sorry, work’s so busy!, despite the fact that his job was reviewing tech products and he hardly ever seemed to be sent any. He was very defensive about the job. He was defensive about a lot of things: his receding hairline, the fact that his parents bought him a flat, the way he sometimes texted his ex-girlfriend when he was sad or drunk.
He has a new woman in tow now, someone petite and pretty. I watch her fetch Tristan the shoes he wants in a different size, and from over here behind the dresses, I feel as though I’m watching the scene play out on TV, with Tristan in the role of “very average man.” He’s so small, and I don’t mean that physically, I just mean he’s . . . blah.
Tristan will no doubt continue to flop through life, eventually marrying one of these women and letting her support him as he pursues some far-fetched ambition he’ll be very sensitive about. I can’t believe I ever wanted this man.