For years – even the ones before they’d moved into separate bedrooms – my parents had holidayed apart, Dad going away with his golfing buddies and Mum and I travelling round Europe visiting bear manufacturers and retailers. Dad hated bears, Mum hated golf, and I was pretty certain they hated each other. I’d therefore never understood why they didn’t just call it a day.
So how had she ended up expecting his baby? What’s that phrase? Grief does funny things to you? It certainly did funny things to my parents. My grandma – Mum’s mum – had sadly passed away during my exams. It turned out that the ‘dodgy tummy’ was actually terminal cancer. Grandma had known that her days were numbered yet she hadn’t breathed a word to anyone. Mum had been very close to her and was devastated that she’d not known how ill she was. A few weeks after the funeral, I was having a sleepover at my best friend, Karen’s, to celebrate the end of college. I’d registered the date too late: Grandma’s birthday. Mum refused to let me cancel and insisted she’d be fine. She’d have a glass of wine and toast Grandma, then maybe design a new bear in her honour. Only the glass of wine turned into a full bottle. She was an emotional mess when Dad arrived home from partaking in a few too many at the nineteenth hole. Surprisingly, he’d been a great comfort. A bit too much of a comfort. The consequences changed everything.
Mum had thought that I was in my room when she told him she was pregnant but I’d been thirsty and was on my way to the kitchen when I stopped dead on the stairs, my jaw dropping at what I’d just heard. I crouched down and peered through the bannister.
Mum was on the sofa but I could only see her legs, not her face. Dad was facing the fireplace, gripping onto the mantlepiece. Even from my hiding place, I could feel the tension emanating from him. He turned round to face Mum.
‘Are you planning on keeping the baby?’ It came across more like an accusation than a question.
‘Of course.’ She sounded surprised that he’d even ask.
His fists clenched in his hair. ‘Despite the fact that we barely have a relationship, let alone a marriage?’
‘It’s not the baby’s fault.’ Mum’s voice was gentle which I knew would rattle him even more.
‘And it’s not my fault either!’
I could imagine Mum raising her eyebrows at him.
‘Look, Jules, you can do what the hell you want, but I don’t want another baby. Ever.’ He pointed an accusing finger at her. ‘If I was to offer you an ultimatum of me or the baby, we both know what the answer would be, don’t we? Which begs the question: why the hell are we still married?’
I assume Mum had no answer to that – or perhaps she simply shrugged – because it went quiet. Then Dad folded his arms, shook his head and said in a much calmer voice, ‘I guess it’s goodbye, then.’
‘I guess it is.’
Scurrying back up the stairs, I sat on my bed and hugged my pillow to my chest while I listened to Dad moving around in the next bedroom, presumably packing the essentials.
When the front door slammed, Mum sought me out and told me her news. I feigned surprise, choosing not to add to her pain by telling her that I’d seen his reaction for myself. It must have taken a lot of restraint to speak with empathy as to why Dad had chosen to move on instead of painting him in his true colours.
He came back at the weekend and collected the rest of his belongings. He didn’t even say goodbye.
Mum put the house on the market and, four months later, with my university place deferred for a year, the two of us moved to the cottage in Little Sandby – a village ten minutes west of Whitsborough Bay – where we prepared for the arrival of my baby brother.
She tried to make excuses for my dad refusing to attend the scans. I hated keeping things from her so I confessed that I’d overheard the baby conversation and there was never any need to protect him – I knew exactly who he was and I wouldn’t think badly of her if she ever wanted to vent. Mum hugged me and admitted she should have left Dad years before. I agreed.
‘Why did you stay?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘Habit? Laziness? Too embarrassed to admit I’d made a mistake?’
‘Did you love him?’
‘I thought I did. I quickly realised I didn’t, but I was already pregnant with you. He was a good man. He was steady and reliable and he took charge. I needed those qualities in him back then but they stifled me as the years progressed. When you meet someone, Jemma, make sure he makes your heart sing and your tummy fizz. I never had that with your dad, or at least not after the first few dates.’
Life in Little Sandby without Dad was like a breath of fresh air. A new hairdo and a fresh style of clothes changed Mum’s physical appearance, but her whole personality seemed to change too. She was more relaxed, full of fun and laughter, and constantly singing.
