The Christmas Sisters

by Sarah Morgan

  “I had to make a short phone call.” It had been a while since Hannah had felt so useless and humiliated. The previous time had been in the mountains, too. “I didn’t know I was going to be attacked.”

  “Socks is more scared than you.”

  “I scared him? I didn’t push my face in his and almost savage him.”

  “He wasn’t savaging you.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “This is where he lives. You were the one in the wrong place. He was being friendly.” Posy wrapped her arms round the pony’s neck and gave him a reassuring hug. “Do you need therapy? Poor Socks.”

  “Poor Socks? What about me?” Hannah could barely talk through her chattering teeth. She didn’t dare look at the state of her coat. And then she remembered Angie and felt a flutter of panic. She didn’t want her team to see anything other than her most professional self, but this time her camouflage had well and truly disappeared. “I don’t know what happened to my phone. I was in the middle of a conversation.”

  Posy glanced around. “I see it.” She jerked her head. “Over there. That gives a whole new meaning to talking a load of horseshi—”

  “Do not say it!” Hannah picked her way across uneven, frozen ground and retrieved her phone, which, by some improvement in her luck, was still working. Angie, however, was long gone and Hannah had no way of knowing what she’d heard. She pushed it into her pocket and noticed her sister’s shoulders were shaking. “Could you at least try not to laugh?”

  “I’m laughing with relief. I was worried you’d hurt yourself. Oh, Hannah, Hannah—” Posy doubled over, almost choking, and Hannah felt a rush of exasperation and also envy that her sister could find the amusing side to almost any situation. She wanted to steal some of that lightness and wrap it around her serious self.

  “I’m glad I provided entertainment.” She knew she was being stiff, but she couldn’t help it. “Please don’t worry that my call was important and that my career might well be over.”

  “I won’t.” Posy wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Just kidding. Don’t the people you work with have a sense of humor?”

  “I have a serious job. I’d rather people didn’t laugh at me.” Especially at the one thing in her life she considered herself to be good at. “Do you think we can go back to the house now?”

  “Yes, but I should warn you that you’re going to be scrubbing red streaks off the kitchen wall.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Beth left all that easy-to-use makeup lying over the kitchen table, despite my constant pleas for her to clear it up. You left Ruby alone. Those two actions have collided with cataclysmic consequences. What did Beth call that color? Everyday Red? It’s not looking so hot on the wall, I can tell you, but I can confirm that Ruby did find it incredibly easy to use.”

  Hannah felt a rush of horror. “I only left them for five minutes.” She stumbled back across the frozen field with her sister, anxious about the children. “And I checked on them. They were both safe and comfortable. Five minutes.”

  “Five minutes and a lipstick is all it takes for Ruby to decide she is Michelangelo and the kitchen wall is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Calm down. It will be fine.”

  How could her sister be so relaxed? “She was watching TV!”

  “Ruby isn’t a child who sits for long. She’s always on the move.”

  Guilt pricked. It had been years since she’d had responsibility for a child. Still, she should have remembered. “You were the same. I had to watch you constantly.”

  Posy frowned. “You watched me?”

  “Yes.”

  “When? How old was I?”

  “Forget it. Forget I said anything.” Why had she? She was feeling things she didn’t usually feel, and saying things she didn’t usually say.

  “I don’t want to forget it.” Posy stopped walking. “You babysat me? Where were our parents?”

  “Climbing. They usually left us at home.”

  “They didn’t get a sitter?”

  “Sometimes, and sometimes Suzanne came, but there were usually a few hours when it was just the three of us.”

  Posy turned the collar of her jacket up. “So—you are pregnant. Are you—”

  “Keeping it? Yes.” She was surprised by how defensive she felt. How fierce. Not for a moment would her child think it wasn’t wanted.

  And she knew now it was very much wanted.

  “I was going to ask if you were pleased.” Posy’s voice was soft. “Do you want to talk?”

  The wind was icy and Hannah’s fingers were frozen. It was hardly the place for a heart-to-heart and yet her sister’s words made her feel warmer than she’d felt in a long time. “No, but I appreciate the offer.”

  Posy took off her scarf and wound it around Hannah’s neck. “Have you told the guy who—I mean, the father?”

  Hannah snuggled inside the scarf, touched by the gesture. “No. I suppose I should be glad there’s no signal, given I don’t know what I’d say to him. It’s not exactly your everyday conversation.”

  She didn’t have a clue what his reaction would be.

  Hannah liked to plan, and she’d had no plan for this nor had she had time to formulate one.

  And she was tired, so tired. Was that normal? She had no idea.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m a very engaged aunt. Always available for babysitting duties.”

  “Good. I’m going to need the help because I’d like not to be a terrible mother.” Somehow it seemed easier to admit how she felt to Posy, who didn’t seem to have a particularly high opinion of her anyway.

  “Why would you be a terrible mother?” Posy pulled her hat down over her ears. “I think you’ll be a great mother.”

