A Year of Second Chances

by kendra Smith

  Joyce has just come back from the kitchen and is now leaning over Dawn’s plate. ‘Actually, darling, are you sure that turkey’s cooked?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Joyce!’ Dawn jerks back in her seat. ‘Of course it is! I’ve had enough! First, she reorders my kitchen, then interferes with the gravy, and now she’s questioning my cooking skills! Whatever next?’ Dawn folds her arms across her chest and looks at Eric for support, but he just shrugs.

  The poor dog Pixie is yapping away at the foot of the table. ‘I’ll take him to the back door.’ Rex pulls his chair back, scoops up Pixie and retreats to the calm of the kitchen, as I glance at Daniel, who is studiously staring at his plate.

  44

  Dawn

  As Dawn entered the kitchen she felt a surge of relief. Honestly! She was glad to leave the table and get some cool air in the kitchen. Her cheeks were quite flushed. Christmas spirit, indeed! She did feel a bit bad for yelling at Joyce, but really, that woman!

  Rex was standing by the sink, his arms folded. She went up to the tap to fill up Pixie’s dog bowl and he turned to her.

  She’d always thought he was a good-looking man, but today, well, those hormones must be pretty powerful – and perhaps that champagne – oh yes, and the sherry – were all stronger than she realised. He really was quite charismatic. She let out a giggle and held on to his arm, to steady herself. His green eyes pierced through her and he frowned.

  ‘What’s so funny? My wife is behaving like a lunatic and our dog – I’ve just found out – is going to bloody Reiki classes that we can’t afford!’ Rex seemed quite agitated. He was wearing a white shirt, neatly ironed (when did Eric last wear an ironed white shirt? Today of all days, he’d been wandering around in his blue checked flannelette work shirt.) Plus, there was a delicious-smelling aftershave coming from Rex. And he was so tall!

  ‘Dawn?’ He’d reached out and was touching her elbow. ‘I don’t think it’s funny, do you?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She bit her lip. ‘Yes, I really, really do think it’s quite funny, Rex; it’s just Suzie’s way of controlling things.’ She squeezed his forearm. God, it was muscly. She shook herself and tried to concentrate.

  ‘Look, Rex, I know there’s lots of stress, but just think, soon you might have a baby of your own, and Suzie will calm down, she really will,’ she lied, feeling a burning sensation rising up her cheeks, knowing that, actually, deep down, a newborn baby might just push Suzie over the edge.

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right. But I’m finding it very hard with this surrogacy thing with Suzie. She’s like a cat on a hot tin roof. It’s all she ever thinks about.’

  ‘I know,’ Dawn agreed; she knew Suzie was at her neurotic worst. The tension must be dreadful at home. ‘It will be a really tricky time, Rex, you just need to be supportive.’ She smiled up at him.

  ‘I’m try-ing…’ He raised his eyebrows and finally smiled at her.

  ‘Coo-ee!’ Joyce came clattering in with some plates. Dawn nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘What are you two secretly chatting about?’ She laughed, piling plates on the draining board.

  ‘I’ll just sort out the plum pudding; you go back to your guests, dear,’ she bossed Dawn out of the kitchen.

  When Dawn got back to her seat she looked around the table, at the tiny pots of poinsettias in the centre, which Alice had covered in fake spray snow, at the tinsel… It was magical. All that was missing was Lucy… How must Daniel really feel, being brought back into this house after all these years with all the memories of times here before with Lucy? They’d all teased her at the time, called Daniel her ‘toy boy’ and all the rest of it – but she’d been so alive when she talked about him.

  She’d met him at work, had been his mentor. She remembered Lucy confiding in her – telling her about their coffees and the chats that had turned into lunch, and then, after a while, dinner – and it all led to one of the most sizzling romances; well, according to Lucy it was. They had both been head over heels. A wedding here in Chesterbrook. A few gossips said nasty things about the age gap, but on the day, she’d never seen Lucy look so beautiful: she’d worn a vintage lace dress and carried a bouquet of pink freesias and roses. In fact, she was sure there was a photo somewhere on the mantelpiece of their wedding. She looked over towards it. How odd, it had been pushed behind another one.

