Page 2 of One Snowy Day
The best day. The last day.
Jessie inhaled, exhaled, then poured some freshly brewed coffee into her favourite mug. Cuppa in hand, she stood at the sink, looking out over the garden of her semi-detached home. The lawn was still white with the overnight frost and over the fence that separated their grass from her neighbour, she could see that Linda next door had forgotten to switch off the Christmas lights she’d put up mid-November, so the darkness was illuminated by thousands of fairy lights, and a six-foot flashing reindeer that had fallen off the roof and was now lying, wounded, next to a set of goalposts on the grass.
Focus on the positives, she told herself. Tomorrow she’d be in the sunshine, and that could only be a good thing. Working in Copper Curls this last couple of months since the clocks went back, meant going into the salon in the dark, and leaving in the dark. She was pretty sure there wasn’t an ounce of vitamin D left in her body. Winter was only beautiful when it snowed, and there had been no sign of…
Jessie’s chin dropped, as a flurry of thick white snowflakesdropped down the window, as if someone in the heavens agreed with her. Snow. It had come out of nowhere, but it was the kind of thick curtain of flakes that would lie if it kept coming down like this. She hadn’t even thought to check the weather forecast, but it felt like Scotland was giving her something extra special to remember it by.
‘Good morning, gorgeous.’ Stan’s voice made her jump, but her heart rate was immediately soothed when he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, careful not to spill the coffee in her hands. He kissed her neck, then rested his chin on her shoulder. ‘I ordered the snow for your birthday.’
‘Diamonds would probably have been easier to wrap,’ she joked, making him smile, before he gently turned her around and kissed her on the lips this time.
‘Happy birthday, Jessie. Our last one freezing our bits off in this weather. This time tomorrow, we’ll be on our way and I can’t bloody wait.’ He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice or the glee on his face and it made her heart swell to see him so happy.
Like every couple, they’d had their ups and their downs over the last forty-odd years, but his happiness mattered to her. Yes, he could be infuriating. A bit thoughtless. Getting him off the golf course would take a bomb threat and a United Nations task force. Over the years, their pool of joint interests had got smaller, as they’d both become set in their ways. And well, all that bendy stuff was about as regular as a full moon these days. But he’d worked hard all his days as a self-employed electrician, and he deserved all the time off that he’d had since he hung up his tool belt last year. Besides, he probably found many of her ways irritating too, but he never criticised, never complained, and if they had a disagreement, he just took himself off to the golf club and came back a couple of hours later like nothing had happened. That low-key, accepting guy was just who he was now, and sure,sometimes a bit of excitement would be great, or even just for him to show an interest in the things she enjoyed, but she knew better than to even think about trying to change him. For better or worse, until… yada-yada and all that. If she wanted to have a bit of fun, a good gossip or a weekend theatre break, that’s what her pals and her adult children were for. She just hoped that they’d all make frequent visits to see her after she moved. That thought made the coffee in her stomach swirl, so she shook it away and refused to think about it right now.
From behind his back, Stan produced a small, gift-wrapped box that she immediately guessed was a piece of jewellery. ‘I knew it was pointless getting you flowers or chocolates today, and I thought this birthday deserved something special, so here you go, love…’
As he handed it over, Jessie felt a wave of gratitude. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong about the diamonds being easy to wrap. Not that they ever bought each other gifts like that. They’d always had enough to live a comfortable life, with a few extra luxuries – Stan’s golf club fees, a dinner out at the weekends and a couple of trips to the Tenerife house every year – but they’d never been ones for expensive gifts or flash brands. Although, if there was ever going to be a time to make a big gesture, it would be today.
‘Love, you shouldn’t have…’ she said before she’d even opened it. It took her a moment to untie the ribbon and unwrap the gold foil paper.
