Page 73 of Every Christmas Eve
‘I wish that would happen me too,’ said Ava, before turning away from me. ‘Nothing like that ever happens to me.’
I sat on the edge of the bed, praying to Stephanie like I always do, asking her to help me find the words to guide our daughter as best I can. At times like this, I long for the warmth of her familiar wisdom or her gentle touch to get us through. It’s like walking a tightrope, balancing my own grief for the loss of the life we’d planned, while doing my best to care for and protect our precious child.
‘It’s such a slippery slope, isn’t it,’ Cordelia said to me this morning over breakfast. ‘The poor wee mite must be so confused. One minute she wants you to find someone to livehappily ever after with, but then the guilt and sadness she feels when she realises nothing is going to fill that gaping hole her mother has left tears her apart. You’re doing a great job, Ben. Don’t be hard on yourself, and don’t give up on finding love again either. You deserve to.’
But I’m not so sure any more. One minute I’m marvelling at how far Ava and I have come over the last six years since we lost Stephanie, and then, just when I feel we’re steady, a tiny remark or a careless word can remind me that we’ve still a long way to go.
‘Have I ruined everything for you?’ Uncle Eric asks me as we unstack chairs in the ballroom. He can just about manage to lift one chair at a time, reminding me of how frail he is behind his bravado. ‘I put my big size-ten feet in it with Ava, didn’t I? Not once but twice since you got here. Me and my big mouth.’
He keeps glancing out the window. I know he’s hoping that Lou will rock up any minute and declare she’s back on board, not only for the party but for all of us.
‘It wasn’t the cleverest thing to say at the time,’ I reply, ‘but it’s not your fault. Lou and I had a few heated words on Saturday night, which pushed the first domino on the whole tricky situation.’
He stops and leans on the back of a chair, clearly waiting for another ‘but’ to follow. I don’t say a word.
‘Well, that has made me feel like shit,’ he says.
‘Good,’ I jest in return.
‘So is that it, then?’ he asks me. I’m not sure what he means at first. ‘Lou has scuttled away from Ballyheaney again, andAva is miserable, so you’re going to rush back to Dublin to get on with a lonely life there. Are you telling me we’re doing all of this for nothing?’
Now it’s my turn to stare at him and wait.
‘Hang on a minute, I’m confused,’ I tell him. ‘What do you mean, “we’re doing all of this for nothing”?’
‘This,’ he says, looking round the room.
‘Do you mean the party?’ I ask him.
‘Yes, I mean the party,’ he says. ‘If Lou isn’t here, you’re unhappy, and Ava is unhappy at the mention of her name, so we’ve done all this for nothing.’
I pause from unstacking the chairs. ‘Uncle Eric, is there something going on here that I don’t know?’
He lifts the chair and shuffles across the room to put it in its place, muttering to himself, but I can’t make out a word he is saying except for something along the lines of how he’s said far too much again.
‘I think I need to speak to my sister,’ I say, bursting out of the ballroom and walking briskly down the hallway to the kitchen.
When I reach Cordelia, she and Ava are making up some sort of dance routine while holding wooden spoons to an earworm-type Christmas song I don’t recognise at first.
‘Dad, Dad, you should see some of Cordelia’s sassy moves,’ Ava giggles. ‘She almost did the splits.’
‘Accidentally!’ says Cordelia. ‘I slipped on some cream spilled on the floor. That would have been a disaster and a half!’
‘Cordelia, can I have a word?’ I ask.
She puts down the wooden spoon slowly. Ava does the same.
‘Is something wrong, Ben?’ she says. ‘You’ve a face on you like thunder. It’s worse than the weather outside.’
I don’t want to say anything more in front of Ava.
‘Darling, can you give me and your aunty a few minutes?’ I ask my daughter. ‘Maybe you can go and check on Grandma. She’s in the drawing room.’
‘She’s probably fallen asleep waiting for the delivery,’ replies Ava before leaving us to it in the kitchen. ‘Are you going to talk about Lou again behind my back?’
My heart stops.
‘No, I’m not going to talk about Lou behind your back.’
