‘Where is everyone?’ she asked Chelsea, who came into the kitchen for a dustpan and brush.
‘Mum’s on the scrounge for Christmas stuff, and Harry’s decided he wouldn’t mind being a policeman so is tagging around with Chris and Zeke for the day.’
She was heading out the door when she turned.
‘Do you really not mind us all being here?’ she said. ‘I feel dreadful. If it wasn’t for my own stupidity, none of this would have happened, and you wouldn’t be lumped with all the family for Christmas.’
Ellie smiled at the young woman she’d grown so fond of.
‘Christmas is for families,’ she reminded Chelsea. ‘Andy and I would probably have been quite miserable on our own, or wouldn’t have bothered much with a celebration and just treated it as an extra day off.’
She paused, thinking of the decision she’d nearly made to leave Maytown before Christmas, back before Chelsea had somehow brought happiness back into the house.
‘So really you’re doing us a huge favour,’ Ellie said, and meant it for she knew now, as well as she knew her own name, that she and Andy were as one again.
And always would be.
Chelsea grinned and headed back to the mess on the veranda, Andy demanding to know what had taken her so long.
‘Girl talk,’ Ellie heard Chelsea say. ‘Just girl talk!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BY LUNCHTIME ELLIE had caught up on all her appointments, so she sent Maureen home and went up into the house.
She needed to find Jill and discuss the food situation.
She discovered Jill at the butcher’s, discussing sausage meat and giblets for the stuffing, totally unfazed by the numbers.
‘I’ve done Christmas for two dozen,’ she said. ‘I’m one of six so Christmases were enormous.’
Jill took the parcel from the butcher, refused to let Ellie pay, and led the way out the door.
‘It’s a good thing you’ve got the barbecue with a lid because we can use that as an oven to cook the ham. Now, let me look at my list.’
She produced a piece of foolscap-size paper.
‘That’s not a list, it’s an inventory!’ Ellie said, and Jill smiled.
‘You just go away and do something for yourself, or have a little rest. Leave this to me.’
Having a little rest sounded like a very good idea, but she knew there’d be presents for her and Andy already under the tree from the visitors, so she needed some small gifts to give them, and something for the children, so she went shopping instead...
* * *
Christmas Eve was a day of celebration for the entire town. The rescued miners were ferried down the streets on gaily decorated utilities, each in an armchair on the tray back. Even the two injured men took part, while what seemed like the entire town turned out to cheer them.
‘Whose idea was it to release the red balloons?’ Andy asked Ellie when he caught up with her outside the hospital.
‘Chelsea’s, of course. She’s had all the soccer team and half the high school population filling balloons with helium she conned out of the two-dollar shop. They’ve handed them out to people up and down the main road with orders to release them as the men went past.’
So the hot, dry air was filled with red balloons floating lazily above the parade, some of the miners catching hold of strings and making a bunch of them.
‘You should be up on one of those chairs,’ Andy told her, an arm around her shoulders.’
‘More like the whole rescue team,’ she reminded him. ‘But I think it’s nice to see them celebrated, even though it’s so close to Christmas. Things tend to get back to normal so quickly and in another week or so it will be forgotten.’
‘Except by the engineers and managers who’ll be trying to work out why it happened,’ Andy said. ‘Are you heading home now?
* * *
Andy watched her walk away. She was special, his Ellie, and for about the thousandth time since they’d made up he wished he had a special gift for her.
He’d bought her favourite perfume, a couple of books by authors he knew she enjoyed, and an eternity ring because now their marriage was going to be for ever.
But the ‘something special’ he felt sure was out there had eluded him.
He headed back into the hospital, not that there was much to do, except the endless paperwork that he tended to put off until the last possible moment.
Which was today, if he wanted to take a few days off over Christmas. Not that he’d be off duty, just on call from home, although he’d do morning and evening rounds as usual.
He smiled to himself as he thought of the tree they’d finally managed to decorate, its lights shining brightly on the veranda. Not to mention the tinsel that seemed to adorn every room, and the golden bells that hung in every doorway, the fairy lights strung around the veranda railing, and the little nativity scene Jill had brought with her as a gift for him and Ellie.
Christmas was going to be special, very special!
If only he could think what to get Ellie...
* * *
The sun eventually rose on the great day—a huge red orb in the eastern sky, promising a fiery heat for foolish people sticking to the traditional roast turkey and ham of their European forebears when the temperature was in the forties.
Ellie woke early, moving quietly through the sleeping household. Chelsea’s family had been to the midnight church service so she was certain they’d sleep in, while she wanted to grab a cup of tea and sit outside and think of all that had happened in the tumultuous twelve months since last Christmas.
True, she and Andy had been through sadness, and the unbelievably hard consequences of losing the baby, but wasn’t their marriage all the stronger for that suffering?
Hadn’t they found a whole new level of happiness, a new depth of love, in the last few weeks?
She smiled, pushing aside memories of that time when she’d thought their marriage wouldn’t survive, pushing aside remembered pain and anguish.
