Page 53 of The Unhinged Christmas of a Cat Lady
“Do you think he’ll still bring it?”
I crouch slightly, straightening the hat that’s now resting halfway down the back of her neck. “I think it’s okay to ask,” I say. “But sometimes Father Christmas has so many gifts to bring, he might have to cut some things off the list. So even if you don’t get everything, you’ll still get something brilliant. Because you’ve been excellent this year.”
She considers this. “Ididdo good cutting at school. And I only cried that one time when we had peas.”
“Strong track record.”
She beams. “Okay. I’ll say the castle is a bonus wish. And the pony’s just in case he’s got one spare.”
“Very reasonable.”
She slips her hand into mine again as we walk. The fairy lights blink. A snowman mascot collapses gently against a fence. Lucy begins hummingJingle Bellsin a key of her own invention.
We’ve just passed the duck pond—currently frozen over and guarded by one extremely unimpressed mallard—when Lucy tugs on my arm again.
“Uncle Jasper?”
“Mm?”
“When are Daddy and Ivy coming back to get me?”
I glance down. Her face is calm enough, but she’s chewing the corner of her mitten, which usually means she’s thinking harder than she’s letting on.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “They’ll be back for lunch. After their trip.”
She nods, processing. “Are they having a grown-up adventure?”
“Something like that.”
She skips a few steps ahead, then twirls, nearly slipping on a patch of frost. “Do they get to have pancakes?”
“I think it’s legally required.”
She grins, then keeps walking, content with the answer.
I watch her for a moment, then let my gaze drift ahead, to the shape of the house waiting for us just past the bend.
Theo hadn’t wanted to go.
He never does, really. Not because he doesn’t want to spend time with Ivy—he does, desperately—but because the man treats stepping away from the coffee house like abandoning a newborn on a roundabout.
It had taken both me and Geoff a solid week to convince him. Reassurances. Backup plans. Geoff had promised to be at The Kaisers Mug all day, every day, and brought out the big guns: “You’re not the only person who can pour milk into a cup, Theo.”
We’d also had to deal with the sacred ritual of Theo’s “head waiter anxiety,” which involved a laminated checklist, colour-coded notes, and a deeply suspicious look at the phrasemanagerial initiative. I think he fully expected the café to be reduced to ashes and espresso within twelve hours.
But eventually—miraculously—he relented. Packed a bag. Took Ivy off for a weekend without distractions. Just the two of them, somewhere with wine, silence, and sheets neither of them had to wash.
They both needed it.
Ivy, especially. She’s been holding everything together with patience and duct tape lately. And Theo’s the sort of man who forgets his own needs if you don’t write them on a Post-it and staple it to his forehead.
So off they went.
And Lucy—to absolutely no one’s surprise—had demanded to stay with me. She’d arrived with a pink suitcase, her favourite dinosaur pyjamas, and three separate bedtime books, all annotated with Post-its readingNO SKIPPING. She also gave me a lecture about brushing her hair gently, because “your man hands don’t know about knots.”
Which is possibly the best insult I’ve ever received.
“Home!” Lucy shouts triumphantly.