  “Based on what? The fact that I fell off the gate, potentially damaging a child that hasn’t even been born yet? Or that I left my nieces unattended because I thought they’d be fine?”

  “They are fine.” Posy shrugged. “Let’s keep things in perspective. So the house might need redecorating, but no one died.”

  “Somehow I don’t think Beth is going to be as calm about it. She’ll be angry, and I don’t blame her. It was careless of me.”

  “You don’t have kids. I’m sure Beth didn’t know any of these things until she had kids. We learn through experience. There are going to be plenty of ways in which you are brilliant.”

  “You think?” Was it pathetic of her that she needed that reassurance?

  “I know. For a start, look how efficient you are. You will probably keep a spreadsheet, tracking Bugsy’s whereabouts at all times. And it’s not as if you haven’t had experience. As you said, you looked after me and I’m still here. Was I hard work?”

  Hannah remembered the challenge of looking after Posy. “It was like herding cats. You were a ball of energy, impossible to occupy and determined to climb everything. Sadly, I wasn’t such a great climber, which meant that retrieving you from the top of cupboards was a challenge.”

  “How old was I? When did I walk?”

  The wind was bitter and they were standing in a field reminiscing?

  Hannah shivered. “I don’t remember you walking. I only remember you climbing. Dad talked about it all the time. He was so proud of you. In the summers when we traveled around and virtually lived in the van, he’d come and grab you and take you to wherever he was hanging out with climbing friends, so he could show you off. I used to hear him boasting, Have you seen my Posy? She’s a dynamo. She can climb anything. Oh yeah, she’s my daughter, all right.”

  Posy stared at her. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk about our father.” She looked as surprised as Hannah felt.

  It wasn’t a subject she usually touched. She wasn’t sure what had made her touch it now except that lately she seemed to be doing all sorts of things she didn’t normally do. Be
ing pregnant seemed to have affected her internal wiring. “We should get back—Ruby and Melly might be—”

  “In a minute. Mom’s there, and she’s feeling better, so I’m sure that if there’s screaming she’ll investigate.” Posy put her hand on her arm. “He took all three of us climbing?”

  “No. Only you.”

  “You and Beth never came?”

  Hannah felt tension rise. “Only one time. After that he left us in the van and took you.”

  “What happened that one time? Why didn’t he take you, too?”

  “I wasn’t much of a climber. And climbing was the only thing Dad really cared about.”

  Hannah? No, she hasn’t got it. There are days when I wonder where the hell she came from!

  Hannah hadn’t even known what “it” was. All she’d understood was that she lacked something, and that the deficiency in her makeup made her a source of deep embarrassment to her father.

  She did her best to please, but to her he was a daunting figure, a lion of a man with a loud laugh and a restless energy. He rarely shaved and swore a lot. Fuck this and fuck that.

  Hannah felt tense and awkward in his presence, and the conversation was like a foreign language. In the evening, her father would gather round the campfire with friends and numerous beer bottles, and Hannah would lie in her bunk and listen as words and phrases wafted toward her. The talk was of overhangs, the Yosemite Decimal System, free soloing; of harnesses, bolt hangers and anchor chains.

  She always waited for the conversation to move on to other things she could understand, but it never did. Climbers, she discovered, talked about climbing and nothing else. Whenever conversation turned to some climbing legend who had achieved an incredible first ascent, her father would start planning a trip, too. She’d heard people call him a badass and a thrill seeker. She’d also heard him called a pothead, but had no idea what that was. All she knew was that his whole life was dedicated to doing something she didn’t understand at all. She was scared of heights and didn’t see the point of climbing.

  Beth didn’t particularly enjoy climbing, either, but her love of makeup and all things girlie amused their mother.

  It was obvious to Hannah that she had nothing to redeem her in the eyes of either parent.

  “But you were good at other things,” Posy said. “You’re smart. That must have made them proud. I bet they boasted about you, too.”

  There was no way she was going to admit how badly her parents had destroyed her confidence, or how she’d twisted herself into a million different shapes to make them proud, before eventually giving up and accepting the truth—

  That not all parents loved their children equally.

  “We need to get back to the kids.” She went to step forward, but Posy blocked her path.

  “You didn’t feel they were proud of you?”

  “I know they weren’t.” If she said I got an A in Math, Daddy, her father would scratch his jaw and try to find something to say, That’s great, I guess. “People value different things. Our parents valued athletic ability, and as you know from my recent attempt to balance on a gate, I’m sadly lacking in that. That last summer before the accident, I taught you to read.”

  “Yeah?” Posy slid her arm into Hannah’s and the two of them walked toward the lodge, their boots crunching on the new snow. “You were eight years old and you taught me to read? That must have made our parents proud, surely?”

  Don’t waste your time. She’ll learn to read soon enough. We don’t need her turning into you!

  “Dad thought there was plenty of time for that when you started school. He was worried that an interest in books might stop you climbing.”

  They reached the back door and walked into the boot room. Hannah tugged off her boots, wondering how it was that a person’s voice could stay in your head for twenty-five years.

