One Day in December: The Christmas read you won't want to put down

by Shari Low

  This was her moment.

  Her finger was almost on the bell, when she heard footsteps from inside the house, coming towards her. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. She needed it to be Bernadette, because if Ken answered there was always the possibility that he would thwart her plan. Not that she’d let that happen. One way or another, she was going to speak to Bernadette, even supposing she had to shout through the letter box.

  More footsteps. More than one person?

  The tumble drier started in her stomach again.

  She froze, the bell still not pressed, as the footsteps stopped right at the other side of the door. The sound of a doorknob being turned. The door opened.

  Lila felt like the ground was moving beneath her feet as she came face to face with her rival.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Bernadette asked.

  ‘You’re Kenneth Manson’s wife,’ she said. It wasn’t a question. Over the years she’d met her a couple of times in the hospital and she’d just spent half the afternoon watching her and her car boot pal lugging bags in and out of the house. She was still wearing the same clothes. Jeans. Boots. A shapeless black jumper. One of those waterfall cardigans that woman used to cover the fact that they ate a pudding the night before. Even now, on a Saturday night, she didn’t have on a scrap of make-up.

  Bernadette nodded. ‘I am. Sorry, who are you?’

  For the first time, Lila noticed a young guy standing behind Bernadette, obviously her son, given that there was an unmissable likeness. Next to him was a woman, tall, brunette, around her own age, and for a moment Lila was thrown. Ken’s eyes, his mouth. This must be Nina.

  Oh, fuck, it was the whole family at once. There was a momentary urge to flee, but it was quickly overtaken by the realisation that this was actually a positive thing. Better that everyone found out at the same time – that it was all out in the open and everyone knew exactly where they stood.

  Wasn’t that what she’d wanted for seven long years? She inhaled, pulled back her shoulders, tried to project a confidence that she didn’t quite feel, but as always, she wasn’t going to let any fear or weakness show.

  ‘I’m Lila Anderson.’

  Blank looks.

  ‘I know this will probably come as a shock…’

  More blank looks. They genuinely had no idea who she was.

  ‘… I’m Ken’s girlfriend.’

  10 p.m. – Midnight

  Chapter 29

  Caro

  ‘What’s happening now? WHAT’S HAPPENING!’ The words were the same as before, but this time Caro could hear that Todd was hyperventilating on the other end of the phone. However, no matter how hard she tried to make her vocal chords work, they were resisting all commands.

  Holy shit.

  Lila had bolted. One minute the boyfriend was down on one knee, and she was looking at him with what Caro could tell, even from this distance, was horror, and the next thing she got up and flew out of the restaurant. Her mother then jumped up and ran after her, while the boyfriend – that poor, poor guy – slid back up on to his seat and stared after them, jaw dropped, his expression one of almost tangible confusion and devastation. Ouch. That had to hurt.

  There was a delayed reaction in the rest of the room, roughly half of the diners just stared at the door, and the other half did that thing people do in the face of someone else’s complete mortification, where they tried to act like absolutely nothing had happened and went back to chatting, eating, perusing menus. Thankfully, the woman at the next table but one had taken that approach and was no longer frowning in her direction for using her phone in a high class establishment.

  The mother was back in now, face aghast, hand over mouth, as she made her way back to the table.

  ‘If you don’t answer I’m calling the police, I swear.’

  Todd. She’d forgotten about him. Putting the phone back to her mouth, she tried the vocal chords again.

  ‘Oh the poor, poor guy. The boyfriend – who by the way, looks really sweet and is incredibly handsome – proposed to her, she said no, she made a run for it, the mother chased her and now she’s back and they’re all sitting there looking like they’ve been hit by a bus. If that’s my sister, she’s completely bonkers.’

  ‘Shut up!’ he said, chiding her for joking. ‘Tell me what really happened. Has she said yes yet? Why haven’t I heard a round of applause?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t joking. The boyfriend proposed, she said no, she made a run for it,’ she repeated.

  There was a moment of silence as he processed this. ‘I can’t tell you how much I hope you’re related to this lot because I need this kind of drama in my life. I love them already. It’s like having your own Lifetime mini-series.’