Dad had always tried to control me: what I was wearing, who my friends were, when I did my homework, and how I should ‘get a proper job instead of playing with teddies all day like your mum’. I hadn’t realised how much he’d tried – and succeeded – to control Mum too. I don’t think she had either.
But now he was dead.
‘Are those hands washed?’ I asked Logan, who’d returned to his Lego by the time I got back downstairs.
‘You want to smell them?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m going to trust you. Let’s get your shoes on. Mum will be down in a few minutes, then we’ll be going.’
Logan picked up his black school shoes, plonked himself down on the sofa, and fumbled with the laces. ‘Jemma…’ he pleaded, exasperation in his voice. I knelt down and fastened them for him.
‘All done, Logan-paws.’
He usually smiled at his pet name, but his little face looked very serious when I stood up again.
‘Jemma?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is today a sad day?’
I sat down beside him. ‘Yes. It is.’
‘I don’t feel very sad. Billy Thomas said people cry when people die. Should I be crying?’
Tears pricked my eyes as I put my arm round him and cuddled him against me. I took a moment to compose myself so he didn’t hear any wobble in my voice. ‘Billy Thomas is right. When someone dies, people do often cry because they’re sad that they won’t see that person again and they’ll miss them.’
‘Oh! I didn’t see Daddy much and I never missed him when he wasn’t here. Not like I miss you when you go back to London. Is that why I’m not sad?’
‘Probably.’ I cuddled him even more tightly against me.
For all he’d tried to control my life and Mum’s, Dad had been completely the opposite with Logan. It hadn’t just been the baby years he wasn’t interested in. He hadn’t wanted any of the years with his son. He made a token effort to see him around his birthday or Christmas and gave him a gift that was usually age-inappropriate or something he already had. He’d maybe see him two or three other times during the year, but only if I was home for the weekend, and he’d spend all the time talking at me and still trying to control me. He’d only acknowledge Logan to tell him to: be quiet, stop talking with his mouth full, get his elbows off the table, stop playing with his food. For the first time, I realised that perhaps he had been trying to control Logan too.
Logan looked up at me, his eyes big and sad, his voice tentative. ‘Will Mum be sad if I don’t cry?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Will you cry?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you sad that Daddy’s gone to heaven?’
I swallowed hard on the lump in my throat. Was I? I didn’t want to lie to Logan but the truth was that Dad and I weren’t close. We had been when I was little, but the minute I showed interest in Mum’s passion for bears rather than his passion for golf, he seemed to lose interest in me. You’d have thought he’d have been proud of his daughter for securing her first job aged fourteen but he’d always resented Mum for the success of Bear With Me so he just rolled his eyes when I told him I had a Saturday job as Assistant B
ear Keeper.
Looking down at my brother, I chose my words carefully. ‘It’s always sad when someone dies, especially when it’s unexpected.’
‘Will the drunk man go to prison?’
‘I hope so, Logan.’
A creature of habit, Dad always took a flask of coffee and The Sunday Times to a bench on a quiet country lane just outside Cranton where he’d settled. He’d been killed instantly when, despite it being late-morning, a drunk driver misjudged a bend and ploughed straight into the bench… and Dad.
‘Billy Thomas says that the drunk man wasn’t allowed to drive a car. He says he was dequal… decoll…’ He wriggled free of my hug. ‘I can’t remember the word.’
I stood up. ‘It’s disqualified. Billy Thomas says lots of things, doesn’t he?’
‘His daddy drives an ambulance. He tried to fix our daddy, but he couldn’t.’
Oh crikey! I hadn’t known that.
‘He said Daddy didn’t stand a chance. What does that mean?’
What had Billy’s dad been thinking, having so much to say about the situation in Billy’s presence? ‘It means that it was a horrible accident and Daddy could have done nothing to stop it. He probably didn’t even see the car coming and he won’t have felt anything.’ I hoped. An image sprung to mind of Dad seeing the car veering towards him, helpless to move, then… I shuddered. I couldn’t bear to think about it.
