Driving Home for Christmas

by A. L. Michael

  ‘And do you love me?’ His breath on her neck mocked her, and he paused to place one soft kiss there. She nodded thoughtlessly, trying to stay strong.

  ‘Then there isn’t a problem, is there?’ he said simply, his voice strong, and in control. ‘I love you, Meg, I only love you. Just you.’ He kept moving, touching and talking until she was crazy and frantic, tied up in love and lust and ignoring the articles that said they’d never last. For those brief moments he was Lucas Bright and she was Megan McAllister, and they could do anything.

  Later, she woke, pulling on her clothes, and kissing him gently on the forehead. She snuck out, and told herself everything was for the best, that it was a type of goodbye. After that she avoided him, pretending that the conversation she’d started had a different ending, until eventually that hurt look on his face when she saw him in the halls stopped, and he started hanging around with Belinda, pouting that beautiful mouth in other girls’ directions. Every time she saw him curled around a girl in the hallways at school, she felt a sense of righteousness beneath the stomach ache. She was doing the right thing, for both of them. Happy ever after was a myth, and it was better to have him in some small way than in no way at all. But of course, that never happened anyway.

  ***

  ‘You have really got to stop this.’ Jeremy arched an eyebrow. It was a couple of days before New Year’s, and he was packing up his things.

  ‘You’re really going to leave me? Us? Now?’ Megan stood with her hands on her hips, whining at him in the kitchen. It was so terribly domestic it seemed laughable. At least to Jeremy. For Megan, it seemed like an earthquake had shaken everything up, and the tremors just kept coming.

  ‘It’s in memory of her. It’s for her.’ Jeremy shrugged again, and shook his head. ‘Everything’s done. Time to move on.’

  Easy to say your pilgrimage to New York is in her memory, you’ve always wanted to go.

  Megan’s eyes must have given her away, because Jeremy’s watery grey eyes judged her a little, and he said, ‘She gave me the money to buy a ticket. She wanted me to see Broadway over there. That was our shared love, and I’m not going to feel guilty about it.’

  ‘Good, I don’t want you to,’ Megan said airily.

  ‘Yes you do, you want us all to go on being miserable so nothing has to change. People need people, Meg, and when they go, it majorly sucks. So let’s not pretend that’s not the case.’

  Skye wandered in, chewing on an apple, her trilby atop her head. ‘Doing some investigating, darling?’ Jeremy asked her.

  ‘Yes, I’m investigating our New Year’s Eve plans,’ Skye said pointedly, ‘obviously you’re off having adventures,’ she said to Jeremy. ‘But Anna used to have a party, and we won’t be doing that.’

  ‘What would you like to do?’ Megan asked, desperately hoping it involved ice cream and movies and the chance for Megan to fall asleep before midnight and forget everything was going to be different now.

  ‘Go to see Grandma and Granddad,’ Skye said simply, daring Megan to argue.

  ‘Just Grandma and Granddad?’

  ‘And Minnie, obviously.’

  ‘And no one else?’ Megan raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well…’ Skye shrugged. ‘I’m sure Jasper might be there, although he’ll fall asleep before midnight, obviously, and Uncle Matty and Aunt Claudia…’

  ‘Well, in that case, why don’t we just invite them over here?’ Megan said brightly, watching her daughter’s bottom lip pout. She knew she was had.

  ‘Mother.’

  ‘Daughter?’

  They both stood, arms crossed, staring at each other. Megan liked to pretend she had the upper hand, but she never did, not with Skye. She could just about keep up.

  ‘You want to see Lucas,’ Megan said simply.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Skye rolled her eyes. ‘Because he’s my friend. Because he taught me guitar, and held my hand in the waiting room when Anna left, and because he’s the only other person in the world who loves you as much as I do.’

  Megan felt herself falling back into a chair, her legs wobbling with the sound of the truth in her daughter’s voice.

  ‘He said that?’ She hated her own voice then, weak and tremulous.

  Skye suddenly sounded older than her years. She always had, but Megan suddenly had the vision of her at sixteen, twenty-one, thirty, looking down her nose at her mother, rolling her eyes and saying, ‘God, Mum, it’s so obvious. He didn’t have to tell me.’

