Chapter Thirty Four
The following morning Sammy waved to Clifford as he headed off in his rather large yet sleek black car. Eleanor in her arms waved with her own toothy grin too. It had been a full two days, what with encouraging him and Eleanor to become better acquainted, whilst also keeping her mother happy and cared for.
Now that he had gone the days leading up to Christmas seemed to stretch out in front of her. Corinne and Mike were coming for lunch, and whilst her mother was planning to visit in the morning to see Ellie with her gifts, she was having lunch at a pub near her home. She was feeling up to a more raucous Christmas. They'd discussed that she'd feel tired, but she was happy to visit for a while then head home to sleep. For Sammy it was the first sign that the old Monica was coming back, and that wasn't something to chastise or be angry about. She missed her mother's feistiness.
The only thing that would make that complete would be Joel arriving. The previous Christmas she'd been almost nine months pregnant, devastated, heartbroken, a mess. She'd been hidden in her marital home not opening the door to anyone, eating ice cream and crying. She needed this time, this year to be better, and for that she needed contact with her friends, she needed to be more than she had been the previous Christmas.
An hour later, Eleanor had fallen asleep in her cot, and Sammy was sat alone in the lounge, confused, anxious...unable to settle. She knew what she had to do. So she picked up her phone and dialled the number.
It went straight to answer phone of course, and the voice that travelled into her ear made her drop to her knees on the phone.
"Hi, you've reached the phone of Marcus Turner. Sorry I can't take your call, I'm probably extremely busy. Have you seen my wife?" She gasped as she always had when she heard that message, he sounded so...him, funny, light-hearted, oozing his easy going charisma. Her heart swelled.
When he first died she'd called this phone almost constantly, sobbing to the sound of that voice. But today it wasn't quite as dramatic.
As the automated voice asked her to leave a message after the tone, she took a deep breath.
"Marcus." She gave a little sob, this was harder than she ever imagined. "There's not a day that passes when I don't miss you. Terribly, horribly. I wish I had more to bargain with, I wish there was something I could do to make you walk back in the room, in to our lives, but I've spent months realising that it will never happen. It's been hard...it is hard. But I have to let this go, I have to let you go." She swiped at a tear, "not you, not what happened, not what you meant to me. But the position you hold to me. No one could ever replace you, I'm not saying that, but I have to let go of the dream that you'll walk through that door, that you'll be everything to me ever again.
"I don't intend to forget you, I mean every time Eleanor looks at me I see you, she has that same sparkle in her eye. It breaks my heart...but it makes me feel close to you again. And that's just one of the many reasons that I love her so much. And I know you'd love her, to distraction. One night I dreamt about her and you...she was nine and wanted to get her ears pierced. I said no, but the two of you...you ganged up on me, she only had to look at you and you were on her side."
She gulped, "that was exactly how I envisaged a daughter would be to you. You had so much love to give...and that spoiled me too. But anyway, I've got close to Joel. I don't know what you'd think about that. We're both scared, and for a long time I didn't know what I wanted or why. I'm not sure if he's going to be someone special to me. But I do feel ready to try that. That means saying goodbye to you.
"I'm hoping to spend time with Joel, try to find out whether we have something to work on. There's still a chance that I am just seeing him as someone who cares for me, looks out for me. Like you did. If that's the case, I'm not about to throw myself at someone else...but I'll maybe be open to it. You know?"
Sitting back on the sofa she sighed, "I don't want to say goodbye...but I owe it to you to live life, to be happy, to create more for Eleanor. I'll talk to her about you every day, I promise, and I'll keep you in my heart forever. But I'll stop grieving you. I think you'd understand. At least I hope you would."
It was hard to lower the phone, to disconnect the call, but she had to close that door, as painful as it was.
Eleanor woke, and that made the aftermath of the morning, the emotions so much easier to deal with. Pulling out her phone again she deposited Ellie on the rug where she'd left her new toys from her grandfather and tried Joel's number.
He didn't answer, but then she hadn't expected him to, not really. Instead, she left him a message; she never normally did, in some ways as stubborn as him.
"Joel, it's me. There are just four days until Christmas. You said you were visiting. We really want you to come, but I haven't heard from you. I've reserved a tree at the local market but I can't carry it alone...you've been my knight in shining armour to date...so I've not got a plan B." She paused for a moment, "sorry, that's below the belt...but I really want to see you before you jet off on your trip. If you can't come, then call me? Please?"
She hated that she was begging, but she was that desperate.
Joel wished he had a bigger car. The tree was drooping in front of his windscreen and he could barely see the left side of the road ahead. Fortunately he only had a few hundred metres to drive. He'd been in the motorway service station when he'd checked his messages. Of course he was going to Cornwall for Christmas. He had nowhere else to go, but that wasn't the reason that he wanted to be there. So instead of arriving on Sammy's doorstep with arms full of gifts and a rather self deprecating and apologetic smile, he now had the suspiciously large Christmas tree to manoeuvre inside too.
Still as he got out of the car and untied the tree from the roof of his now scratched Audi, he felt optimistic. He hadn't treated Sammy fairly, but he hoped that she would understand. Her phone call gave him that hope.
Knocking the door, he wrestled to keep the monstrosity upright, and when the door opened he could only see the top of her hair.
"I got your tree," he offered parting the branches and peeking through it, "but I think it's too big for your house."
