Christmas with the Single Dad

by Louisa Heaton

  Only it hadn’t worked out that way.

  She stared at the ceiling and once again asked herself if she was really doing the right thing.

  Nathan was a kind-hearted man. Compassionate, caring. And she felt sure he had strong feelings for her. Looking at the pillows beside her, she remembered that night they’d made love. How good he’d made her feel. The brief time that they’d had together had been exquisite. Being made love to, being cherished, being as treasured as he had made her feel, had made her realise all that had been missing from her life.

  I’m alone.

  He’d not come after her after the nativity. He hadn’t shown up in the few days afterwards either. She’d thought that he might, and she’d been prepared not to answer the door. To hide. But he hadn’t come.

  She’d always believed that by keeping her distance from romantic entanglements she was keeping herself safe—and, yes, she supposed she was. But she was also keeping herself in a prison of loneliness. It was a kind of solitary confinement. All she had was Magic, her cat. Her only interactions were with the people and the animals at work and the friendly faces she saw in the shops. When she returned home all she had left were herself and her memories.

  Unless I choose Nathan’s way of thinking.

  Christmas was a time for family. She could be sharing the day with Nathan. With Anna. Darling, sweet little Anna, whom she also adored. And she was letting fear keep her away. Her fear of being vulnerable again. Of losing Nathan. Losing Anna. Of not being enough for either of them!

  ‘I’m losing you if I do nothing!’ she said out loud, angry at herself.

  Putting on her slippers and grabbing her robe, she headed downstairs.

  The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner, with just a few presents underneath it. There was that gift from Nathan. Something from her parents. A couple of gifts from faithful long-term customers at work. The gift she’d placed there in Olivia’s memory.

  There could have been more. There could have been something for Nathan. For Anna. There could have been happiness in this house again. The day could have been spent the way Christmas is supposed to be spent.

  She could be cooking Christmas breakfast for them all right now. Scrambled egg and smoked salmon. Maybe a little Bucks Fizz.

  She sat by the tree and picked up the parcel from her mum and dad. It was soft and squidgy, and when she half-heartedly tugged at the wrapping she discovered they’d got her a new pair of fleece pyjamas. She smiled at the pattern—little penguins on tiny icebergs. The other gifts were a bottle of wine, some chocolates, a book...

  All that was left was the gift from Nathan and the one for her own daughter that would never be opened.

  She picked up the gift from Nathan and glanced at the card.

  Merry Christmas, Sydney!

  Lots of love, Nathan xxx

  What would it be? She had no idea. Part of her felt that it would be wrong to open it now. They weren’t together any more. He’d made that clear. She hesitated.

  He’d wanted her to have it.

  Sydney tore at the wrapping and discovered a plain white box. Frowning, she picked at the tape holding the end closed, getting cross when it wouldn’t come free and having to use a pen from her side table to pierce it and break the seal. Inside, something was wrapped in bubble wrap.

  She slid it out and slowly unwrapped the plastic. It was a picture frame, and taped to the front, was a small white envelope. There was something inside. A memory card...

  It’s a digital photo frame.

  She plugged it into the mains, inserted the memory card and switched it on, wondering what there could be on it...and gasped.

  There, right before her eyes, were pictures of Olivia that she had never even seen before! Some were close-ups, some were group shots, some were of her with other people or children, most she recognised as people from Silverdale.

  Olivia in a park on a swing set next to another little boy, who was grinning at the photographer. Olivia at a birthday party with her face all smudged with chocolate cake. Olivia in the front row of the school choir.

  She watched in shocked awe as picture after picture of her daughter appeared on the screen.

  Where had Nathan got these? They must have come from other people! People in the village who had taken their own photos and captured Olivia in them too. And somehow—amazingly—he had gathered all these pictures together and presented them to her like this!

  Tears pricked at her eyes as she gazed at the beautiful images. And then it flicked to another picture, and this one was moving. A video. Of a school play. She remembered it clearly. It had been Olivia’s first play and she’d been dressed as a ladybird in a red top that Sydney had spent ages making, sewing on little black dots and then making her a bobble headband for her antennae.

  The video showed the last few moments. It captured the applause of the crowd, the kiddies all lining up in a row, taking a bow. A boy near Olivia waved madly at the camera, and then Olivia waved at someone just off to the left of the screen and called out, ‘I love you, Mummy!’

  Sydney heard the words and burst into tears, her hands gripping the frame like a lifeline. She’d forgotten that moment. She’d been there. She remembered the play very well; she’d been so proud of Olivia for not forgetting any of her words, and she’d been a true actress, playing her part with aplomb. And at the end she’d seen Sydney in the crowd, and Sydney had waved at her madly and called out to her.

  She pressed ‘pause’. Then ‘rewind’. And watched it again.

  Sydney had always believed that she would never get any new photos of Olivia. That her daughter had been frozen in time. But Nathan had given her a gift that she could never have foreseen!

  Surely he loved her? What man would do something so thoughtful and as kind as this if he didn’t? He would have to know just what this would mean to her.