  Megan took a deep breath and tried to regain control. ‘Baby, sometimes things are complicated… Lucas was my best friend for years, but it’s been a long time, and we have our life here, and…’

  ‘Yadda yadda, blah blah.’ Skye rolled her eyes, tipping her trilby.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Megan felt her jaw drop. Skye had been terse before, she’d been angry and afraid and closed off, but she’d never been rude. She’d never looked at her mother like she was the biggest fool she’d ever met. Something in Megan’s stomach collapsed, throbbing and broken.

  ‘Do you even remember the story of the ring he gave you? Tried to give you,’ she corrected herself, ‘he was so sure you’d remember the story.’

  Megan shrugged. ‘I have no idea, okay? I spent most of my teenagerdom worrying about raising you. I didn’t have a lot of time to spend daydreaming about getting married and what ring I wanted. I was more focused on how we were going to survive.’

  She could feel the words tumbling out, spilling forth from her, and all she could think was Skye’s going to need therapy. She’s going to sit in an office one day and think that she’s ruined my life and destroyed my dreams. The words couldn’t be taken back though, and Skye, to her credit, looked unfazed. Jeremy, hovering awkwardly in the corner, winced.

  Skye huffed like adults were too difficult for words, pulling a hand through her long dark hair, looking rough and curly. She took off her trilby and tried to flatten it out.

  ‘Mum. He’s not asking you to marry him. He’s trying to show you something. Something to do with the ring and his grandma and trying again.’

  Megan felt something at the back of her mind twinkle with recognition, like a bell ringing far off in the distance. She remembered him sitting on his bed, remembered Clare watching his hands as he signed along with the words she read out from that piece of paper, the writing shaky and thin.

  ‘He’s trying to tell me he’s not giving up on me,’ she said quietly, more to herself. ‘His Nanna told him to give that ring to someone you would ask over and over again to be with you.’

  ‘Which he’s done,’ Jeremy piped up, earning a glare from Megan.

  ‘Mum.’ Skye slipped into a chair, sitting opposite her mother. ‘Lucas is really nice. He loves you. He loves both of us. What’s wrong with that?’

  Why was she so grown up all the time? Why did she understand things so differently to every other kid?

  ‘What do you want me to do, Skye? Start dating? Go out to the cinema with a boy I loved when I was fifteen? We have a family. We have a life. I don’t want to go back and live with Grandma. I don’t like that place. I like this place. With you and me, and Jeremy, and the little old ladies.’

  ‘We don’t have to live in the village,’ Skye said, confused, ‘why are you finding problems? I wasn’t saying you have to make Trouble my dad, I just want him around. How can you always just cut people out like that? Grandma, Grandpa, Trouble? People don’t just go away when you stop thinking about them. It’s really screwed up, Mum.’

  The last delicate part of Megan’s heart broke as she watched her daughter get up from the table and quietly walk up to her room, picking up her trilby from the side. Her daughter knew. Her eleven-year-old daughter knew that she was a coward who hid from all the things that scared her. She ran from Lucas, first because he might leave her, and then because he offered too much. She ran from her parents because she couldn’t bear to see how disappointed they were. But she hadn’t disappointed an
yone, she’d done well, they kept saying so. She came back with a job and a life and a wonderful daughter. And now she’d disappointed Skye. Running had never made her happy, it had always felt good because it was a sacrifice. Leaving Lucas to find someone better for him, someone who wouldn’t push him away. Leaving her parents so they didn’t have to deal with the gossip.

  But she was different now. She was a mother. And she couldn’t let Skye see her as a coward, as someone who always ran. She could almost imagine Anna sitting at the table opposite her, champagne glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, saying ‘Darling, life is too damn short to be unhappy. Or celibate. Call him.’

  Jeremy squeezed her shoulder, and left the room, probably off to placate Skye.

  Megan took a deep breath, and picked up the phone.

  ‘Lucas. Hi,’ she said.

  Epilogue

  ‘They’re going to be here soon!’ Skye rolled her eyes, a much more frequent addition to her facial expressions. The teenage years were clearly starting early. She’d started experimenting with make-up, cat eye flicks at the edges of her eyes, and red lipstick that mostly looked like she’d been terribly messy whilst eating jam. Her dark hair was free and wild.

