Make My Wish Come True

by Fiona Harper

  Violet shook her head. ‘He says he’s feeling better now it’s out. He wants to watch TV.’

  Juliet shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  Violet frowned. ‘But you always say no TV before bedtime.’

  She just kept on staring at Violet, too weary to even say she didn’t care about that rule tonight.

  Violet stepped forward. ‘Are you okay, Mum?’

  Juliet pressed the fingers of one hand against her forehead and rubbed gently. Was she all right? She really didn’t know. She swallowed. ‘Um... I think I’m just a bit stressed, actually. I’m not feeling...not feeling very well. I think I’ll give the party a miss and just go to bed early.’

  She looked longingly at the bed. She’d love to dive in it now, but there were children to be reassured and a puddle of sick to be cleared up still. She fancied she could catch a whiff of it, even up here in the bedroom.

  She inhaled through her nose and out through her mouth, just as she learned at Pilates, and then she turned to face Violet. ‘Why don’t we all snuggle up on the sofa and watch a movie together? It’s been ages since we’ve done something like that.’

  Some of the fear left Violet’s eyes and she nodded. And then she smiled gently. ‘I’ll go and get the others rounded up.’ Then she walked over to Juliet and flung her arms round her. ‘I’ll even clear up the sick, if you like?’

  A tear slid down Juliet’s cheek and she squeezed her daughter back. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll do that. You go and ask the others what they want to watch—and try and let it not turn into World War Three, okay?’

  She nodded and walked towards the door, but glancing back repeatedly as Juliet swiped the single tear away with the end of her sleeve. Violet took one last look at the threshold before she disappeared down the stairs.

  Juliet picked up the pillow, faintly smeared with nude lipstick, and peeled the slip off of it.

  Just for a moment, she’d been staring at herself instead of Violet—overwhelmed, but trying to take on grown-up responsibilities to ease her mother’s load—and it had scared her more than even the screaming had.

  * * *

  SHE WAS WOKEN BY the sound of her sons pounding the life out of each other on the landing. She stumbled out of bed, her hair standing up on one side and told them to put a sock in it. Both boys froze and smiled innocently at her. From the way Jake had his brother in a headlock, she guessed he was fighting fit again.

  She felt strangely light and strangely empty, as if something had stopped pushing her down, but at the same time she just couldn’t settle to anything. She kept wandering into rooms and forgetting why she’d gone in there. She didn’t even look in her Christmas notebook once. In the end, partly because she’d noticed the mismatching pillowcase she’d got out the evening before, she decided to change the rest of her bed linen. There was something about the smell and feel of clean sheets that made one feel as if everything was going to be all right.

  As she was stripping the duvet cover she became aware of a presence in the doorway. She turned to find Violet there again. Was her daughter checking up on her? Had their roles somehow become reversed? Because it shouldn’t be that way, it really shouldn’t. She knew that from experience.

  She smiled at Violet, a bright, sunny smile that she mostly had to fake, but she wanted her to know that everything was back to normal. No more outbursts. No more screaming. She didn’t even think she had the energy in her to do it this morning, anyway.

  Violet studied her, but when she spoke, the question that came out of her mouth was a bit of a surprise. ‘Mum... What Auntie Gemma said about going on holiday wasn’t a joke, was it?’

  Juliet tried to think up a breezy denial, but her head was empty. ‘No, it wasn’t a joke...’

  Violet nodded thoughtfully. ‘We didn’t think it was.’

  We?

  But Juliet couldn’t think about that at the moment. She needed to reassure her daughter. ‘Auntie Gemma might not have meant it to be a joke, but it might as well have been.’ She opened her arms and walked towards her daughter. ‘I wouldn’t do it to you, sweetie. I wouldn’t go away and leave you at Christmas. I just couldn’t.’

  Juliet folded her arms around her daughter and breathed in her scent.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Mum,’ Violet mumbled into her shoulder, ‘but maybe you should.’