  The conversation had lulled and Felix was lining up peas along the top of the cranberry sauce jar and flicking them, successfully, onto the floor, where Pixie had resumed his spot under the table. The dog, however, emerged every now and again to gobble them up.

  ‘What’s Tyler up to today, Charlie? You know he was very welcome.’ Dawn smiled.

  ‘Oh, he’s trying out his new, er, second-hand camera. I did want him to come along.’ She smiled back at Dawn. ‘Thank you for asking him, but he’s really desperate to get on that photography course at college and the entry paperwork and his portfolio need to be finished. He’s out in the snow now, taking snaps, said he needed to catch it when the sun was right.’

  ‘Did you say photography?’ asked Dawn.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Well Daniel used to be quite a keen amateur, didn’t you, Daniel?’

  ‘Er, yes, yes I did when Lucy was, um, alive… but since then—’ He looked to the ceiling. ‘—I’ve sort of lost interest – until recently.’ She was sure she’d seen him shoot a look over at Charlie. ‘I’m sort of getting back into it.’

  ‘Well done, old chap.’ Eric got out of his seat and patted Daniel on the back as he walked past and poured out some more wine.

  ‘Ta-da!’ Joyce suddenly appeared with the plum pudding set alight and adorned with holly round the plate and covered in a ton of edible glitter by Alice.

  ‘Oh, Mum! Bravo! Well done!’ Eric turned around to face her and started to clap. ‘Isn’t Nanna clever, children?’

  Why’s he clapping? It’s only plum pudding. She isn’t doing a can-can. Dawn tried not to feel put out. She had always brought in the plum pudding on Christmas Day. She forced a cheery smile onto her lips and knocked back the rest of her red wine.

  But just as she did, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Couldn’t be. But she was pretty sure that she caught a glimmer in Charlie’s eyes she recognised.

  Yes, that was it – she remembered that sort of look when she used to sit and watch Eric in his parents’ garden. She used to offer to help Joyce with the washing-up in Eric’s parents’ kitchen, but the real reason was that from the window she got a great view of the garden, of watching their only son’s strong arms move about, his tanned shoulders in the summer, powerfully cutting down hedges, or raking up leaves: it was longing.

  Unless I’m very much mistaken, that poor girl Charlie has the most enormous crush on Daniel. She watched them later in the hallway, as he carefully helped her put on her coat and Charlie couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  45

  Charlie

  We’ve walked up over heathland behind Dawn’s house, past the local church, and we’re heading to the forest. Thank goodness Eric suggested a ‘bracing family walk’ – I had to get out of there. It’s beautiful out here; the view over the South Downs at Merchant Hills is one I’ll never tire of. No matter how much life gets me down, I love this scenery. And today with clumps of snow dotted across the hills like patches of cotton wool, it’s stunning; it’s as if someone has tipped glitter across the dark green hills as they shimmer in the sun with the snow.

  It’s getting worse, the feeling in my stomach when I look at Daniel. I force my gaze over the horizon and try not to keep looking at him. He’s like a magnet to me; I can’t help staring at his broad shoulders and his sure footsteps in front of me. But my heart sinks: he knows about the surrogacy. I feel sick – and it’s not the pregnancy.

  Suddenly, Pixie bounds off from Alice in front.

  ‘Help! I couldn’t keep hold of him! Pixie!’

  ‘Alice, honestly! What happened? He’ll get lost!’ Suzi
e has run up to her and is looking exasperated.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure his dog Reiki will help him find his way back,’ mutters Rex, marching past us.

  ‘Listen, I’ll grab him.’ Daniel starts to jog after the little fluff ball as he disappears into the forest.

  I stop and take in a lungful of air and breathe out deeply. The kids are bickering in front of me about whose fault it was.

  ‘Well, you’re just stupid, you let the dog go!’ Felix is firing his Nerf Gun at Alice’s legs and she’s started to pout.

  ‘We’ll keep going, OK?’ Dawn is ahead of me, shouting at the kids to come along.

  I nod at her. ‘I’ll wait for Daniel.’

