Page 61 of Christmas Ever After
I clear my throat once more. It’s just a matter of figuring out what to say.
Come on, Franca. Just a few words.His magical snow globes are powered by batteries and wires. I count the words. Ten of them. Ten words to put an end to this once and for all.
The legacy that Claude Dardenne left behind will be destroyed, and so will his family’s dreams.Your grandfather wasn’t Cupid’s earthly assistant, he was a fraud, and your grandson/son/brother/uncle, delete as appropriate, is continuing the false legacy.
That beautiful family who have made me feel more loved than my own family have ever managed to. Erin and her bump, soon to be a tiny Dardenne, growing up with the magic of mythical snow globes. Sofia with her adorable, hopeful outlook and firm belief that magic is real. Dear old Biddy who has a heartof gold underneath her tough shell. Trisha who has welcomed me with open arms and makes me feel like she’s adopted me… The way they’ve included me and made me feel like I’ve nevernotbeen part of their Christmas celebrations.
‘I just wanted to say… um…’ I start squeakily and have to clear my throat yet again. Everyone is going to think I’m announcing that I’ve got tonsillitis at this rate. ‘Well, um, the thing is… um…’
Am I competing for how many times a person can say ‘um’ in one sentence? ‘There’s something you should know…’
My lips have gone numb and my jaw has locked up. This feels horribly, horribly wrong. IknowRaff isn’t happy with how his work has been going. He wants things to be different. Things aregoingto be different now…
My heart is thundering so fast that I can barely breathe. I imagined so many times how euphoric I’d feel if, one day, I got to denounce the Dardenne Snow Globes mystery to the world, but I feel the furthest thing from euphoric. I feel like I’m about to do the most horrible thing I’ve ever done in my life.
I try to summon up the worst memories of my childhood, the worst arguments I overheard between my parents, to cling on to the vestiges of loathing for the man who was responsible for matching them… When that fails, I think of my nutcrackers, of the sketches I’ve made Raff draw so I don’t forget any of the new ideas by the time I can use my lathe again. The thought of not having anywhere to make them… Of having to take all my machinery home and work alone, with no other shops around me, no friends to check in with throughout the day, no festive feeling and year-round Christmas joy… The thought fills me with anxiety. Making nutcrackers will never be the same again.
I have a chance to make this different. All I need to do is tell them about the day I dropped that snow globe…
But without Love Is All A-Round, Christmas Ever After will never be the same again either. Without Raff, making nutcrackers will lose its magic too, and so will everything else.
I make the mistake of meeting his eyes and he gives me that reassuring nod again, giving me permission to expose something he’s kept hidden for a very long time.
I go to speak again, but the words catch in my throat. I don’t know how to say it. It will hurt too many people who, somewhere along the way, I’ve come to really care about.
My pounding heart suddenly slows down and my shaking hand feels steadier, because IknowI can’t do it. This isn’t right. It isn’t my secret to tell.
‘I understand completely.’ I turn to Mrs Hastings and Mrs Willetts. ‘It’s the right decision. This place wouldn’t be the same without a bit of dome-shaped Christmas magic.’
‘Fran…’ Raff says warningly, obviously getting the throwback to our conversation about his shop name.
‘It’s okay.’ My chest feels damp and I realise there are tears pouring down my face and dripping onto my top. ‘It’s fine. Thank you for all you’ve done. Without you, I would never have remembered how much I love Christmas, so thank you for reminding me of that.’
The tears are falling so hard that I can barely get a word out. My nose is blocked up, a tension headache is throbbing in my forehead, and I need to get outside and away from all the sympathetic eyes burning into me.
It feels like the moment I fell off the arch all over again, with people gathered around, trying not to crowd me but full of pity. Friends and colleagues wanting to help but drawing a blank on anything that could possibly make this better.
‘Can someone tell Mickey to close the shutters of my cabin and go home? I won’t be back today.’ I stutter the words out ina barely legible sentence because it’s not just today, is it? I won’t be back ever.
That thought makes me sob even harder, and that’s enough to make me turn and run from the castle. I can hear footsteps behind me, Raff’s probably, but I don’t want to see him, or anyone else.
I can’t run for long and high-impact exercise still has to be carefully managed, and my leg forces me to slow to a walk as I lurch along the walled walkway and down the hill, back towards Ever After Street, and fear about the future engulfs me. What on earth am I going to do now? I’ve only ever been good at two things in my life – ballet and making nutcrackers, and now both of them are tainted. I can’t repair the damage to my leg and go back to ballet, and I don’t know how I’ll ever make another nutcracker without thinking about Raff and all the ways thisshouldhave ended.
This got so, so messy, as things always do when you start letting people in. I learnt that from my parents – everyone is better off alone in the end. Things only go wrong when you start dreaming of impossible solutions and letting yourself believe in flights of fancy like the possibility that the council were ever going to savebothour shops. And if I had kept my guard up, this wouldn’t hurt the way it does.
Everything would have been so much easier if Raphael Dardenne and I had stayed exactly as we were – two people who hated each other without ever having spoken.
18
‘Maybe I deserve it,’ I say to Cleo as I pace the floor of The Nutcracker Shop on Monday morning. ‘I’ve spent so much of my time here hung up on hating Dardenne Snow Globes. If I’d spentasmuch time focused on my own shop and on making my nutcrackers something special, it wouldn’t be this way.’
‘Your nutcrackersaresomething special, Franc,’ she says, displaying the patience of a particularly tolerant saint.
‘Not special enough to be wanted…’ I stop myself as tears threaten to rise again. I cried so much last night, while ignoring Raff’s name continually flashing up on my phone screen and pretending not to read the slew of messages he sent. That meeting totally blindsided me yesterday. I didn’t expect that to be the outcome, and I have no idea what to say to him.
‘Would you have been happier if they’d chosen you and sent him packing?’
‘No, of course not,’ I huff, because either way, it would still be just as impossible to navigate. ‘It’s nothisfault they picked him, but how can we move forwards after this?’
