Page 32 of A Manny for Christmas

I know a lot about Clara and Alex’s fairytale second chance, both from Clara herself and from a tell-all they gaveHello!Magazine earlier this year. Alex is notoriously private, especially since he got back together with Clara, but he auctioned off a frank press interview, the proceeds going to his charity focused on rehabilitating young inmates.

Their story is the stuff of legends. He went off the rails aged seventeen and was arrested for killing a woman when driving while high and drunk. He went to juvie for a couple of years and refused to let Clara, his high school sweetheart, visit him, believing she was far better off without him.

When he got out, he went off and forged a path for himself in personal training. He’s now a massive celebrity and a total national treasure. He was reunited with Clara a few years ago when Evelyn proposed her to photograph a conference he was holding at Sorrel Farm. She was married to a guy who sounded like a complete jackass, and she ended up leaving him for Alex. She won custody of her twins, and she and Alex are deliriously, obnoxiously happy together.

‘I don’t know.’ She shakes her head stubbornly. ‘He had major issues back then, and I’m not sure he would have found a way to work through them without everything he’s been through. Sometimes, something that seems like a deal-breaker when you’re young can just… dissolve over time. Poof.’

She gestures with her hands. I like Clara a lot. I’ve got close to her since I’ve been here. She’s a creative, like me. A dreamer. Her photography is magic, and she’s a talented painter. We get each other. But I suspect her own love story has quashed any residual sense of realism she has.

‘I wanted kids,’ I tell her. ‘He didn’t. That’s why we split. Now I have kids. Unless he’s had a lobotomy, I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t want them.Especiallyafter this morning. That’s what I call a deal-breaker that’s alive and kicking. So, for the love of God, let’s not talk about how gorgeous he is, or how sexy, or how dangerous that smile of his is.

‘Because, believe me, you’re preaching to the choir.I knowhow amazing he is. And it’s spectacularly unhealthy for me to allow myself to think about what might have been, or, even worse, what still could be in a parallel universe.’

I definitely didn’t mean to say that much. To give voice to the till-now unarticulated sense of yearning I’ve had since Max showed up. But I really need my friends not to big him up to me, because my imagination is fertile enough without them egging me on.

And it’s not just my imagination that’s the problem.

It’s my memories.

Multilayered, Technicolor memories that still live rent-free in my head when they have no business being in my head at all. Memories of how perfect he was. How perfect we were.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t as though Max was a flake, or that his reasons for not wanting kids were in any way red flags. Because they weren’t. They were sound fucking reasons.

The planet was already overpopulated.

Yep.

He couldn’t in all good conscience bring children into this world to inhabit a planet our generation, and previous generations, had fucked up to the extent that it was probably a ticking time bomb.

It was hard to argue with that logic.

And hardest of all to fault was his argument that having kids was the most terrifying game of Russian roulette. That it was the ultimate high-stakes gamble of our current happiness by embarking on a road down which we had zero control.

And I got it.

His eldest brother Jules and his wife Rachel had a heart-stopping time with their eldest, Harry, before I came on the scene. Harry was so severely asthmatic that hospitalisations became an almost weekly occurrence when he was little. Every man and woman on our local paramedic team were on their Christmas card list, for Christ’s sake.

Honestly, Max watched them go to hell and back with Harry for years. And that was asthma, not leukaemia or a brain tumour. So I one million percent understood why Max would not sign up to take those risks. Why he was content with having a lovely life, just the two of us. Why he believed the highs of parenthood weren’t worth risking the lows.

He told me enough times that if I died, it would finish him off anyway. He couldn’t conceive of multiplying that vulnerability by having tiny kids who were entirely dependent on us. Not when our entire future happiness would be entirely dependent on them.

His logic was so faultless that I knew I was the selfish one for actually wanting children. But, try as I might, I couldn’t fight the ache. Couldn’t fight that blind, crazy, primal desire to hold my newborns against my skin. To throw caution to the wind, despite the vast amount of things that could go wrong.

And that was where we were tragically, irreconcilably different.

It seems my message hits home with the others. Their eyes are wide, their faces concerned.

‘Sorry, babe,’ Sadie says, reaching over and squeezing my hand. ‘I got a bit over-excited. You know best, obviously, when it comes to him. And Paul’s a massive catch, anyway.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry too.’ Clara’s huge brown eyes radiate worry. ‘If you say there are irreconcilable differences, then we believe you. But are you sure you’re okay with him being under the same roof as you for the next few weeks? None of us wants to see you get hurt.’

‘I’m fine with it.’ I nod with a conviction I don’t quite feel. ‘We have an arrangement, that’s all. We both know the score.’

12

MAX

What a difference a day makes.

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