Today was Christmas Day, a day of celebration...
‘Join you?’
Andy settled beside her on the top step, set down his cup of tea, and put his arm around her shoulder.
‘It’s been a tough year, hasn’t it, my darling, but we made it.’
She turned and kissed him.
‘Indeed we did.’
She shifted so she could see him—look at him.
‘You all right?’ she asked, and he smiled at her.
‘More than all right,’ he told her, and the strength in the words told her they were true. ‘And while we’re on our own, there’s one thing I want to do.’
Intrigued, Ellie let him pull her off the step and lead her to the tree, where he produced a parcel wrapped in gold tissue paper.
He handed it to her and for some reason her fingers shook as she unwrapped it, so it took a while to reveal the contents—an angel dressed in white, with gossamer golden wings and a golden crown.
‘For our tree?’ she whispered, and Andy held her and kissed her lips.
‘For our tree and our baby,’ he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. ‘Angels were all male, you know, so shall we go and put him up, right at the top where he belongs, so we can share every Christmas with him?’
Ellie wiped the tears from her face and led the way to the tree, carefully removing the old and rather battered angel and replacing it with the new one—their angel.
Andy hugged her.
‘Now we’re ready for Christmas,’ he said. ‘It will be like old times for me, family, and whatever strays Dad or Mum picked up, all together in the dining room.’
‘So maybe next year we could ask them and my family if they’d like to come out and join us. After the crowd this year, just the two of us would seem odd.’
A tiny dart of pain pierced
Andy’s heart. Ellie’s assumption that there’d be ‘just the two of us’ this time next year told him she’d accepted there’d be no baby.
Had it been his confessing how hard the loss had hit him that had drawn a line under the baby idea for ever, as far as Ellie was concerned?
He didn’t know, but as he could hear people stirring behind them in the house, it was hardly the time to be telling Ellie he’d quite like to try again...
* * *
Breakfast was a riotous affair, Harry telling stories of university pranks, Chelsea happily enlarging on his tales and topping them with stories of the soccer team.
And once the breakfast things were cleared away, they adjourned to sit around the tree where piles of gifts were stacked. Andy played Santa, even donning a red cap, reading out the names on the greetings tags and passing over the gifts.
It soon became apparent that Jill, as well as a gift for cookery, was a seamstress and embroiderer. For Ellie, there were half a dozen linen handkerchiefs, embroidered with a flowery E and tucked into a satin bag. Andy’s gift was similar, big manly handkerchiefs with a no-nonsense A embroidered on them, but also a small, smooth, wooden box, felt lined, for cuff links or tie pins or whatever manly jewellery he might have.
‘Not much,’ he joked as he thanked Harry for the beautifully crafted box. ‘At least now I won’t lose what I do have.’
‘Well, I’ve brought you something to start off with,’ Chelsea said, producing a small box with an opal set into a tie pin.
‘I’ve noticed at the hospital on days when you’re wearing a tie, you tuck it between the buttons of your shirt so it doesn’t dangle on the patients.’
Andy laughed.
‘I do do that,’ he admitted. ‘I always wear a tie if there’s to be a board meeting, or someone from the Health Department visiting to check we’re not using too many pens and pencils.’
‘More likely ear swabs and hypodermic needles,’ Kane said.
And so it went, Ellie and Andy’s gifts to everyone small jars of spicy nuts and pretzels that were about the only special culinary talent Ellie had.
Lunch followed, Jill, Harry and Chelsea dishing up, Logan and his sisters ferrying the overflowing plates to the table.
And once they were all settled, party hats on heads, and feeble jokes read out, they all gave thanks for the day, and the meal before them, and began to eat.
And eat...
‘It’s far too delicious to leave any but I really can’t manage any more,’ Ellie declared, having eaten a large serving of the main course, and three-quarters of her Christmas pudding and custard.
‘In fact,’ she added, ‘if I didn’t have the clearing up to do, I’d be staggering to my bed.’
‘We’ll clear up,’ Jill said, but Ellie raised her hand.
‘You will do nothing,’ she declared, ‘except put your feet up and catch up with Chelsea. I know you want to get away early in the morning so, later in the afternoon, when it’s cooler, Chelsea and Harry can help pack the car. And for now Zeke and Logan can help me and Andy in the kitchen while the girls tidy up the discarded wrapping paper around the tree.’
‘She’s right, you’ve done a marvellous job, Jill,’ Andy said, ‘so please go and rest. The little general here will sort out the mess.’
‘Little general indeed,’ Ellie said, as she and Andy finally finished in the kitchen and retired to their bedroom, collapsing onto the bed.
‘You can give me orders anytime,’ Andy teased, turning onto his side so he could pull her close and kiss her.
‘Mmm...nice!’ Ellie said. ‘And did I thank you for the lovely gifts? You didn’t get that perfume at the local chemist.’
‘No, and while I do try to shop locally whenever possible, the internet is a wonderful thing.’
