12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter ten

t e n

*

It's such a relief to get home to the warm light of my Christmas tree. It feels like a beacon, pulling me into its embrace, and I can't shake the urge to walk straight up to it, to search for the twins' ornaments. For a sickening moment, I don't see them, and there's a flicker of irrational panic that I broke them and erased the memory, that I forgot to put them up.

But there they are. Right at eye level. So delicate, and yet they've lasted for years, in the same pristine condition they were in when Emmy and Ally delivered them to me. I reach out and touch the glass, first the glittering snowflake and then the bright orange chest of the robin.

"I'm cooking," Casper announces as he unwinds his scarf and his coat, hanging them up on the hook. It's such a domestic move that for a moment, it feels as though he's always lived here. He belongs here; he's part of the furniture.

"What?" I feel a bit out of it, wrenched from one emotion to the next. This isn't part of the routine, having someone else in the house to interrupt my fifteenth of December ritual. Even if, sometimes, that ritual involves little more than pouring a glass of wine and putting on a Christmas film and crying my eyes out.

"I'm making supper," Casper says. "I checked the cupboard and the fridge – I hope that's okay – and I saw tagliatelle and mince and passata and Worcester sauce. Reckon if I dig around a little more, I can find an onion and some peppers. Right?"

"Um, yes. Right. I was thinking of making a Bolognese," I say, trying to erase the frown that comes with my disorientation. I was going to cook. And now he is. And it's nice. I don't want to protest, because the idea of not having to cook right now is akin to sinking into a hot bubble bath after a long day. Actually, that sounds perfect right now.

"Well, I'm going to make a Bolognese instead. Spaghetti a la Casper, if you will." He ducks into the kitchen and starts digging around like he owns the place, and I follow to see him find my vegetable drawer, stocked with onions and peppers. "There we go!"

With a green pepper in one hand, a red pepper and an onion in the other, he starts to juggle. "Did you know I'm secretly a circus juggler?"

"What? Seriously?"

With a laugh, he lets the peppers drop onto the table. "Nope. But the fact that you almost believed me just then is a clear sign that you need to go and have a nap or a bath or something. Whatever happened today – and I'm not prying, I swear, I just want to make sure you're all right – it seems to have taken it out of you."

He's not wrong there. It's like this every year. I'm totally drained, even though all I've drunk is coffee and all I've done is sit with my mother, eating cake. The thought of Casper cooking for me, and the ridiculous sight of him juggling my vegetables, and the weight of everything I can't bear to tell him, it's all enough to bring another tear to my eye.

Before I know it, my vision's blurred and my hand is pressed over my mouth to control a sob, and Casper's looking at me like I just burst into flames. The roles have been reversed and just like I didn't know what to do when he rocked up on my doorstep, he doesn't know what to do except drop the onion to put his hands on my shoulders.

"Hey. It's okay. I think? You know what, I have no fucking clue, but I do know that I'm a good cook. Do you trust me in your kitchen?"

I nod, the movement enough to prompt the tears to spill. Casper hands me a sheet of kitchen roll.

"Okay, then I've got this under control. I'm going to whip up the best Bolognese you've ever had, and you're going to go and take a bath and find your onesie, okay?" He gives me a warm smile, his hands still on my shoulders, and I nod again. "God, sorry, I didn't mean to sound so patronising. I'm not trying to baby you. But I've never seen you cry and it's scary, and I know that when you told me to have a bath and put on some PJs, it helped."