  Juliet pulled sharply back and stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  Vi looked up at the ceiling and shifted awkwardly. ‘You’re not happy.’

  Tears sprang with force to the backs of Juliet’s eyes. ‘Of course I’m happy! I’ve got you...and Polly...and the boys. What more could I want?’

  Violet looked back at her and one side of her mouth tipped up in a rueful smile. ‘If you’re anything like me, you might want a boyfriend.’

  Juliet shook her head. She knew it had been two years and she really should want a boyfriend, but she wasn’t sure she did. Even her maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn’t relationship with her next-door neighbour was enough to freak her out. ‘There’s more to life than boyfriends,’ she told Violet.

  Vi gave her a one-shouldered shrug. She looked less than convinced by her mother’s pronouncement, and it made Juliet smile. Oh, to be that young and that carefree again—when the only thing you stressed about was whether the boy you liked liked you back. She’d forgotten life could be that simple.

  ‘But you miss Dad, don’t you?’

  Juliet sat on the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside her. Violet joined her.

  ‘I did at first,’ she said, ‘but now I think maybe I just miss having someone to share things with.’

  Violet looked surprised at that admission. ‘But you’ve been so unhappy since he left. I thought you’d get better after a bit—and sometimes you are—but then you get all stressed and just start shouting at us.’

  Juliet’s mouth dropped open. ‘Do I?’

  Violet nodded. ‘And it’s been worse since the Christmas decorations went up in town.’

  Juliet pressed her palm against her forehead, as if she could ward off the growing tension there. She had felt more frazzled since the Christmas preparations had been added to her already hectic workload, but she hadn’t realised she’d been taking it out on the kids. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and willed herself not to cry. The one thing she thought she was actually good at—being a mother—she was actually failing at too.

  ‘Mum...?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Violet took at deep breath. ‘I think you’re tired. That’s why you’re cross all the time. And when I get moody, you always tell me to go and relax, to do something I love, like listen to my favourite music or read a book. I know I stomp off and moan when you tell me that...but it works.’

  Juliet nodded and gave her daughter a damp smile. She knew it worked. ‘What are you trying to say, darling?’

  A look of unusual determination passed across her daughter’s features. ‘I’m trying to say that you should do the swap.’

  The swap? Gemma’s ridiculous idea?

  ‘I think you should go on Auntie Gemma’s holiday.’

  Juliet started shaking her head softly. ‘I can’t leave all of you at Christmas... What kind of parent would I be?’

  Violet swallowed. ‘The kind of parent who’s stressed and unhappy and who doesn’t usually have time to sit and watch a movie with us, because she’s too busy sewing angel wings onto pillowcases and making fudge to make our teachers fat.’

  The words were like a slap in the face.

  But not a spiteful slap. A wake-up slap. Juliet suddenly saw herself through her children’s eyes and what she saw she didn’t like very much. She’d thought she’d been sidestepping her mother’s mistakes, but maybe she was just making awful ones of her own.

  She did it all for
her kids. But was it worth it if the mother they got in return was a cross old bag who didn’t have time for them any more? She took hold of Violet’s hand. ‘I know you’d understand if I went away for Christmas darling, because you’re old enough, but Polly...and the boys...’

  ‘Oh, they understand,’ Violet said, very matter-of-factly. ‘We had a family meeting and I was the one sent up here to break the news.’

  Juliet closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her bottom lip, then she opened her eyelids again and stared at her daughter. ‘You had a family meeting?’

  Violet nodded. She tugged on her mother’s hand. ‘Come on... You can see for yourself.’

  Feeling as if she’d wandered into some strange universe, and half-expecting to see a white rabbit with a watch bobbing along the landing, Juliet followed her daughter down the stairs and into the living room where the other three children were sitting in a row on the sofa, their legs out straight in front of them where they were too short to reach the floor.

  ‘Is this true?’ she asked them, taking in their serious faces. ‘Do you think I should swap Christmases with Auntie Gemma?’

