Page 35 of A Miracle on Hope Street
‘I’m so, so glad I wrote to you,’ she says, letting out a big sigh of relief. ‘I mean, I read your column every single week and I’m a big fan but I never thought I’d actually sit down and write to you myself but I’m so glad I did. I just needed to tell someone how scared and useless I’ve been feeling lately. Like I’ve failed so badly and let Elsie down by not making it work with her daddy – but I feel so much better already. Thank you so much.’
She looks up to see the delicious, steaming hot chocolate with a swirl of whipped cream on top set down before her and she watches it like it’s a work of art.
‘I’m very glad you wrote to me too,’ I say to her, my heart brimming with delight at this beautiful girl’s small but significant transformation. ‘Look, we’ll try and have a great day, as far as possible. At least, I’ll try my very best to make it so. I know how hard it is for you to even think of Christmas without your baby girl but you are right to agree that she goes to her dad. It’s mature and it’s fair and though it may be hard for you now, it will be so good for Elsie and all of you in the long run. It’s just getting the first one over you. The first time doing anything can be oh so hard.’
‘Thank you. I don’t feel so afraid any more. Thank you so much, Ruth.’
I breathe out, knowing that I’ve achieved something in getting through to Kelly by inviting her to meet me in person. I chose her to come to this dinner because, as the daughter of a single parent, I know how much the mum or dad who is the primary carer can struggle from time to time and I want her to know that she is never alone.
‘Please don’t ever feel that you’ve no one to turn to,’ I whisper across to her. ‘No matter how dark it may seem and no matter how hard it may be, there’s always someone out there who can lend a helping hand. Please don’t ever forget that, Kelly.’
‘I won’t. Thank you,’ she says, enjoying every taste of the hot chocolate drink which she savours with such delight. ‘Can I ask you something, if you don’t mind?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Ask me anything.’
‘Well, when I was at school I won a prize for my desserts in cookery class,’ she says, reminiscing with a sparkle in her eye. ‘I was in the local paper and everything back at home and my mum acted like I’d won an Olympic medal!’
‘Really?’ I ask her, very impressed. ‘What’s your speciality then?’
‘See, that’s the thing,’ she tells me. ‘I haven’t baked or made anything special since I fell pregnant with Elsie. I guess I’ve just been too busy and I forgot until now how doing something like that, you know, putting your heart into something and your best foot forward feels, so if it’s okay with you, would you mind if I looked after dessert for our Christmas dinner?’
I clap my hands and throw my head back in delight.
‘Yes! Yes, that’s the most wonderful idea I’ve heard in ages!’ I say to her, feeling tears sting my eyes at the change in the mousy little girl who came in here twenty minutes ago in comparison to the enthusiastic young woman who now sits before me. ‘My mouth is watering just thinking about what you might come up with. You can make it a surprise! Gosh, I’m really excited now!’
‘Me too,’ says Kelly, and she looks out the window as she sips her hot chocolate, already lost in a world of sweet treats and tasty creations that have given her a purpose and a will to keep going forward. I don’t even know her very well yet but I’m so proud of her already and I think she might be quite proud of herself too.
By the time Kelly finishes her drink, it’s time for her to go and I am absolutely over the moon that she is off home with a new focus and a new positive bounce in her step. Her bravery in stepping out of her comfort zone to not only put pen to paper and write, asking for help, but also to reignite that talent she was hiding for so long is deeply inspiring. As I sit here in Gloria’s café, watching her walk away with a smile in the rain, I can’t help but remember how my mother first spotted my writing talent when I was just at school and how she encouraged and nourished that spark in me, encouraging me to read the poems I had written aloud. I can still see her face light up and mouth the words along with me when I recited my work. She sometimes knew my writing better than I did. And now she is waiting for me to write to her, to reply to the note she left following my father’s death, and I haven’t been brave enough to do the one thing that I want to do more than anything this Christmas. Despite my gut-wrenching fear, I want to reach out to her, just like Kelly reached out to me. If she can do it, then so can I.
With Nicholas, Michael and I, that leaves four places at the table and just as I get up from the table, deciding I’ll get back to my desk and catch up with Michael later, my phone rings in my hand and I answer it swiftly. It’s another of our potential guests and she sounds so timid and scared that I can barely hear her over the bustle of the café.
I’m bursting with enthusiasm after my meeting with Kelly, but the desperation in this woman’s voice brings me right back to reality.
‘Ruth Ryans? Is this really you?’ she whispers. ‘It’s Molly. Molly Flowers?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s me, Molly and you’re not the first person to ask that question today,’ I tell her, sitting down again in the cosy snug of the café. ‘It’s lovely to hear from you.’
I take a deep breath as I look around to see so many happy faces in this café, all busy on their phones or in conversation, yet I wonder as always what some of them might be dealing with inside. Everyone is fighting their own little battles, day by day, and if we were all just a tiny bit more aware of that, I think there would be a lot more kindness in the world. I think too much, yes, but it comes with the territory.
‘I . . . I probably shouldn’t be calling you at all,’ she says. ‘I don’t even know why you . . .’
‘Sorry love, but I can barely hear you, Molly,’ I tell her, gently. ‘You’ll have to speak up a little, darling.’
‘It sure doessoundlike you,’ she giggles lightly, raising her voice a little bit so I can finally hear what she is saying a lot more clearly. ‘I listen to you on the radio every Sunday. So, is this a competition or something? Have I won Christmas dinner?’
‘No, no it’s not a competition, but you did write to me a short while ago, didn’t you? You wrote to myAsk Ruthcolumn?’
There’s a brief silence on the line.
‘Molly?’
‘Oh God, did I actually send that to you?’ she says, her voice dipping again. ‘I didn’t mean to actually send it at all. I mean, I wrote it and I meant it as I was just so desperate, but now I’m so humiliated now that you’ve actually got it and read it. Oh Ruth I’m so embarrassed. My Jack will be so mad at me!’
‘Don’t be embarrassed, Molly. And Jack doesn’t have to know. What you say to me is, and will always be, totally confidential.’
I always knew after selecting Molly and her family that this would be a tricky one, but I wanted to invite someone who, just like me, was pretending to the outside world that everything was fine when behind closed doors their whole world was crumbling. I invited her because in a way she reminds me of me as she’s been wearing a mask that is slipping day by day.
‘Sorry, I’m just a bit mortified that someone like you is actually talking to someone like me,’ Molly continues, ‘and you now know that I can’t afford to feed my family this Christmas. Iamdesperate. Oh God, how did we get into this position? I’m so scared, Ruth. I feel like running away from it all but where would we go? What else can we do? It’s Christmas and we have nothing. We havenothing.’
