Wish Upon a Christmas Cake

by Darcie Boleyn

  I shifted onto the floor next to Sam and listened as he explained the rules of the game. It was a lot to take in and I knew I’d never remember everything but I had a feeling that he’d be patient with me and help me out if I made a wrong move. After all, how many people get it right first time? My pawns made their way along the board and Sam’s approached them, sometimes sweeping them up but sometimes taking a step backwards. It was like some kind of strange dance and I became fascinated by the strategies that could be employed. Before I knew it, we were both down to just a king, a queen and two other pieces each.

  ‘Thirsty?’ Sam asked and I nodded. My palms were clammy and my shoulders tense. Where could this go? If I moved my knight then his queen could access my king. I sat and stared at the board until he returned with a bottle of red and two goblets. He sat next to me again and filled our glasses. ‘Cheers!’

  We clinked glasses and I took a sip. ‘That’s delicious.’

  ‘It’s a Pinot Noir I’ve been saving for a special occasion.’

  ‘This is a special occasion?’

  He nodded. ‘I really enjoy being with you, Katie. I can be myself again. It’s just so comfortable.’

  Comfortable? Not thrilling, exciting or arousing. I was comfortable. ‘Like a pair of old jeans?’

  He laughed and removed his glasses and placed them next to the chessboard. ‘Don’t knock old jeans. They’re the best. Who wants a new, stiff pair when their old Levis fit like a second skin?’

  ‘I’m a pair of old Levis?’ My lips were twitching in spite of my conviction that I should be disappointed.

  He paused for a moment, then seemed to make a decision. ‘I’d like to try you on.’ He moved closer to me and I breathed deeply of his clean, citrus scent. There was a hint of Christmas dinner in there too but I guessed that I probably smelt the same.

  ‘To see if I fit?’

  ‘You fit, Katie. I know you do. You always have done.’ His face was so close to mine now that the sweet notes of vanilla and berries from the Pinot drifted from him to me. I licked my lips.

  ‘Are you sure about this, Sam?’

  He took hold of my face in his large hands and gently smoothed his thumbs over my cheeks and my lips. I moaned as need welled inside me. I wanted to lose myself in the moment, to forget all of my worries and concerns and to just be. To just live. I was scared that this was the wrong time; the night before the anniversary of his wife’s death. But my longing for him was overpowering my common sense and rational thought was slipping away from me.

  Then he kissed me. And I melted into him.

  I wound my hands around his neck, ran my fingers though his hair, and returned his kisses like a starving woman. Which I was. I knew it then. I was hungry for something that I hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. But I knew Sam could give it to me.

  Fulfilment of body, heart and mind.

  I was home.

  Sam stopped for a moment and pulled back to look at me, then he got to his feet and lifted me to mine. ‘Do you want to…’

  ‘Move into the bedroom?’ I managed to croak.

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes.’ I glanced at the unfinished game of chess as we left the room. There would be time for that later.

  Sam closed the bedroom door behind us and turned on the bedside lamp. The room had the same low beams as the lounge and a queen bed. The sheets were dark red as he pushed back the duvet and my stomach clenched as I thought about what we were about to do. This wasn’t some drunken university fling, it wasn’t Harrison and his over-inflated ego. This was Sam. My old friend. My teenage crush. My first love.

  A man now. A real man. And he wanted me.

  Sam pulled off his jumper and threw it onto a chair near the bed then he slipped off his jeans. His arousal was evident and I tried not to stare, but the way his black shorts clung to him made it difficult to ignore. When he ran his hands down my arms, my heart was beating so hard I worried that I’d pass out.

  ‘Katie. May I?’ He gestured at my sparkly top. I nodded and he lifted it gently over my head exposing my lacy black bra. He gasped and I closed my eyes, suddenly shy.