  Because she knew her love of books irritated her father, Hannah had read under the covers with a flashlight. The worst time for her was summer, when the whole family left their small rented home in the mountains, squashed into the van and drove between the Rockies and the Cascades, tackling different climbs.

  Space was limited, and each child was allowed one small bag.

  Hannah had crammed hers full of books.

  Posy levered off her boots. “Tell me about that one time.”

  “What time?”

  “You said they only took you climbing one time.”

  One summer, instead of staying in the van and losing herself in fictional worlds that all seemed more appealing than her own, she’d forced herself to try climbing.

  She’d been determined to prove herself and bring the same expression of pride to their father’s face that he wore when he looked at Posy.

  In the end all she’d proved was that she didn’t have the aptitude or attitude.

  “It wasn’t a resounding success.”

  She’d frozen on the rock, terrified by the drop, her teeth chattering, each moment of her agony intensified by her father’s impatience.

  For God’s sake, climb! How are you even my child?

  Weird how different kids can be, he’d said to a climber friend without even bothering to lower his voice.

  His obvious embarrassment and the sympathetic expression on the face of his friend had unglued her frozen hands. Determined to climb and be like her sister, she’d thrown caution to the wind and tried to find a handhold on the smooth rock.

  Posy closed the back door, shutting out the cold. “What happened?”

  “I fell.” And she still remembered the gut-swooping rush as she’d lost her grip and fallen through the air.

  “And Dad caught you?”

  “No. He was too busy excusing my lack of athletic ability to his friends.”

  She’d hit the ground so hard she’d thought she’d broken every bone in her body. As it turned out, she’d broken only one.

  Her arm had been twisted at a funny angle, bone protruding through her skin.

  Something flickered in Posy’s eyes. “You were hurt?”

  “Yes, but it turned out to be a good thing. I was allowed to spend the rest of the summer in the van.” Hot and itchy from the plaster, resentful and humiliated, but safe with her books.

  “You must have hated me.”

  “What? No! I adored you.” The words flew from her lips before she could stop them. “Everyone adored you. You were bold and engaging and you never stopped smiling. Dad told everyone you were his favorite.”

  It was a moment before Posy answered, and when she did, her voice was quiet. “That must have hurt your feelings horribly.”

  “It was a long time ago.” But not so long ago she couldn’t remember the misery. “We should go and find the girls.”

  “I want to talk. Why do we never talk like this?”

  Because it was like having her insides scooped out with a sharp object?

  “I don’t know, but I need to clean the walls before Beth and Jason come home, or I’ll never hear the last of it.” She’d already said more than she’d ever intended to. “I’m not in the mood to go ten rounds with Beth. Or you, for that matter. I know you’re stressed and busy. Tell me what needs doing for Christmas. We’ll handle it together.”

  “Can you pluck a turkey?”

  “No. And I know you’re winding me up. There has to be something on that list I can do.”

  Posy unzipped her jacket. “The day they died—were we on our own that day?”

  “The list—”

  “Were you on your own?”

  Hannah sighed. Her sister showed the same stubbornness she had as a child when she’d been determined to climb on top of the fridge. “We had a sitter, but when they were late arriving back, she left and told me they wouldn’t be long. She was annoyed because they hadn’t left her enough money. And they never did show up. You
were sick. You had a temperature. I didn’t know what to do. I tried calling, but they didn’t answer the phone.”

  “That must have been scary.”

  At the time she hadn’t been scared, or even anxious—that part had come later. At the time she’d been angry. Angry that climbing always came before family. Angry that they’d abandoned their responsibilities to go up another mountain. Angry that they couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone when she called. She’d even left a message saying This is about Posy, not me, in case that increased the inducement to respond.

  I’m in the wrong family, she’d thought over and over again, and when she’d closed her eyes, she’d imagined herself waking up and finding herself with different parents.

  And that, of course, had been exactly what had happened.

  19

  Beth

  “You think wanting to work makes me a bad parent.” Beth slid her arm into Jason’s as they strolled to the edge of the loch. There was a short, circular walk that meandered around the edge of the water. In summer, there were nesting birds and brown trout. Now, in winter, the loch had a glassy stillness and an icy calm. Beyond them, the forest stretched like Narnia, the trees weighted by snow, merging with the snowy peaks behind.

  “That’s not true. It is true that I couldn’t understand why you wanted to go back to work, but that was because I thought I knew what your day involved. I’ve discovered how wrong I was.”

  “But you want another baby. And that’s not something that’s easy to compromise on.”

  Jason stopped walking. His breath made clouds in the freezing air and he tugged her against him. “I’m not going to deny that I’d love another child, but it’s an emotional reaction, not a logical one. Your relationship with your sisters has its ups and downs, but I also know you love having them in your life. It’s as if the three of you are in an exclusive club.”

  “Sometimes they drive me insane.”

  “I know, but even in your lowest moments, have you ever wished you didn’t have sisters?”