The sound of Mum running down the stairs brought me out of the dark place my mind was heading towards. She appeared in the lounge doorway, looking calm, relaxed, and stunning. She didn’t look like someone who, minutes earlier, had been wrapped in a towel surrounded by piles of knickers and bras. Her layered shoulder-length dark hair with streaks of red and copper in it was flicked out at the sides and back in her trademark style. She wore a simple black shift dress with capped sleeves and a thin red belt. Pulling on a black fitted jacket, she smiled at us both. ‘Ready?’
‘You look amazing, Mum.’
‘I couldn’t resist a splash of colour.’ Mum pointed to her belt then winked and pointed lower. ‘Make that two splashes of colour.’
The church was busier than I expected. ‘Who are all of these people?’ I whispered to Mum as we took our reserved pew at the front.
‘Work colleagues and golf club members,’ she whispered back. ‘Either that or they’re random strangers who are here for the free vol-au-vents and Pringles.’
Several of them stood up and gave emotional eulogies. Each one enveloped me with guilt as I realised that I hadn’t known my dad at all. It seemed that many of the traits I disliked in him were admired among others. His desire for control had turned the golf club’s finances from dire into healthy. His fondness for structure and processes made him a role model at work and meant his branch consistently topped league tables. His calm and quiet demeanour meant he was the person they all confided in during troubled times. Who knew? Certainly not me!
And I did cry. I tried to be strong for Logan, but something snapped inside me as I watched the coffin disappear behind the red velvet curtains before being lowered into the crematorium below. My dad was gone. We may not have been close, unlike Mum and I, but I still cared about him. In a funny way, I’d actually miss our awkward, stilted conversations. Over the past few years, he’d finally seemed to accept that he couldn’t control my career and, instead, feigned interest in my job as curator for the children’s section of the Past Lives Museum in London. In return, I feigned interest in the bank or golf, trying to stop my eyes from glazing over as he talked about ISAs, pensions, irons and handicaps. We always avoided talking about Bear With Me. And Mum. And Logan. It’s amazing how many conversations a person can have about the weather.
Logan fell asleep in the car on the way home from the wake. He was completely out of it so Mum carried him into Bear’s Pad.
‘Baileys?’ I whispered, removing Logan’s shoes as Mum kicked off her heels.
‘Gosh, yes! A huge one with lots of ice.’
She carried Logan upstairs while I poured two generous measures of Baileys then opened the freezer. As I pulled open the drawer that usually contained the ice cube trays, I frowned. What the hell was that? I lifted the packet out of the drawer, brushed a few flakes of ice off it, and stared at the item in my hand: a three-pack of M&S black knickers.
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About the Author
Jessica Redland is the top 10 bestselling author of over thirteen novels, including The Secret to Happiness. Inspired by her hometown of Scarborough she writes uplifting women’s fiction which has garnered many devoted fans.
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Also by Jessica Redland
Standalone Novels
The Secret To Happiness
Christmas at Carly's Cupcakes
Starry Skies Over The Chocolate Pot Café
All You Need Is Love
Christmas Wishes at the Chocolate Shop
Snowflakes Over The Starfish Café
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Welcome To Whitsborough Bay Series
Making Wishes At Bay View
New Beginnings at Seaside Blooms
Finding Hope at Lighthouse Cove
Coming Home To Seashell Cottage
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Hedgehog Hollow Series
Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow
New Arrivals at Hedgehog Hollow
Family Secrets at Hedgehog Hollow
A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow
About Boldwood Books
Boldwood Books is a fiction publishing company seeking out the best stories from around the world.
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First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Boldwood Books Ltd.
Copyright © Jessica Redland, 2021
Cover Design by Debbie Clement Design
Cover Photography: Shutterstock
The moral right of Jessica Redland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologise for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-80048-452-8
Large Print ISBN 978-1-80048-453-5
Hardback ISBN 978-1-80280-204-7
Ebook ISBN 978-1-80048-455-9
Kindle ISBN 978-1-80048-454-2
Audio CD ISBN 978-1-80048-447-4
MP3 CD ISBN 978-1-80048-448-1
Digital audio download ISBN 978-1-80048-450-4
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Christmas Wishes at the Chocolate Shop Page 27