He could only see one side of her face, but that half of her mouth lifted into a grin, "I've got a garden shears in the shed?"
He laughed, "I think it might be needed, I mean it'll barely fit through the door bound as it is."
Stepping out of his way she encouraged him into the house, and then followed him to the lounge. The first thing he spotted was Eleanor under a blanket on the sofa watching In the Night Garden but when she spotted him, her interest in her favourite TV show was a thing of the past.
Joel had to rest the key against the door to the hallway in order to catch the toddling child in his arms, "hey darling girl."
As he kissed her chubby cheek, she smacked his other cheek and shouted, "O-L!"
It was as close to his name as she could get, and it made him smile. His heart swelled for that little girl. Her arms wrapped around his neck he turned around to see Sammy stood in the doorway watching them both, and if he wasn't mistaken there was a tear in at least one eye.
"I'm sorry, but disappearing like I did. I need to grow up."
She bit her lip for a moment considering that, then nodded, "yes you do."
He sighed, "we can talk later?"
Shrugging she made for the kitchen, "I'm through with talking, you're here for Christmas aren't you?"
That flummoxed him, "I suppose...yes."
"Good," she called out from the other room, "then I'll get us a drink, and once she's asleep you can erect the tree!"
There was something different in her voice, he couldn't quite place it, but when she walked back in with a bottle of something fizzy he could see the spark in her eyes.
As soon as she carried an obviously tired Eleanor to bed, Joel stood and assessed the tree. It was maybe six inches shorter than the ceiling, and that was without it being placed in its stand. Within half an hour he had cut s foot off the bottom and secured it into the stand, but as he split the binding holding the branches in, he nearly got knocked over. The bottom branches were long and extended almost to the middle of the room.
He was still rotating the beast and trimming it when Sammy came back into the room. Her eyes flitted around at him, wrestling with branches, and the debris on the floor and started laughing.
"Have I picked the worst tree?"
He shook his head, "it's perfect...for the drawing room at Buckingham Palace. A quaint cottage lounge...not so much!"
"Can I help?"
"Fill up my glass? I need something to make this feel better!"
As he perfected the tree's shape and position, she did as he asked and refilled his glass, then spent time untangling strings of fairy lights to wrap around it. Between them they placed them all, then added garlands of tinsel and a selection of baubles hanging from the branches.
"Looks pretty cool," Sammy said stepping back and admiring their handiwork. "Oops, not quite ready..."
With a rush she picked up the gold star from the arm of the sofa and on tiptoes placed it on the top of the tree.
"There! What do you think?"
He nodded, "good, but not perfect. Bear with me a moment."
With that he rushed out to the car and grabbed his holdall, but it was the second bag, the one full of gifts that had precipitated his rapid exit. Back in the house he kicked off his now wet shoes and padded back to her, then he slowly fed the half dozen or more parcels that the bag contained under the tree. When he turned to face Sammy she was staring at him open mouthed, "you've brought gifts?"
"Of course. It's Christmas."
Sammy didn't know what she expected from Joel, but it hadn't been that he'd be the perfect Christmas guest, or that he'd be enthusiastic, remorseful...everything that she wanted him to be. As she went to bed that night, hearing him moving around in the attic above her, she was glad that she'd called him, glad that she'd invited him, and most of all glad that he'd showed up.
Eleanor woke early, around six, so Sammy took her in to her bed for a while. Between them they curled up in her bed and slept until around seven. They were in the kitchen having breakfast when Joel emerged in sweat shorts and a t-shirt.
"That is THE greatest night's sleep I've had in...ages!"
Eleanor looked up as dramatically as Sammy did to his voice, then she kicked her legs enthusiastically as she reached for him.
He dropped into the chair beside her and ruffled her hair, and Eleanor's response was to giggle.
"That bed in the attic isn't the best."
He shrugged, "maybe it's the sea air, maybe it's just being here."
That made her gasp out loud and he smiled, "you're happy to be here then." When he nodded, she added, "Clifford was here...he said you were going away."
She poured him a mug of coffee as he digested that for a moment, and when she handed him the drink he nodded again.
"I sold the business. I could do with some time off. I need to get out of London." he wrapped his hands around the warm mug, "but I haven't decided on anything really, he kind of caught me on the hop. But I feel I SHOULD do something."
Sammy nodded, "I think you're right. It'll give you time, perspective to decide where you're going and what you're going to do."
Two hours later Joel was rethinking that conversation as he watched a movie with Eleanor, he'd freed Sammy up to spend time with Monica who'd had her last chemotherapy of the year the day before.
She was wrong, Sammy. He didn't need perspective, just like he didn't need to work out why he'd had such a good sleep the previous night. He belonged there, on the coast, in the small village they called home. He wanted to see Ellie grow, he wanted to wake up to fresh sea air, he wanted to see Sammy all the time.
He glanced across the room to the pictures of Marcus. Despite what everyone said, he still haunted him, a real threat, a guilt trip...and it wasn't feeling any easier. But he was going to be here, be part of whatever their Christmas involved. He was fed up of being alone, of always being on the outside looking in. The last few Christmases he'd spent alone, sat at home with a microwave meal for one and a box set...last year Breaking Bad, the year before True Blood. Thirty six hours of TV viewing made him feel a lot of things, but never festive.
Already sat in this house, gifts he'd bought and wrapped under the tree, the tree, the smell of gingerbread cookies, Eleanor on his lap...he wanted in, he wanted part of this.