  ‘You’re beautiful, Katie. Incredible.’ He wound his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and pulled me closer. I sighed as his body fit against mine, his hard planes and my generous curves. Sam’s kisses were exquisite and I savoured every one. This was right. This was how it should be. This was…

  ‘What was that?’ I placed my hands on his chest and listened. He kissed my cheek softly.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He trailed soft kisses down my neck then licked my collarbone, the hollow in my throat and the space between my breasts.

  ‘I thought I heard something,’ I whispered.

  Sam released me and moved to the door and opened it a fraction. Sure enough, there was a strange repetitive noise.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

  Sam started laughing. ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘It’s Sportacus. He must be dreaming about chasing something. When he does that, his feet move as if he’s running and sometimes he makes little noises too.’

  ‘Oh.’ I stood staring at him as he closed the door. I clasped and unclasped my hands, unsure what to do with them.

  Sam placed his hands on my shoulders. ‘Where were we?’

  I covered his hands with my own. ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Are we doing the right thing, Sam?’

  He gazed into my eyes for a long moment, then gently released me. ‘I thought we were.’

  ‘This all seems to be moving so quickly.’

  Hurt passed over his face and my stomach lurched. ‘I think it’s because we know each other so well already, Katie. It’s like picking up where we left off, not starting from scratch with someone new.’

  ‘I get that. I really do.’ I stroked his face and kissed him gently. ‘I’m just scared that this could be moving along for the wrong reasons.’

  ‘I know. I’ve worried about that too.’

  ‘And that we’re not thinking rationally.’

  ‘You mean because it’s Christmas and because of Maria.’ He ran his fingers up and down my arms and rested them on my shoulders. I shivered with pleasure.

  ‘How are you feeling about that right now, Sam?’ I watched his face carefully, wondering what he could possibly be feeling apart from pain, grief and confusion.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ he said. ‘You need to know, before anything else happens. It’s something I haven’t told anyone else. It’s something I’ve barely admitted to myself but I have to tell you.’

  My heart raced as I scanned his face. I used to be able to read him so well. I knew what he was thinking after six years together. Or I’d thought I did until we suffered our devastating loss and then I was so confused that I couldn’t even trust my own mind, let alone try to understand his. But now, I didn’t trust my instincts any more. I had no idea what he wanted to say and I was terrified of finding out.

  ***

  We dressed and went back into the lounge. Sam looked so serious that it didn’t seem right to stay half-naked in the bedroom. He made us coffees, then sat opposite me on the sofa. I blew on my drink, desperate to do something other than look at how serious his expression had become.

  ‘My life changed last year in more ways than one. Maria and I…we were happy enough at first but as with some relationships, especially after children arrive, things deteriorated.’

  ‘Oh, Sam, I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘We tried to keep going, to make it work for the children but it was clear to both of us that what we’d had, well it hadn’t been made to last. In the early days, it was a distraction. I’m ashamed to admit this, but being with Maria kept me from thinking about you and what might have been… But then she got pregnant and that brought a whole heap of memories back, Katie. Painful memories that woke me in the night and left me tossing and turning u
ntil dawn. I couldn’t let Maria down by not taking care of her, so I proposed and we married when she was six months’ pregnant with Jack. I thought I could make it work and for the best part of eight years I did. But if it’s not right then nothing will save it.’

  ‘But you went on to have Holly,’ I said, my heart thundering loudly in my ears.

  ‘Yes. I never wanted to have just one child and Maria wanted to have children close together so that they’d be close like her and her sister.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ I thought of my own musings on the topic all those years ago and a wave of sadness washed over me. My pregnancy hadn’t been planned, but once I’d accepted it and embraced it, I’d decided to try to have another child a few years later so that they could be close, just like Karl and me.

  ‘But after a rather disastrous summer holiday last year, Maria and I began to talk in earnest about our issues and she told me that it didn’t feel right between us. I couldn’t deny it either but I asked her to give it one last shot; for the children.’

  ‘Did she agree?’