‘Georgie helped me with the wrapping. And the present too,’ he admitted, telling her something she’d already assumed. Last year, he’d got her a Dyson vacuum cleaner (which, in fairness, she had said she wanted), and the year before that had been an air fryer, so he didn’t have a track record of elaborately wrapped tokens of romantic sentimentality.
As she flipped up the lid on the box, she saw that she waswrong about the diamonds, but right about the sentimental stuff. Nestled on the blue velvet pad was a silver chain bracelet, with five little charms dropping from the centre. A pair of scissors. A heart. And three coloured gems.
As she gently touched the deep-hued jewels, Stan said, ‘That’s our lot’s…’
‘Birthstones,’ she interjected, before he got there. She’d spotted the significance right away – the charms represented Georgie, their son, Grant, and their granddaughter, Kayleigh.
‘The scissors are for your salon. And the heart is for us. Not that I’m taking credit, because, like I said, Georgie helped me.’
Jessie curled her arms around him. ‘It’s perfect, Stan. I love it.’
So here she was. One more day of her life here in Weirbridge. Her birthday. Her retirement from the salon she’d founded and worked in for decades. Her party. Her goodbyes to the people she loved.
Today was the day that Jessie’s life was about to change forever.
And tomorrow she’d start a whole new chapter, just her and the man who’d been by her side through it all. It should be the perfect happy ending.
So why did she feel like she didn’t want to turn the page?
2
GEORGIE DERN
Georgie hung up the phone and groaned as her head flopped back onto the pillow. It took way too much energy to sound cheery when, inside, she felt anything but.
Of course, she’d been supportive when her mum had announced that her dad wanted to move lock, stock and bloody barrel to Tenerife, because she hadn’t thought for a single fricking second that her mum would actually do it. Jessie McLean was a woman who loved her life and her environment, one of those people who would live a perfectly happy and contented existence forever tied to the village she’d been born in. Not that her mum wasn’t ambitious, because her salon proved otherwise, but she was someone who adored her community, thrived on social contact and cherished her wide and varied circle of pals. What the hell was she going to do in Tenerife, where the neighbours on one side were London stockbrokers who visited the island twice a year, and the other side was an Airbnb that typically hosted hen and stag parties? Georgie had always enjoyed going there for holidays, but she’d lost count of the number of nights she’d been woken up at 1a.m. with a crowd of women nextdoor belting out ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, or a shower of blokes trying to extinguish a raging inferno because someone with a dangerously high blood alcohol level thought it would be a great idea to pee on the fire pit.
And yes, she should be thrilled that she was about to take full responsibility and sole charge of the Copper Curls salon, but that sentiment was being overruled by too many negatives to count – the most overwhelming one being that she didn’t want her parents to go, and couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing her mum every day. It wasn’t some weird co-dependency, it was just the simple truth that her mother was her second favourite person on earth, topped only by her daughter, Kayleigh. Having Jessie McLean around just made her world a better place.
‘You look deep in thought there,’ Flynn said, as he came back to bed, carrying two coffees.
Georgie supressed another groan. Bugger. How had that happened? Flynn had brought Kayleigh back from university yesterday, stayed for dinner and well… If she was in a better mood, she’d probably make a joke about being the pudding.
Instead, she took the coffee and shooed him away, whispering, ‘You have to go. I don’t want Kayleigh to know that you stayed here last night. It’s too confusing and I don’t want to get her hopes up.’
There was an amicable divorce, and then there was this. Flynn Dern, her husband of almost eighteen years, then her ex-husband of two years, thanks to his mid-life crisis and a decision to go off to Asia for a year to find himself. As evident by his presence, he’d found himself back in Scotland twelve months later, living in a one-bedroom flat in Stirling, and having adopted a regular habit of dropping in to visit her. Infuriatingly, he was uncannily good at showing up when Georgie was happy and in the mood for some passion to celebrate, or sad and in the moodfor some passion to cheer her up, or stressed and in the mood for some passion to take her mind off her troubles. She wasn’t quite sure what category last night fell into, but it was a toss-up between the last two.
