Page 39 of Must Love Christmas

“How’s Simon doing?” Luca asked, placing a comforting hand on Garen’s shoulder.

“Latest text from his dad says he’s in a lot of pain.”

“Is he getting worse, then?” Ross asked.

“No, but he’sfeelingworse. ‘Trapped in my own body’ were the words he used yesterday.” Garen touched his side. “I keep thinking about that time I cracked a rib mountain climbing, how for weeks it hurt like hell to roll over in bed. But that’s nothing compared to not beingableto turn over, to have to ask someone to move your body for you. I’d go mad.”

“Do they think he’ll have lasting effects?” Oliver asked.

“Too soon to know,” Garen told him. “They said eighty percent of Guillain-Barré patients have a complete recovery. Fifteen percent have issues for the rest of their lives, and five percent…” He rubbed his throat, where a lump was forming. “Five percent don’t make it.”

“Aw, mate.” Luca put his arm around Garen’s shoulders. “He won’t be in that five percent. He got treatment right away, which makes all the difference. And you said he’s breathing on his own, right?”

Garen nodded.

“So this won’t be the end of him,” Luca said. “It’ll be hard for now, but he’s got better days ahead.”

“I know. Thanks.” Garen attempted a smile, but he couldn’t shake the image of Simon lying in that intensive care bed, his disheveled hair forming a black corona against the stark white pillowcase. He made a mental note to bring Simon’s favorite comb and styling products to the hospital tomorrow. It might make him feel more human if he had every hair in place the way he liked it.

Garen spied Gillian at one of the tables, staring at her phone and looking as glum as everyone else. “Your sister seems in need of cheering up,” he told Luca.

“I’ve tried and failed, but have a go, anyway.”

Garen went over and sat beside Gillian. “Here for practice?”

“Events-committee meeting.” She jutted her lower lip and exhaled hard, fluttering her dark-brown fringe. “How’s Simon?”

Garen summarized his friend’s current condition, then said, “I should start sending updates to the Shawlands email newsletter. Everyone’s been asking after him.” Gossip traveled fast in a curling rink, but so did kindness and concern.

“I’ll send him flowers from all of us here. Let me set a reminder.” Gillian pulled up a notes app on her phone. “Willow will probably want to make him a card. It’ll be a good distraction for her.”

“Distraction from what?”

Gillian gestured toward the TV. “She came home from school today asking how we’re going to save the world without America’s help.”

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth: I don’t know how we’ll do it, but no one is giving up. And that she can make a difference too.”

“Sounds like the right thing to say.”

“Maybe.” She rubbed her red-rimmed eyes. “Of course, she immediately got the brilliant idea to have a Christmas charity event here at the rink. I told her it was too late, but maybe in the spring.”

For the first time all day, Garen felt a spark of hope. “Christmas is forty-six days away,” he said, recalling the number on his snowman’s chalkboard that morning. “That’s bags of time.”

Gillian scoffed. “Only someone who’s never planned an event would say forty-six days is bags of time. Besides, the midyear melt is the twenty-third, so any functions using the ice would have to be the weekend before.”

“Thirty-nine days, then. ’Mon, let’s see if the rink’s free.” He hopped to his feet and hurried to the noticeboard outside the office, checking to make sure Gillian was following him across the warm room.

Between a flyer for a “fun-spiel” in Inverness and a warning about tracking in road salt on one’s street shoes was the rink’s calendar of events for December. “Look,” Garen told Gillian, tapping his finger on the seventeenth. “That Saturday is open, apart from practice ice. There’s not even a try-curling event.”

“Because there weren’t enough volunteers to staff it,” she said. “Everyone’s too busy doing Christmas things.”

“This event would literally be a Christmas thing.”

“You know what I mean. Family things.” She blanched, perhaps remembering Garen’s circumstances. “Sorry. You’re coming to our place for Christmas dinner, right? With your sister? She’s coming home from Bulgaria for the holidays?” Gillian’s voice rose with each question, as though she could make it happen through sheer will.

“That’s the current plan. Mum and Dad will be with their new families, as usual. They’ve each got young stepkids, so you know how it is.”

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