  He nodded. ‘And we managed to bury our heads in the sand until the November.’ He drained his coffee mug then set it on the table. ‘Then she told me that she would stay over Christmas for the children but she wanted to separate soon after.’

  ‘Oh, Sam, I’m sorry. Didn’t anyone else know?’

  ‘No. We were going to tell our families in the new year. After the festive season had passed, so that we didn’t ruin it for anyone. We wanted to manage it carefully for the children’s sakes.’

  I sensed that there was more so I waited silently, watching his face for clues.

  ‘I never want anyone else to know this, Katie – because with Maria being gone, it would serve no purpose – but after she’d had a few drinks last Christmas Eve, she told me that she had fallen in love with a doctor at the hospital where she worked and that she would be moving in with him after we’d officially separated.’

  My stomach churned as I knew how awful that could be; knowing that not only did your partner not love you any more, but that they had already found someone else. I reached out and covered Sam’s hand with mine.

  ‘I wasn’t jealous, Katie. Not really. My pride was hurt, as any man’s would be, but it was more the fact that she had fallen for someone else even though we were still together. She had been living in our home, kissing our children goodnight, then going off to work her shifts alongside a man she wanted – instead of me. Last year, on Boxing Day morning, we had a horrendous row about it because she said she wanted Jack and Holly to meet him sooner rather than later, and I said that they wouldn’t be ready, that she should give them time to adjust to the split before she took up with another man. But she wouldn’t listen. She was, I suppose, madly in love. She stormed off and got into her car and I was left at home with Jack and Holly. An hour later, when the doorbell rang, I just knew that something was wrong. When I answered it to find two police officers there…well…’ He took his glasses off and twirled them between his fingers. I was still holding his other hand and I squeezed it tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sam.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. It’s certainly not your fault.’

  ‘But in a way it is.’

  ‘How could it be?’ Sam asked me, his eyes dark and fathomless as pools.

  ‘Well, if we hadn’t split up then you wouldn’t have gone off and become involved with Maria then—’

  ‘No, Katie! You can’t think like that. You can’t waste your life on what ifs. It is what it is. I married the wrong woman but I can’t regret that because I have two amazing children. I wouldn’t be without Jack and Holly now. Everything I do is directly linked to them so I have to ensure that I make the right decisions. I’ve never told anyone else about Maria but I wanted you to know.’

  ‘So your parents and her parents just think that it was all fine between you two?’

  ‘I think my mother had an inkling that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but I didn’t confide in her exactly how bad things had become. It was my life that I’d made, and it seemed wrong to go complaining about it. Especially as I was so happy being a dad.’

  His last statement cut through me like a knife. He could have been a father before, with me, if I hadn’t lost our child. It was all so unfair. Life had seemed mapped out for us and so right, until the day I’d started bleeding that was.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone, Sam.’

  ‘I know, Katie. That’s why I told you. It’s good to actually get it off my chest. I do miss Maria in some ways, I was used to her being around and I miss seeing the children with her because they adored her; she was a good mother. But we wouldn’t have been together now even if she’d survived. We weren’t in love in the way that you and I were.’

  What a mess. I’d thought that he was a grieving widower and in many ways he was, but for slightly different reasons than I’d suspected. Sam had cared about his wife but they’d already decided to divorce when she lost her life. It was an immense secret to carry around for a year but Sam had done it to spare their families the painful truth. Better to think fondly of Maria as a loving wife and mother than as a mistress about to leave her husband. Better to let his children remember her as a loving mum who loved their father.

  It was certainly complicated and I wondered how Sam would keep the secret over the years. Would it eat away at him so that one day he’d feel compelled to tell the children or would he live his life unfazed, happy in the knowledge that he had protected Jack and Holly from the truth? He was a strong man to make the decision to protect his children’s memory of Maria and I was filled with renewed admiration for him.