  ‘Todd!’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, my heart’s breaking for him, obviously!’ he prattled, making it perfectly clear his heart wasn’t broken in the least. Obviously.

  Her eyes still hadn’t left the other table. The boyfriend was sitting, looking utterly dazed, shaking his head every time Lila’s mother spoke to him. She had her hand on his arm, but it didn’t seem to be helping at all.

  A man, Caro was sure he was the manager, had gone over to talk to him now, hand on shoulder, as if he knew him. They conversed for a few moments, before he headed off, back towards the kitchen area.

  Seconds later, the boyfriend called the waiter over.

  ‘Oh, crap, I think he’s asking for the bill,’ she hissed to Todd.

  ‘Then you have to go over now. Right now!’

  ‘I can’t! That poor guy has just had his heart broken! I can’t appear at the table, and accost his dining companion, and accuse him of being my father. There’s only so much crap one table should have to deal with in one night.’

  ‘Do you think it’s him?’ Todd asked.

  Caro sighed. ‘I have no idea. He’s still got his back to me.’

  ‘Look, you have to go over now. You won’t have another chance at this.’ Todd countered. ‘If it’s not him, you can just make some breezy claim of mistaken identity.’

  ‘And if it is him?’ Caro pressed.

  ‘Then at least it’ll take some of the heat off the poor bugger that just got jilted. You have to do it. You’ve got nothing to lose,’ he said, repeating her thought from earlier.

  He was right – but knowing that and acting on it were two separate things. Besides, after all the anxiety, she wasn’t actually sure her legs would support her at the moment.

  ‘I fricking hate it when you’re right,’ she groaned. ‘Okay, I need to hang up – only five per cent battery now.’

  ‘Don’t hang up! Don’t you dare hang…!’

  She hung up.

  Right then. This was it. Pushing herself up to a standing position, like a baby giraffe trying out its legs for the first time, she stood for a second, checking that she could carry her own weight.

  She succeeded. Just.

  With a cheesy smile to Mrs Stern Face at the next table but one, she made her way down the two steps to the lower area. There were two choices, go right, then walk up the aisle that led directly to the door. Or walk straight ahead, pivot right, and go past the row of diners sitting along the window, practically skimming the Anderson family’s table. She chose the latter.

  One Next sexy suede boot in front of the other. Left. Right. Past the French team, all of whom were surely having their conversations drowned out by the rave-thudding beat of her heart.

  Left. Right.

  Now a 90-degree right turn, walking parallel to the window. Past one table, then another. There were only ten feet separating them now, and she had direct eyeline on his side profile now. If this wasn’t her father, then he was a twin, separated by birth. Or a clone. His hair was longer now, there was a bit of a designer stubble thing going on, but there was absolutely no doubt that if her dad committed a murder and this bloke was in a line-up, he would be packing for a long stretch at her Majesty’s pleasure.

  The boyfriend and the mother were
deep in conversation, but he was sitting back, unengaged, drinking from a champagne glass. That’s when she knew. She’d seen that posture so many times over the years, that separation, the demeanour that reflected a lack of interest, a man that wasn’t concerned with the lives of the people that were sharing his oxygen.

  She stopped in front of them. As if he sensed her presence, he glanced up and their eyes locked.

  It was him. No doubt at all. Daddy dearest. For a second, she wondered if he’d try to pretend he didn’t know her, maybe make a run for it, but he did the last thing she expected. He closed his eyes, as if to block out the fact that she was there.

  The mum and the boyfriend became aware of her and broke off from their conversation.

  ‘Sorry to intrude…’ she said, heart hammering. Hang on, why the hell was she apologising? At least he’d opened his eyes again. ‘I’m…’ She stopped, looked at him. The spineless, cheating, deserting fucker. She wanted to see him squirm, to make him as uncomfortable as he could possibly be. She tipped her head to one side, eyes challenging, hostile. ‘Actually, would you like to introduce me?’ she said, with a cold calm that in no way reflected what she was feeling inside.

