12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter eight

I don't know how many times he said that. It all blurred together after a while, his words tumbling over each other on their way to my ears until several minutes had gone by and I processed what he was saying.

It's my fault my girls died. I never should have got back in the car when I was so upset. I wasn't crying; there were no tears blurring my vision, but I was numb with shock, right down to the bone. I felt like the road had been whipped out from under me, and then it was. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention; maybe I was going too fast; maybe it was just bad luck. I hit a patch of ice, less than a mile from my parents' house, and woke up to the news that despite emergency surgery and the best efforts of the best doctors and nurses the hospital could offer, my twins hadn't made it.

Now they're here. Memorialised by a headstone I had to choose when I should have been choosing baby clothes; a font I selected for their grave rather than their birth announcement.

I think that's too much to dump on Casper right now. Maybe another day. He'll find out sooner or later, if he ever takes a closer look at my Christmas tree, with two baubles dedicated to my two babies; he'll realise if he comes into my room and sees the tiny plaster casts of feet that never walked, hands that never grasped.

But not yet. Today, I will grieve alone on the fifth anniversary of the day I lost my daughters. I'll cry for them here, until my tears freeze on my cheeks and I can't see through the condensation on my lenses, and then I'll go and spend time with my family. I'll imagine what it'd be like to be the mother of a couple of rambunctious five-year-olds, and the ache of missing them will be so great that there'll be a moment when I can't breathe; my mother will do her best to comfort me when really, all I need is to get through it, year after year.

And then, at seven o'clock, I'll pick Casper up from work and laugh at his expression when I put on a Christmas film. I'll cook a spaghetti bolognese because it's easy, and I never feel up to much on the fifteenth of December. We'll share a bottle of wine and he'll complain about Julio putting up Christmas decorations, and all the while I'll be making sure I can see my two favourite baubles. Pip made them when she and her siblings first opened their stall: clear, snow-filled glass, one painted with a robin above her name in cursive, the other with a sparkling snowflake for Noelle.

That's how I imagine today, anyway. But there's no use imagining how a day will go. Anything can happen.

*

It takes thirty minutes for me to work up the effort to leave, long after I'm frozen to the core. I don't leave anything at the grave. Nothing can survive in this weather. The snow is enough. By the time the car's warm enough for me to feel my fingers again and I've stopped shivering, I'm almost at my parents' house, driving along the same stretch of icy road where I lost control. The first time after the crash was hard, but I forced myself to keep going back, to conquer it before it could grow into some insurmountable thing.

Now it's routine. I barely let it into my mind as I sail towards the warm, comfortable house I grew up in, with my favourite festive playlist blasting out a bit of Andy Williams. When I pull into the driveway behind my mum's car, I suck in a deep breath and take a moment to check my emotions. I'm okay, I think, and I get out.

Mum opens the door before I reach it. She looks like she belongs in a holiday film, wearing a cake batter-spattered apron with flour in her mousy, greying hair, and her hug is as comforting as wrapping up in a blanket to watch an old favourite.

"Hi, baby," she says, her words muffled by my scarf.

No matter how okay I feel, a hug from my mum when I'm the slightest bit low is enough to start up the waterworks again, my throat tight with the acute ache of trying not to cry. Mum pulls me inside and shuts out the cold, leading me into the kitchen where the Aga pumps out delicious heat twenty-four seven. The debris across the island countertop is proof that she's baking a cake, and I can smell that irresistible scent along with the gentle aroma of chai tea.