  Some decisions are so hard to make and few are straightforward. Could I, if there was a chance that Sam and I became involved again, actually live with him, knowing that he carried this secret with him every day? Was it that big a deal, really?

  ‘Katie? What are you thinking?’

  I blinked hard then smiled. ‘How brave you are. How kind you are. How sweet you are.’

  ‘Am I damaged goods? I often think that I am now. I come with emotional baggage; two children and two dogs.’

  ‘Oh, Sam! We’ve all had to make difficult decisions and been through tough times. You more than most. It doesn’t mean you’re damaged, just…’ I searched for an appropriate word but I couldn’t seem to think of one.

  ‘When we lost our baby, my heart broke seeing how much you went through. Katie, I know you worried that we’d never have children, that it wouldn’t be possible.’

  ‘Did you worry that we wouldn’t?’

  He stiffened and I knew that I’d hit a nerve. Of course he had worried about it. Although only four years older than me, he’d always spoken about the family we would have and how happy we would all be, living in a four bed in Sevenoaks. It had seemed like a perfect future for a while but, after I’d miscarried, I just couldn’t reconcile my life as it would be with the dreams we’d both shared. It had been easier to walk away and to tell myself that it was best for Sam too.

  ‘I did worry, Katie. I always wanted to have a family with you.’

  ‘You said you didn’t care about whether we could have another baby or not at the time.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want to hurt you, to make your pain worse. What good would it have done?’

  I shook my head. I’d known anyway, but if he’d given voice to my fears it would have been like rubbing salt into an open wound. After the miscarriage, I’d worried that I’d never carry a child full term, that I’d be cursed and lose my babies to a genetic defect before they were ever born. Instead of facing that fear, I’d carved out a different life for myself, one that centred around my work and excluded all thoughts of family and futures other than the next day’s flour delivery or oven cleaning. It had sustained me.

  ‘Thank you for that, Sam.’

  ‘I loved you, Katie. You have no idea how much.’ He pulled me into his arms and held me against his chest. I thought abou
t resisting, about pulling away and leaving. But I just couldn’t do it. He’d shared so much; opened up to me about Maria and about our past. If I walked away now, he might regret confiding in me. But I was also afraid. I didn’t know any more what I did want, other than to make Crumbtious bigger and better than ever. That was the only area of my life that was clear and uncomplicated and I couldn’t risk that for anything. Falling in love would be a distraction and I didn’t know if I wanted to entertain the thought of being distracted.

  Yet being close to Sam, enveloped in his warmth, was so good. He smelt fresh as a summer day after a rainstorm. He was warm and hard and strong. For the first time in a long time, I felt really safe.

  And that thought terrified me more than anything.

  ***

  I came to as Sam shook me gently.

  ‘Oh, I must have dozed off.’

  ‘You did. You’ve been out for an hour,’ Sam said, hugging me tightly.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, Katie. It’s been wonderful holding you and listening to your breathing. It’s comforting being with another human being again. Especially because that human is you.’

  I flushed with pleasure.

  ‘Katie, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened with your granny?’

  I winced. I hadn’t been expecting that. Sam and my granny had gotten on so well when we were together and she’d been saddened by our split. It must have been hard for him to hear about her death; the death of an old friend who’d also been kind of a surrogate grandmother. I took a fortifying breath.

  ‘It was back in October. Karl rang my mobile and told me to get dressed, then he came to pick me up. He didn’t want me driving. He broke the news on the way to the hospital. Granny had been taken ill. It was awful, Sam.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘When we got there, we had to find our way through the warren of hospital corridors. Dad had gone in the ambulance with Granny, Mum was making her own way there and Aunty Gina was driving there with Tanberk and Rebecca. Everything was surreal in that late-night movie way. The strip lights were too bright, the windows were like mirrors and the darkness outside was just impenetrable. It was like a nightmare, Sam… I can still see us hurrying along like spectres through the wards. It was like I was outside looking in at us all with our pasty faces and wild eyes.