  The boys nodded violently and Polly crossed her arms and gave her one of her ten-going-on-forty stares. ‘Face it, Mother,’ she said. ‘We love you, but you’re a total nightmare to live with at the moment. You’ve got to learn to chillax.’

  Violet handed her the phone, wearing a determined expression. ‘You need to call Auntie Gemma.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE EXPRESSION ON WILL’S face was almost comical. His frown deepened. ‘Say that again?’

  Juliet wasn’t surprised he hadn’t understood the first time. It had come out in a bit of a rush. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I wondered if you could keep an eye on things for me over the next few weeks. Like I said, I’m going away for Christmas. To St Lucia. And I’m leaving tomorrow.’

  He blinked. ‘Ok-ay...’

  ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  Will opened his front door wide and motioned for her to come inside. She rebalanced the tin of brownies she’d brought as a bribe and walked past him into the hallway. Will’s house didn’t have the perfectly executed interior design plan that hers had, but she liked it anyway. Compared to her home, it was a little sparse on things like cushions and ornaments and wall hangings, but there was plenty of brown leather and warm colours. Despite its masculine feel, it was cosy.

  He led her into the kitchen, put the kettle on, then leaned back against the kitchen counter and regarded her carefully. ‘Is everything okay?’

  Juliet nodded, even though last night’s pillow-screaming incident might have suggested otherwise. ‘I just need a break.’

  The understanding warmth that filled his eyes made her relax a little. ‘Yes. You do.’

  And he seemed to be satisfied with her explanation, because he turned and made her a cup of coffee. ‘So you want me to keep an eye on the place?’

  Juliet accepted the mug from him, then shifted her weight onto her other foot. ‘I was...uh...thinking more along the lines of keeping an eye on the kids.’

  Will’s eyes widened and he put his coffee down on the counter. ‘You mean you’re leaving them on their...’

  ‘No, of course not! I wouldn’t leave them on their own!’

  ‘Then, who...’

  ‘My sister’s coming to look after them.’

  Will’s expression instantly took on a cynical edge. ‘Ah.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Juliet said. ‘I’d rather they were all still alive by Boxing Day.’

  Will nodded. ‘I’m not sure your sister is going to listen to anything I have to say. She thinks I’m a know-it-all moron with a stick shoved up his bum. She told me so in those exact words once.’

  Juliet sighed. That was one of Gemma’s ‘go to’ insults. She seemed to bestow that label on anyone who didn’t approach life in her own haphazard manner. ‘And that’s exactly why I need your steadying influence,’ she said, and deliberately opened the polka-dot cake tin and let the warm, chocolatey smell waft out of the tin. ‘Please...?’

  Defeat was written all over Will’s face as he swallowed hard and his eyes fixed on the brownies. Juliet stifled a smile. If ever there was a guy who proved the old proverb about food being the route to a man’s heart is true, it was this one.

  ‘You realise that, by your silence, you’ve just agreed that I’ve got an uncomfortably large piece of wood up my backside?’ But he still reached out and took a brownie.

  Juliet shrugged. ‘She says the same thing about me. You’re in good company.’

  Will’s eyes crinkled at the edges. ‘You know I’ll do anything to help, but...’ He bit into the brownie and shook his head a little while he chewed. When he’d swallowed he said, ‘I don’t know... This just doesn’t seem like you, rushing off to God knows where at hardly a moment’s notice.’ He stopped eating and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I know you need to move on after Greg...but don’t change too much, Juliet.’

  She nodded, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what she was agreeing to. Something in her life needed to change, that was for sure, before her kids asked her to stay away six months of the year because she was so ratty. For the next couple of weeks her location and the scenery would change, but after that? Who knew?

  * * *

  GEMMA BREATHED IN AS she knocked on Juliet’s door. When her sister opened it they greeted each other as normal. In other words, it was artificial and awkward, but that was hardly surprising after the way they’d left things last time they’d seen each other.

  Gemma had known when Juliet had called her that she hadn’t been comfortable agreeing to the swap. That irritated her. Why was it so hard for Juliet to accept anything from her? Was she really that much of a loser?