  As I wait my feet get cold and I start to stamp them on the ground to keep warm. When I look up at the little snow-covered path through the trees, I can just make out Daniel carrying Pixie under his arm. The little dog is yapping loudly and trying to lick his face. Daniel’s laughing as he emerges through the trees.

  He comes up to me and brushes snow off his jacket. ‘He’s fast!’ His breath turns to a hazy smoke in the frosty air.

  ‘Yes.’ I smile. ‘And I probably shouldn’t run…’ I look down at my belly, not knowing where else to look. ‘It feels a bit odd,’ I say returning my gaze to his eyes.

  ‘I expect it does.’ He frowns and briskly starts up, adding: ‘Let’s keep walking.’

  We walk for a while, our footsteps in time. Pixie is now back on his lead, yanking Daniel’s hand and sniffing in the bushes.

  He breaks the silence first. ‘Tell me about your family, Charlie. What actually happened. You’ve just given me edited bits before, a bit like—’ But he checks himself and doesn’t finish. He must hate me, not telling him, keeping a secret, just when we… What must he think of me? I expect he’s just trying to avoid talking about the surrogacy. Talk about ‘elephant in the room’ – I’ve now placed a whole herd of them between Daniel and I. How are we going to recover from this?

  ‘Well, my “family” was a whole string of foster carers, like I said, and I never knew my real family. I never knew why my mum gave me away to care.’

  ‘That must hurt.’

  I shrug. More than you’ll ever know. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you never wanted to find out who she is?’

  ‘I don’t always think digging up the past means a happy ending. I did contact an agency once,’ I say, remembering that awful phone call. How hopeful I’d become. ‘But they warned me that sometimes the birth mother doesn’t want to have anything to do with her birth children – and it just put me off. I didn’t know if I could face that – another rejection, after all the heartache, time and effort of actually finding her. Can you imagine? To be rejected once was bad enough… But then, it’s funny – going to Dawn’s house, you know, the tree, the kids… It’s all so perfect, well, it seems perfect to me. It’s hard not to wish my childhood could have been like that.’ I kick a stone out the way with my foot.

  ‘Not all families are perfect, Charlie. Things aren’t always what they seem – there are cracks in everyone’s lives. It’s just that some people are better than others at covering them up.’

  Covering them up. He hates me.

  We’re at a viewpoint looking across the hills. There are little splodges of purple, blue and green as kids whiz down the slope on sledges; like human Smarties hurtling down the hills.

  ‘But certainly, yours does seem to have had very deep cracks,’ he adds. He takes his hand out of his pocket and for a moment I think he’s going to take my hand, but he seems to think twice about it and shoves it back in his pocket again. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  I shake my head. I can’t face any more bearing of the soul, especially when he’s just humouring me. ‘Not right now. Shall we catch them up?’ I have no idea what he thinks about me. I’m not going to mess it up even more by revealing these feelings, the ones I keep hidden. The ones that are like treasures in a jewellery box. One of those boxes with the little ballerina that comes out and twirls when you open the lid. I used to have one like that. Most of the time my beautiful ballerina was in the dark, hidden in the box – like my secrets – but when I sat in my room and opened it, she was glittering and bright and real, in her blue sparkly dress with a tiny piece of netting, twirling around for her audience. Who’s my audience? Who is my family?

  No, I don’t want to tell Daniel that each time I went from foster family to foster family, I had prayed to myself that this time would be different, this time, they’d keep me, want me, that they weren’t just in it for the money. But every time I’d been disappointed, and I built up more and more of a shell, until finally they told me I was free to go, at eighteen. Then, along came Tyler…

  We walk in time with each other; even Pixie seems to sense the mood is sombre and trots alongside us both quietly. The path meanders in and out of the trees.

  ‘It must be odd,’ I say, because I can’t stand the silence, ‘to be back here? All those memories? Of Lucy—’

  ‘It is odd to be back.’ He turns to me. ‘More than you’ll know…’ His eyes roam towards the trees and then back to me.

