Page 100 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Kate moved away from the driver’s door and stomped back through the snow, her arms folded tight across her chest, her feet numb with cold, and her heart beating furiously. She heard the van door slam and the engine roar to life, but she didn’t look back.
Her dad and Laura stood in the hallway, worried expressions on their faces. The tree was resting against the wall in the hall. There was no way they hadn’t heard all that. The whole neighborhood would have heard all that.
“Shall I get Ben to pick the kids up and I’ll stay awhile?” Laura asked.
Kate shook her head. She still hugged her chest with her arms. She was shaking all over and uncontrollably.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“I can call Evelyn,” said Mac. “Tell her I won’t make it round tonight?”
“Honestly, thanks, both of you, but I’m fine,” Kate said.
She wasn’t fine. But she knew she was about to lose her self-control and she was too proud to have an audience while she did it. She felt light-headed.
“I don’t think you should be alone,” said Laura. And her dad agreed.
“Please,” Kate implored them. “Please. I need to be on my own. Please, I love you, but you have to go. I’ll be okay.”
Laura scooped up her children.
“You call me,” she said. “Anytime. I can be here in five minutes.”
“Same goes for me,” said Mac.
“Thank you. Thank you for a lovely day,”
Kate was on autopilot now. Her head pounded. She couldn’t form cohesive thoughts. Her words came robotically.
At last they left. Kate’s phone blipped and she saw a message from Sarah.
Hi Kate, I’ve just had a long talk with Matt. I’ve told him about us bumping into Oliver. I had to explain to him how I was feeling. In truth, I’m not the only one with a past that isn’t finished. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t make things awkward between you two. Just thought I’d give you a heads-up. xxx
Kate collapsed onto the sofa and cried for a long, long time.
•••••
She didn’t hear from Matt. Nor did she expect or wish to. Her dad and Laura had texted and Kate had assured them both again that she was okay. She wasn’t okay. She was sad on so many levels she didn’t know which one to deal with first.
She was sad that she was in love with Matt and she was sad because she knew that the feeling was far from mutual. And she was sad that their friendship was over. She had gone to bed sick with sadness, slept fitfully, and woken in the morning with a sadness so crushing shecouldn’t breathe. She lay in bed and watched the cold morning light eke dismally into the room, touching everything with gray.
She was consumed with thoughts of Matt. The bottle had been uncorked and now every smile, every grimace, every touch, every word, kind and unkind, that had ever fallen from his lips cascaded through her mind unfettered. Her chest ached. Her head ached. She was hollow.
There was nothing for it. She would have to leave Blexford. If anything, the argument had done her a favor, opened her eyes. She’d been a fool to think she could feel the way she did about Matt and stay; she would be living a lie and she refused to subject herself to that. She had moved back to nurse her dad through his heartache, but he was well now, better than well; he had found love again, and Kate could leave him in Evelyn’s more than capable hands.
Her dad wouldn’t like it. Laura would like it even less. But they would respect her decision, she was sure of that. She had friends in London whom she could stay with until she found a place of her own. Her job was in London, and she’d lived in London for years before, so it wouldn’t be like starting over, more like going back after a sabbatical.
Yes. She had decided. She would stay for Christmas and be gone before New Year’s. The decision gave her strength. All she had to do was get through the next two weeks. She could do that. She could avoid the Pear Tree; it wasn’t like Matt was going to ask her to bake for him now. She would lay low and she would leave quietly.
She showered and got dressed. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red-ringed. She applied makeup mechanically. She swept concealer under her eyes to hide the bags that had settled there. And all the while she recited the mantra over and again, “Just two weeks, just two weeks, just two weeks.” Until eventually she felt enough of herself return that she could function in the world again.
She didn’t want to meet Richard tonight. And she certainly didn’t want to be stuck in an escape room with a group of hopeful strangers. But she was not prepared to let her feelings for Matt—before or after the argument—dictate her plans. She would go out. And she would make the best of it. Kate Turner was nothing if not stubborn to the point of ridiculous.
Kate wandered from room to room. Since taking over the mortgage from her parents, she had completely renovated the house. She hadn’t wanted to feel bound by nostalgia, she wanted it to feel like her own, so she’d dug straight in and ripped the guts out of it and started again. She would be sad to leave it. She’d rent it out for a while and when she felt brave enough, she would sell it.
She spent the day moping in the Christmas wonderland they’d created yesterday. The shine had rubbed off. Neither the bright knitted stockings, nor the wooden nutcracker dolls, nor the red-berried wreaths incited the childlike joy they usually did in Kate. Perhaps it was time to grow up.
The Christmas tree still leaned against the wall in the hall, the branches constrained neatly within the mesh. She wrestled it back out the front door and around to the back garden, where she sawed off the bottom of the trunk and plonked the tree in a bucket of water to soak.