  They went into the kitchen and Juliet made a cup of tea for them both. The kids were still at school and the silence seemed to echo in the large kitchen, the hand of the over-sized clock above the Aga ripping through the seconds. Juliet took a sip of tea and looked at Gemma over the top of her mug.

  ‘Thank you for doing this,’ she said, but her voice was tight and strained.

  Gemma nodded. They hadn’t exactly reached a truce, but it seemed they’d both decided to holster their hatchets for the moment. Well, maybe she could use that to her advantage. For years she’d trailed round after Juliet, always the weaker half of the equation, always the mess creator rather than the mess cleaner-upper, and now it was her chance to tip the scales in the other direction. She discovered she was quite looking forward to it.

  There was one thing she needed to clear up, though, before Juliet flitted off to sunnier climes and put her out of her mind.

  ‘You’re wrong about what you said the other day,’ she said. ‘I never was the favourite. That’s just not true.’

  Juliet’s brows shot up, as if to say: Really? You want to go there?

  Yes, Gemma did want to go there. It was time Juliet started listening to what she had to say, instead of instantly dismissing it as trivial. She nodded.

  Juliet looked her straight in the eye. ‘Then who got to go to university and who had to stay at home?’

  Gemma blinked. Wow. That was—what? —more than fifteen years ago, and she was still smarting about it? This was not where she’d expected this conversation to go. ‘That wasn’t my fault and you know it. If Dad hadn’t died...’

  She turned to look out of the kitchen window, her eyeballs stinging.

  Juliet had just finished her A levels when he’d had the heart attack. Mum had fallen apart. Months after the funeral she still hadn’t been able to drag herself out of bed in the mornings, hadn’t stopped sobbing every day. Juliet had taken over doing everything—the cooking, the food shopping, making sure her younger sister had new school uniform when she needed it.

 
Gemma had never told anyone, but she’d dreaded the weekend in October when Juliet had been due to leave for Leicester University to do a course in textile design, but that weekend had come and gone and Juliet hadn’t gone anywhere. And then she didn’t go the next weekend, or the next. Neither of them had talked about it. Gemma had been too scared. She’d only just turned fourteen and she’d had no clue what she was going to do with her mother if Juliet left.

  Months later she’d overheard them talking about it. ‘Next year,’ Juliet had said, and their mother had nodded listlessly.

  But it had taken two clueless teenagers more than a year to work out that their only remaining parent wasn’t just grieving heavily, that there was something more serious, something more permanent, going on. They’d got her to go to the doctor eventually, and he’d prescribed antidepressants and had suggested counselling—which she had to wait nine months for—and another year had slipped by without Juliet packing her bags and heading north. The awful thing was, Gemma couldn’t even remember if she’d noticed at the time whether Juliet hadn’t gone, whether she’d ended up taking her sister’s steadying presence for granted.

  * * *

  JULIET HANDED GEMMA A flowery notebook with as much solemnity as if it were Holy Scripture. ‘Everything is in there,’ she said. ‘The To Do list, phone numbers and addresses of the butcher, the organic grocer, the recipe for mum’s famous stuffing...’

  Gemma snatched the book out of her hands and clutched it to her chest, hoping that breaking Juliet’s physical contact with it might prevent the verbal assault she knew was coming. ‘Got it. It’s all in here. I’ll protect it with my life,’ she said. And the way she was intending keep it safe was to put it in the kitchen drawer and not look at it again. Seriously, her job involved organising a million things and balancing multiple fragile egos every day. She was sure she could handle four kids, a long-lost uncle, two old ladies and a turkey.

  Juliet scrunched her immaculately plucked eyebrows together, gaze still locked on the book like a tractor beam. ‘And don’t forget that there are still a few stocking presents to buy for the twins and Polly, and that Violet has organised a shopping trip to Bluewater with her friends on the twenty-second. You just need to go back onto the M25 and get off at junction two for the...’