They lay, content to be together, exchanging a kiss now and then, until Andy moved a little apart, reaching out to the bedside table on his side of the bed and producing another little parcel, wrapped in Christmas paper and tied with ribbon.
‘I do have one last gift,’ he said, and passed it to her. ‘Well, two actually, but I’ll give you this one first.’
He passed it to her.
It was a small, square box that shrieked ring, and her fingers trembled as she opened it, then tears slid down her cheeks when she saw the tiny circlet of gold and diamonds—an eternity ring!
‘Because we know now our marriage is for ever,’ Andy said, his voice husky and his hand shaking as he put the ring on her finger.
‘I love you, Ellie, always have and always will,’ he said. ‘And even when we’d lost our way and started hurting each other, I knew the love was still there if we could just get past the pain.’
He put his arms around her and held her close.
‘I was an idiot for not talking to you, but I felt you had so much of your own emotion to deal with that adding mine to it might sink you completely!’
‘And I was stupid not to realise how much you were hurting. I was wrong to wrap myself in grief and not consider you,’ Ellie whispered against his neck.’
She eased away and kissed his lips.
‘Never again,’ she said, and as he kissed her he echoed the words, then reached for the second gift he had for her.
‘Well, you’re not going to top this ring, whatever it is,’ Ellie told him, over the tears of shock and waving the ring delightedly in the air so sunbeams could catch the diamonds and make them wink at her.
‘No,’ Andy said, and sounded serious, ‘but I hope you’ll think it’s worth just as much—perhaps more. I hope you’ll understand what it’s saying to you, what I’m saying to you!’
He handed her the second box, and once again she felt the tremors that were going through his body.
Whatever it was, it meant a lot to Andy...
It was light in weight, a smallish rectangular box of some kind, and as she tore the paper off it and saw what it was, she sat up in bed and looked at him in wonder.
‘You’re giving me a pregnancy test?’ she said, disbelief vying with happiness.
‘You know I’m probably not,’ she added.
‘Or you could be,’ he said. ‘If not now, sometime in the future.’
Ellie knelt on the bed and took his face between the palms of her hands so she could study the man she loved to distraction.
‘And you’d really be okay with it? You’d be okay, even knowing we haven’t had a lot of luck so far?’
He leaned across and used his hands to draw her close and kiss her lips.
‘More than okay. I’d be delighted. And, yes, things can go wrong, but I can handle that now.’
He looked deep into her eyes.
‘I can handle anything. With you beside me and your love giving me strength, I can take on the world.’
He grinned at her.
‘But for now, don’t you need a pee?’
Ellie’s hands were shaking so much as she tried to open the protective box, Andy took it from her and handed her the simple test strip.
She slid off the bed, heading for the bathroom, knowing not to expect too much, not to get excited about it. There’d been too many times...
But as she sat on the loo and stared at the strip, watching the blue line spread across its width, she could only shake her head.
She should tell Andy, call him in, but her mind was blank, her tongue and lips not working.
But he came anyway, and together they stared at the strip.
‘We’ll need other tests. They’re not always accurate—anything could happen...’
She’d gone from speechless to babbling!
How could this be? After all the tests had said it wouldn’t happen? After all the years of trying had failed?
Ellie just couldn’t get her head around it! The tests weren’t one hundred percent accurate...
/> She swiped tears from her cheeks and stared at the blue line, shaking her head and hugging her body to stop herself getting too excited over it.
Until Andy knelt beside her and put his arm around her.
‘And just maybe it’s right and we’re going to have a baby. How’s that for an unbeatable Christmas present?’
He helped her up and held her in his arms, certain that this time all would be well.
‘I love you, Ellie Fraser,’ he said quietly, his lips moving against the hair on the top of her head.
‘And I love you, Andy Fraser,’ she whispered back, the air from her words warming his chest.
EPILOGUE
WHY HAD SHE thought asking both sets of families to come for Christmas a good idea? Ellie wondered for about the fourteenth time as she settled her just-fed son James into his cot in the downstairs flat.
She smiled at James’s sleeping face, touching her fingers to the spot where the little whorl of hair—just like Andy’s—was beginning to show above his left eyebrow...
Even with Andy’s mother running around with lists and ticking things off, Ellie still felt there was something she’d forgotten.
Vegetables—tick. Christmas pudding—tick. Bonbons and sweets and little gifts for everyone—tick...
No, it was something different—something special—and she knew she’d forgotten it.
Baby brain.
Maybe it would come to her. Andy should be home soon. He was up at the hospital doing his Santa thing again and having his photo taken with children on his knee.
She’d already taken a photo of him as Santa, holding James, and knew it was something they would do each year until James was old enough to rebel against such things.
No, whatever it was—the bright idea she’d had in the middle of the night a week ago—still eluded her, and with a heavy sigh she gave up thinking about it.
After all she’d updated the watch she’d given him last year with the computerised one, and found some opal cufflinks to match the tiepin Chelsea had given him last year, and a few silly odds and ends.
The Doctors' Christmas Reunion Page 16