  The tree in the hallway didn’t quite look as majestic as it used to, somehow the addition of guitar-pick baubles and bright pink tinsel gave it a punk rock vibe.

  ‘Chill out, Angel, we’ve got ages.’ Lucas ruffled her hair as he walked past her into the kitchen. ‘And if you’re worried, you could always help us in here!’

  ‘I’m on decoration duty!’ Skye yelled back, adjusting the fairy lights on the staircase.

  ‘She’s just nervous,’ Megan grinned, peeling back the foil from the turkey, ‘last week I told her I was having nightmares about the turkey being pink and poisoning everyone. She thinks it’s a vision.’

  ‘It’ll be great, Meg,’ he said, kissing her forehead, ‘really.’

  ‘I know,’ she grinned up at him. He was wearing a stupid Christmas jumper with prancing reindeer, his beard was on the fuzzy side of stubble, and he looked solid, and strong, and dependable. But he’d never really been the issue.

  He wrapped his arms around her, resting his head against hers. ‘So I guess you know what your Christmas present is this year?’

  ‘Would it be the same as my New Year’s present, Birthday present, Easter present, St Patrick’s Day present and Valentine’s Day present?’ She laughed, leaning back against him, loving the warmth of his arms around her.

  ‘Darn, starting to get predictable.’

  ‘Baby, you are never predictable,’ she smirked, ‘you’re Lucas Bright. Rock star, superstar teacher, world-class dad…’

  ‘…amazing lover…’ he offered, softly into her ear.

  Megan turned round to look at him, shaking her head and laughing. The world had changed on New Year’s Day. Hers, and Skye’s and Lucas’. Lucas started coming around to see both of them, and Megan had tried her best to be calm, to be open. To stop being a mum, and just be Megan. Megan who had Skye, and could also have Lucas. Skye always looked at her like she was waiting for Megan to freak out and suddenly tear them away to Australia. So far, she hadn’t.

  After a few months, Lucas got offered a job at a school in North London. When he told Megan he was thinking of taking it, of moving nearer to them, she talked with Skye and they asked if he wanted to move in. That first day he brought three boxes of stuff, and a gift for each of them. For Skye, some professional headphones. He said they were to help with her guitar practice, but Megan blushed and guessed their true function. When Megan opened her present, she stared down to find a pair of bright pink trainers, ‘the only running you’re doing from now on. Whenever you get freaked out, put them on.’ So far they’d sat in the back of the cupboard, unused. Jeremy got a job on Broadway, and planned to come back to Anna’s house, but kept getting more work. He’d been writing and acting non-stop, as inspired as Anna had promised he’d be. Megan and Skye were planning to visit him in the new year and see him on stage.

  Life had carried on pretty much as before. Megan stayed at the job she loved. Skye still stayed up too late reading books, although after outgrowing her tipi, Lucas was in the middle of making her a den at the back of the garden that could also be used for guitar practice. Megan sang now. She sang in the shower, she sang in the garden. She sang whilst doing the washing up. She and Skye danced around the kitchen singing ‘Hound Dog’ whilst Lucas played guitar at stupid times at night. They made music, and watched movies, and Megan felt like a day didn’t pass where her face didn’t hurt from smiling. Somehow, even though Anna was gone, the house seemed full of life again.

  That Christmas morning they had popped the bubbly, as per tradition, and Skye even had her elderflower topped up with a tiny bit. They’d toasted Anna. They’d toasted to new beginnings and old stories and questions that you asked over and over again.

  Skye came wandering in and stood in the doorway, watching the two of them with a knowing smile. She was wearing her trilby from last year. ‘You know, Mum, I don’t think I want to be a detective any more.’

  Megan looked over at her, brow furrowed. ‘Well, what do you want to be?’

  ‘A rock star,’ Skye grinned.

  ‘Of course,’ Megan shook her head, and tilted her neck to see Lucas. ‘Your fault.’

  ‘But I want to sign the music too, I want to find a way to make it not just sound,’ Skye said confidently, ‘I want to mix what the two of you do to make something special.’