  As I turn to him, I study his chestnut brown eyes, his long lashes and high cheekbones. I desperately want to reach out and touch his face, his beard. I keep thinking about how he held me, how he kissed me; the passion. How sublime it was to get lost in a sea of emotion. And now this. Wretched Joyce, blurting it all out. I could kill her. I wanted to, wanted to – what? I suddenly realise. Tell him I was carrying a baby for cash, explain that to him, quietly, in his car one day: sorry about all the laughs we are having, but this will all end in me having a baby and you’ll lose all respect for me. I feel dreadful.

  There’s a sadness hidden beneath his eyes. I can see it at times in between the banter and the jokes. There have been several times when he’s changed the subject just as I seem to be getting closer to him. But what right do I have to pursue that now? I push my hands further into my pockets to stop myself reaching out. I want to ask him about it, but now isn’t the right time.

  We stroll back along the path to where the others are waiting. The trees are laced with frost and the sky has turned milky. It’s getting late.

  ‘It’s always so beautiful here, isn’t it?’ He stops in his tracks and stares out to the horizon. Something is clearly troubling him and I just know it’s me.

  Pixie suddenly barks and jumps up on his legs, spoiling the silence. Daniel’s trousers are covered in mud. He bends down, pats Pixie on the head. ‘You mucky dog, you!’ He tickles him under the chin, then turns and wanders off ahead of me, lost in thought.

  *

  Much later, after we said our awkward goodbyes in the car park, and Rex and Suzie had dropped me home in silence, I have my legs curled up on the sofa and am nearly falling asleep when suddenly I have an idea. A great idea. Daniel teaches people to drive. Maybe that way I’d have more time with him. See much more of him. And then I can explain all about the baby thing, so he didn’t think I was so bad. It would give me time to explain it all. Suzie must never find out – she’d be furious – but why not? This is my chance.

  I send him a text with our usual smiley face emoji.

  Can you teach me to drive? I know you like a challenge! We can talk. I can explain it all. Start soon? C

  Should I add a kiss? Better not. I hug my knees. I can’t wait to get his reply.

  46

  Suzie

  Thank God that was over. Suzie took off her silver high heels, placed them neatly at the foot of the stairs and then padded in stockinged feet to the sofa. In fact, she thought, sinking down, it ranked as one of the worse Christmas dinners she’d ever been to. She adored Dawn, but honestly, with her overbearing mother-in-law, Joyce around who could blame her for knocking back the bubbly and being a bit, well, there was only one word for it – flirtatious with Rex? And as for Alice and Felix, they’d had far too much sugar, what had Dawn been thinking? And Rex – what had got into him? He’d b
een totally off with her. And that Daniel, what was wrong with the man?

  Perhaps she should hire another company to drive Charlie around – Daniel seemed to be very jumpy over dinner – and earlier, before Dawn had called them through, she’d found him creeping around the lounge looking intently at all the photos on the mantelpiece.

  Charlie had looked just dreadful, with dark circles under her eyes. Suzie had repeatedly told her how important sleep was. And she’d emailed her that Healthy Eating leaflet from the Nutrition Workshop.

  Ramone interrupted her thoughts. ‘Meeses Havilland, eets your madre on the phone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your mother, no?’ He stood in front of the sofa holding the handset.

  Her mother? Her mother hadn’t called her in… she couldn’t remember, but about eleven months – since her last birthday.

  ‘I make you in some minced piss, no? And I make special butter, how you say brandy butter? Yes, I find recipe on BBC good foods. You wait.’ And with that he handed her the phone and skipped out to the kitchen.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, dear, it is me. Who was that who answered the phone?’

  ‘Ramone – he cooks and he cleans – he’s our au pair.’

  ‘Oh, how funny, but you don’t have any children.’ Ouch.

  ‘Mum, why are you calling? You haven’t called in ages.’

  ‘No. But it’s Christmas Day isn’t it? I thought I’d call, that’s what families do.’

  Suzie could picture her, in their draughty house in Chichester. Dad probably out on his boat again. She supposed she was trying to make an effort. ‘Did you have a nice day?’ Suzie ventured.

  ‘Well, yes, we had a small turkey crown, just the two of us.’

  Suzie felt a pang of guilt. Her mother carried on. ‘Actually, I was calling about your father.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ Suzie felt a knot in her stomach. Although her relationship with her parents was frosty, they were still her parents.