  There was a pause. Longer. Uncomfortable. Two sets of eyes staring at her, one staring straight ahead as if she didn’t exist.

  ‘You’re Caro,’ said a calm, clipped voice.

  Caro’s head spun to face the speaker. Lila’s mum. ‘You know?’

  Her reply was delivered with an air of… what… resignation? Weariness? ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said the boyfriend, clearly baffled, but staring at her, like he recognised her but couldn’t quite place her.

  ‘Please sit,’ Louise said.

  Now Caro’s first instinct was to run. Actually, that wasn’t true. Much as she didn’t approve of violence, her first instinct was to slap her father as hard as humanly possible across the back of the head, and strut out of here, the way Lila had come in, dignity and class intact. She knew now. It was him. He was a lying, cheating prick. Did she really need to know anything else? Did she really need to sit down and give him an opportunity to explain or salvage his conscience?

  All her apprehension had dissipated, replaced with a potent mix of confusion, curiosity, fury and feet that were hurting in new boots.

  She sat down.

  The gutless wonder finally spoke. ‘Cammy, this is my other daughter, Caro.’

  ‘But… but I thought Lila was an only child?’

  Caro felt for him. Poor guy. Just when he thought that getting jilted was the most shocking thing that could happen to him tonight, he discovers his girlfriend has a secret sister.

  ‘I’m sorry about… I saw what happened,’ Caro said, momentarily suspending her rage to express sympathy. ‘But trust me, if she’s inherited this guy’s talent for lies and deceit, you probably had a lucky escape.’ She didn’t mean it to sound as harsh as it did, but she felt she had to stress the point for his sake.

  The burning sense of indignant rage kicked back in as she turned to Jack. ‘At least you’re acknowledging me as your daughter. I should be thrilled. I wasn’t sure you’d remember,’ Caro bit, through gritted teeth, disapproving her lifelong theory that she didn’t have much of a temper.

  ‘You have every right to be angry,’ Jack conceded.

  ‘I know,’ Caro countered. ‘I’m just struggling to decide what to be most angry about. The fact that you must have lied to Mum for all those years? Or that you walked away from me and never looked back? That you left Mum when she needed you?’ She felt Louise flinch at that one – it still seemed so unreal to her that Louise actually knew - but she went on… ‘The fact that you care so little for us that you never write, never call? Or that you clearly chose another family? Or how about just the fact that you had another family at all?’

  ‘You don’t understand…’

  ‘You’re damn right I don’t. Explain it to me,’ she challenged, eyes blazing.

  ‘And me,’ Cammy added.

  Caro noticed Louise press a button on her phone, and Lila’s face popped up on screen, only for it to flick off again. She obviously wasn’t answering. Wow. Even now, when it was pure chaos, Louise was still only thinking about Lila. No wonder her half-sister had a gargantuan sense of carefree entitlement.

  ‘I was married when I met Louise,’ Jack said, to Cammy.

  ‘No,’ Caro snapped. ‘You don’t get to explain it to him first. Explain it to me. You at least owe me that.’

  Jack sighed, the way he’d done a million times in her childhood. This was so weird. He was the man she’d grown up calling ‘dad’, but he was like a distant, more polished version, with a side-twist of disinterest and disdain. ‘You’re right. I do. I was married to your mum when I met Louise,’ he said, repeating himself. ‘Louise and I wanted to be together, but I loved your mum too. You were a baby, only a few months old. I didn’t want to leave her, to leave you.’

  This was actually happening. Her most outlandish speculations were coming to fruition. Her dad had another family. Holy. Fuck.

  ‘So I’d spend a week or two in Glasgow every month…’

  ‘Living with her?’ she gestured to Louise. She knew she was being obnoxious, and that was entirely out of character, but anger on behalf of her mother was controlling her side of the conversation, and, whatever way it was dressed up, Louise was the ‘other woman’.

  ‘Yes, living with Louise…’ he continued, ‘and then a week or two in Aberdeen, and the rest of the time visiting sites. Always on the road. Then Louise fell pregnant with Lila and suddenly I had two women, two children… So I carried on splitting my time between them and it became the norm. Somewhere along the line, that pattern became the normality, and living with two families did too.’