  ‘I don’t think any of your presents are going to be specific to that interest. Maybe you should have told Santa that months ago,’ Lucas grinned, holding out a hand to Skye, and putting an arm around her.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Skye shrugged, leaning into him, ‘but I do have one more question as to end my detective career.’

  She turned to her mother, and winked at Lucas, who suddenly produced the same ring that had been offered for every holiday, every weekend, every event over the last year.

  ‘Megan McAllister, is today the day that you finally say yes?’ Skye intoned.

  Megan grinned at her daughter, and looked up to the man that had never stopped asking her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  If you loved Driving Home for Christmas, turn over for a sneaky peek at A.L. Michael’s debut, The Last Word - also published by Carina UK!

  Chapter One

  This cannot be my life, Tabby Riley thought as she finished her latest article. Four hundred words on the dire consequences of plucking outside your brow line. She needed ice cream.

  Rhi was sitting in her usual spot in the middle of the living room floor and Tabby had to skip over the sea of papers and books surrounding her to get into the kitchen. She retrieved the Ben & Jerry’s and a spoon, then stood in the doorway, watching her housemate.

  ‘Do you think I’m a bad feminist?’ Tabby asked, recalling the last few articles on weight-loss, decoding male body language and how to dress like a pixie dream girl.

  ‘Yes.’ Rhi didn’t look up. ‘But I think you’re an excellent person. So could you hold out on whatever crisis you’re about to have until I finish this chapter? Please?’

  It was hard to refuse when Rhi said ‘please’. It happened so rarely.

  ‘Sure, it was nothing.’ Tabby picked at the chocolate chips, suddenly not so in the mood for ice cream. ‘I just get so bloody tired of myself sometimes.’

  ‘Well, luckily I never do. Be a love and put the kettle on? I’ll be done in ten minutes. Warn the biscuit tin!’

  And then Rhi was back in her zone, craned over, picking a pencil out of her blonde dreadlocked bun. She flicked down her blue-rimmed glasses and suddenly Tabby didn’t exist any more. Rhi’s ability to go from zero to studying in under ten seconds was something that had driven Tabby crazy when they were at university, but seeing as Rhi went to her job at the library and then came home to work on her Masters degree, while Tabby wrote articles in her pyjamas all day, it just seemed
unfair to hold a grudge.

  Everyone else was going somewhere. And Tabby couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to wear real clothes.

  She clicked on the kettle, made herself a cup of tea, knowing it would be at least half an hour until Rhi would finish. She unlocked the back door and padded out into the poor little concrete excuse for a garden, hoping to see a little of the fading daylight.

  Last year she’d tried to plant herbs – one of her article-inspired kicks – then promptly forgot about them. Their sad, weedy little skeletons drooped over the ceramic pot. Two previously white deck chairs and a plastic table they’d found in a nearby skip sat there like survivors of war. Tabby once again considered how maybe if she got the outward look of her life together, then maybe the real stuff would come along with it. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d written an article on that. She roughly wiped down one of the chairs, and stuck the mug of tea on the table. It wobbled precariously. Next door, the teen boys who thought starting a band called Dyspraxic Elastic was a cool idea practised their guitar solos. Five months on and they weren’t any better.

  Tabby rolled herself a cigarette, cheerfully finding not only all the components in her dressing gown pockets, but a lighter in her pyjama bottoms. Score.

  ‘Hey.’ Rhi stepped outside, stretching in that feline way she had. ‘No tea for me?’

  ‘Thought you wouldn’t be done for ages.’ Tabby shrugged.

  ‘Give me a toke on that, then.’ She held out her hand. ‘Why are you smoking anyway?’

  Tabby tucked a dark curl behind her ear, then reached around and found an earring caught in the back of her hair. She threw it on the table and grimaced. ‘I feel like I’m falling apart.’

  Rhi sat on the doorstep and pulled her jumper around her. ‘We all do. What’s wrong exactly? The articles? I thought they were being well received?’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re...well, let’s be honest, they’re shit.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s shit people want to read. Well-written shit, obviously,’ Rhi hurriedly added, reaching over to take a gulp of Tabby’s tea, then making a face when she realised there was no sugar in it.