Page 98 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
Fred nods. ‘Ben it is. Are you sure there’s nothing that will make you stay?’
Sarah shakes her head. ‘No, I’m sorry to leave all this on your young shoulders, Fred. I just know that leaving him here is the right thing to do. There’s something special about that house,’ she says, looking back at Christmas House. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I hope that one day my Ben will.’
As we watch Sarah walk away along the snowy pavement, and Fred carry Ben carefully up the steps of the house next door, somehow I know that this time when we return to Christmas House, nothing is going to be the same.
Twenty-Four
Bloomsbury,London
24 December 2018
‘Are you all right?’ I ask, turning to Ben.
Ben nods, but he looks very shaken.
‘How do you feel now you’ve seen your mother?’ I ask gently.
Ben simply shrugs. ‘I’m not really sure … ’
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Estelle says quietly. ‘You should go back to the house again.’
‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ I say when Ben doesn’t answer. ‘Angela and I can make everyone a nice hot drink and we can sit round the fire and talk about everything that’s just happened.’ I look around, suddenly realising I haven’t seen Angela for a while.
‘Where’s Angela?’
Estelle looks over at the gardens, and we see Angela sitting on a bench with her head bowed.
How is she able to sit on that bench?But as I look further around the square, I realise from a few small details like the age of the parked cars, and the neatness of the gardens, that we’re already back in 2018.
‘Ben isn’t the only one who found watching that hard,’ Estelle says. ‘Angela finds that particular story very difficult as well.’
Why would Angela … ?I begin to think, but Ben answers for me.
‘Sarah was Angela’s daughter, wasn’t she?’ he says calmly. ‘The one she was forced to give away.’
Estelle nods.
‘Which means that Angela is not only Sarah’s mother, but my grandmother too.’
I stare at Estelle in shock. ‘No way! That’s incredible!’
Ben looks over at Angela.
Feeling him watching her, Angela stands up and walks serenely over towards the edge of the gardens, pausing on the pavement opposite the house.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I wanted to tell you, Ben, when you first came here, really I did. But I couldn’t. We needed you to see the whole story first.’
‘Did my mother … I mean, did Sarah know when she brought me here that you were her mother?’ Ben asks.
‘I don’t think so. Maybe if I’d been here when she dropped you off that night, things might have been different. But I was at the hospital … ’
‘Because of me,’ I say quietly. ‘You didn’t get to see your daughter, and Ben got left here, because of me.’
‘No, Elle,’ Ben and Angela both say at the same time. ‘It wasn’t your fault. You were just a baby.’
‘I know but if I hadn’t had to go to hospital … ’
‘No one can ever know what might have happened,’ Estelle says. ‘We can only deal with what did. That’s the nature of life, I’m afraid.’