  Caro turned to Louise. ‘And you were okay with this?’ she asked, unable to fathom that any woman would accept an arrangement like this.

  She shook her head. ‘When I met him, he told me his relationship with your mum was over, that they’d split and he just stayed at your home in Aberdeen because he wanted to spend time with you.’

  ‘So he lied to you too?’

  She saw Cammy’s head swivel to face Louise as they waited for an answer. ‘He did. I found out later. Your dad had a heart scare – one of many he’s had over the years - and your mum turned up at the hospital. That’s when I realised they were still married.’

  “So you met my mum?”

  Louise shook her head. ‘Not really. When I realised who she was, I made some excuse that I worked for the hospital and I was in checking the room and then I got out of there. I was crushed.’

  ‘And yet, you forgave him?’

  Louise nodded. ‘In a way, the thought of losing him proved to me how much I loved him.’

  It took a moment for Caro to process Louise’s words. That was top-level delusion and gullibility right there. She couldn’t shirk the suspicion that he’d played on the ‘whole heart scare’ stuff to emotionally manipulate these women. He didn’t seem to be worried about his bloody heart now and if ever there was a chest-clutching shock, tonight had to be it.

  ‘And in another way, I respected that he wanted to be in your life too,’ Louise went on.

  ‘I think that was the last thing on his mind…’ Caro snapped, unable to control herself. ‘He couldn’t have been less interested in me.’ She didn’t care if it made her sound childish and petulant. This was home truths time.

  Jack tried to interject. ‘Caro, that’s not true, I…’

  Caro shut him right down. ‘Don’t you dare try to rewrite history, D—’ She broke off, unable to address him as ‘Dad’. He wasn’t a father. He was nothing. ‘You know, I honestly think all we were to you was somewhere to live when you were in Aberdeen. Did you ever love Mum? Ever care?’

  ‘He did, Caro,’ Louise stepped back in, and Caro realised that she was trying to play the peacemaker. She felt a stab of pain in her gut. Just like her mum had always done. Made e
xcuses for him. Sanded off the edges of his failings. Minimised his disregard for his daughter. At first glance, it didn’t seem that her mum and Louise were similar, but perhaps they had some things – as well as a husband – in common after all. So it would seem her dad had a type.

  Leave. Stay. Leave. Stay. Caro was so furious that she was fighting with herself over what to do next. She knew all she needed to know. She’d got the truth that she’d come for. Sticking around was achieving nothing, and if she didn’t go soon she was going to do something that would necessitate a call to Todd for that bail money.

  She looked at the man who had contributed his sperm. ‘Does your other daughter know?’ It didn’t seem right to call her Lila. Too intrusive. Too familiar. Like she knew her, instead of just sharing fifty per cent of their DNA and a Facebook habit. She couldn’t foresee a time when she’d ever refer to her as her sister.

  ‘No,’ Jack admitted.

  ‘So you’ve been lying to her too.’

  ‘Look, it’s not that simple. It’s…’

  Caro put her hand up. ‘Do me a favour. If you knew me like most guys know their daughters, you’d know that I don’t have a temper, I’m not prone to drama and I’ve never been violent in my life. But I swear if you say one more word, or try to make one more excuse for everything you’ve done, I won’t be responsible for my actions. So don’t speak. Don’t breathe. Don’t even look in my direction.’

  ‘Caro, for God’s sake…’

  Caro kicked his chair so hard, it stunned him into silence, and attracted the attention of just about everybody at the nearby tables. They were certainly getting entertainment with their meals tonight. And bugger, her foot hurt.

  Caro ignored his stunned expression and addressed Louise. ‘You said when you met, you thought he was separated, but then you found out he wasn’t.’

  Louise nodded, embarrassed. ‘When he recovered, he confessed everything…’ Her gaze went to him and a look passed between them. Love? Forgiveness? Caro wanted to throw up. ‘…I decided I had two choices. Walk away. Or accept that he chose me and live the rest of our lives together, just being happy. It took me a while, but I chose him.’