Page 104 of One More Day
She looks at the car. The tyre is almost flat to the ground now.
‘Doesn’t the universe work in wondrous ways,’ she says. ‘Now, move aside and let me sort this quickly,’
‘Sort what?
‘The flat tyre,’ she tells me.
‘You?’
‘Yes, me,’ she replies, rubbing her hands together against the cold. ‘Rusty taught me all I know about cars when I was just a little girl, so I can change everything from wiper blades to oil to a flat tyre by the time you’d scratch your head in wonder.’
I step aside and watch her in action. Thankfully, this time she takes off the blue coat before she gets stuck in.
Life with Rose, I can already tell, will always be full of surprises.
Christmas Day
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rose
I wake up on Christmas morning in a cosy cocoon, so warm I’m expecting to feel Charlie’s arms around me, but instead my eyes open to the sound of the rooster crowing in the farmyard outside my family home. I’m in my childhood bedroom, alone.
Charlie is the first person that comes into my head when I wake up, and when I check my phone, I can see that I’m already on his mind too.
Good morning beautiful. Happy Christmas! I want to be the first to say it to you on the day itself.
I stretch and savour the simple words, holding the phone close to my chest. We spent far too long last night texting about how our respective evenings had gone as we each lay in bed. I was only too delighted to share with him just how wonderful it was to be properly reunited with my family for Christmas.
Mum is mad to meet you, I must have told him more than once.It feels so right to be at home this Christmas.
We both fell asleep cradling our phones like lovestruck teenagers and now, as I lie in bed with only the farmyard sounds so familiar to my childhood and the smell of a traditional breakfast fry-up coming from the kitchen, I long to be with him on this most wonderful day of the year.
I sit up under my pink and yellow floral bedcovers, and smile as I remember how Mum bought me these from a posh department store in Belfast when I was just a teenager. She was so proud of herself that day, declaring one day I’d be up and gone, but that these covers would always be here for me to sleep under when I needed them, and I can see now that her promise was true.
The next person who comes to my mind this morning is Michael, but not in the guilty, gut-wrenching, grief-stricken way I usually remember him. Today, I allow my thoughts to linger on the wonderful Christmas times I shared with him. I remember the happy times, the gifts we shared. I remember his laughter, his handsome face, and the way he always rolled his eyes at my singing efforts.
I think of Evelyn too, and hope that she can find peace in her heart today.
I hate to think of her all alone on Christmas Day. Mum assured me she extended her usual invitation but received the usual polite refusal. I can’t thank Evelyn enough for the strength she gave me by helping me put my own future into perspective when I met her at the lighthouse.
Michael is gone, but we can still love him. We can still smile at his memory, and we can continue to share so much love for as long as we are here in this lifetime. Maybe one dayEvelyn will take up our offer to join us at our dinner table. I know that would make Michael very happy.
I pull on my dressing gown and some fluffy socks, then make my way downstairs, following the sounds of Frank Sinatra dreaming of a white Christmas. When I look out through the window I see that his dream has, for once, come true. The farm is like a winter wonderland, and I can’t resist sending Charlie a quick photo of my view where everything is covered in pristine white snow for miles and miles.
‘Happy Christmas, Rose,’ my dad says when I enter the kitchen and I feel a nervous twinge when I realise that it’s just the two of us in the same room at the same time, alone for the first time in what feels like forever. ‘Fancy a fry-up?’
I see that George has made himself at home already, lying by the Aga, and almost moaning in delight at the constant heat that radiates from its coal fire.
‘I’d love that, thank you,’ I reply. ‘Happy Christmas, Dad.’
I kiss him on the cheek, his spiky white stubble and the smell of Old Spice bringing me right back to my younger years when I’d wish him goodnight and feel like the safest girl in the world.
My daddy.
He nods his head towards a pot of fresh coffee in a gesture that tells me to help myself, and as I pour the steaming dark brown liquid into a mug, the smell of roasted beans fills my senses and takes me back to so many happy mornings around the breakfast table in our humble old farmhouse.
‘Your mother’s glad to see you home,’ he says, as he lays out rashers of bacon on the frying pan. ‘She insisted Igo out and dig up another Christmas tree for the hallway, so there I was like an eejit at six this morning, in pitch dark down in the snowy meadow trailing up another tree on the tractor. Your box of decorations are waiting for you in the hallway.’