  When the video ended and the frame went back to the beginning of its cycle of photos again, Sydney rushed upstairs to get dressed. She had to see him. She had to...what? Thank him?

  ‘I don’t want to thank him. I want to be with him,’ she said aloud to Magic, who lay curled on her bed, blinking in irritation at her racing into the bedroom and disturbing her slumber. ‘I’ve been so stupid!’

  She yanked off her robe and her pyjamas and kicked off her slippers so hard they flew into the mirror on the wardrobe door.

  She pulled on jeans, a tee shirt and a thick fisherman’s jumper and twisted her hair up into a rough ponytail. She gave her teeth a quick scrub and splashed her face with some water. Once she’d given it a cursory dry with a towel she raced downstairs and headed for her car, gunning the engine and screeching off down the road.

  She hadn’t even locked her own front door.

  But before she could go to Nathan’s house there was somewhere else she needed to go first.

  * * *

  Silverdale Cemetery and Memorial Gardens was a peaceful place. But for a long time it had been somewhere that Sydney had avoided. It had always hurt too much, and for a long time she hadn’t come. She’d not felt she had the inner strength to get through a visit.

  But today she felt able to be there.

  She wanted to be.

  Today she felt closer to her daughter than on any other day so far. Perhaps it had something to do with what Nathan had said. Perhaps it was because he had helped lift her guilt. Perhaps it was because he had given her that new way of thinking. But now Sydney felt able to go to the site where her daughter was buried, and she knew that she wouldn’t stand there staring down at the earth and thinking of her daughter lying there, cold and alone and dead.

  Because Olivia wasn’t there any more. She wasn’t in the ground, cold and dead.

  Olivia was alive in her heart. And in her mind. Sydney’s head was full of images long since forgotten.
Memories were washing over her with the strength of a tsunami, pounding into her with laughter and delight and warm feelings of a life well-lived and enjoyed.

  Olivia had been a happy little girl, and Sydney had forgotten that. Focusing too much on her last day. The day on which she’d been dying. Unconscious. Helpless. In pain.

  Now Sydney had a new outlook on her daughter’s life. And it was an outlook she knew Olivia would approve of. So the cemetery was no longer a place for her to fear but a place in which she could go and sit quietly for a moment, after laying some flowers. Bright, colourful winter blooms that her daughter had helped her to plant years before.

  The headstone was a little dirty, so she cleaned it off with her coat sleeve and made sure her daughter’s name was clear and bright. Her eyes closed as she pictured her daughter watering the flowers in the back garden with her pink tin watering can.

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t visited for a while,’ she said, her eyes still closed. ‘But I got caught up in feeling sorry for myself. You wouldn’t have approved.’ She laughed slightly and smiled, feeling tears prick at her eyes. ‘But I think I’m overcoming that. A new friend—a good friend—taught me a valuable lesson. I was stuck, you see, Olivia. Stuck on missing you. Stuck on taking the blame because I felt someone had to.’

  She opened her eyes and smiled down at the ground and the headstone.

  ‘I don’t have to do that any more. I’m not stuck. I’m free. And because I’m free you are too. I can see you now. In my head. In here...’ She tapped her chest, over her heart. ‘I can see you so clearly! I can hear you and smell you and feel you in my arms.’

  She paused, gathering her breath.

  ‘You’d like Nathan. He’s a doctor. He’s a good man. And Anna...his daughter...you’d love her too. I know you would. I guess I just wanted to say that I... I love you, Olivia. I’m sorry I was gone for a while, but I’m back, and now I have someone looking out for me, and he’s given me the ability to get you back the way I should have from the beginning.’

  She touched the headstone.

  ‘I’ll be back more often from now on. And...er... I’ve put up a tree. I’m celebrating Christmas this year. There’s something for you under it. You won’t ever be forgotten.’

  She sniffed in the cold, crisp December air and looked about her. Two headstones away was the grave of one Alfred Courtauld, and she remembered his wife telling her about how she’d once laid a flower on Olivia’s grave.

  Sydney picked up a flower from Olivia’s bouquet and laid it on Alfred’s stone. ‘Thanks for looking after Olivia whilst I’ve been away.’

  And then she slowly walked back to her car.

  * * *

  Nathan watched as Anna unwrapped her brand-new bike, her hands ripping off the swathes of reindeer-patterned paper that he’d wrapped it in, smiling warmly at her cries of joy and surprise.

  ‘A bike!’ she squealed, swinging her leg over the frame and getting onto the seat. ‘Can I ride it? Can I take it outside?’

  ‘Course you can.’ He helped her take the bike out to the back garden and watched as she eagerly began to pedal, wobbling alarmingly at the beginning, but then soon getting the hang of it.

  ‘Look, Daddy!’

  ‘I’m watching, baby.’

  He stood in the doorway, holding his mug of coffee, watching his daughter cycle up and down, but feeling sad that he couldn’t give her more. He’d hoped this Christmas to be sharing the day with Sydney. To be opening presents together, giving Anna the feel of a real family, so the three of them could enjoy the day together because they were meant to be together.

  But Sydney had kept her distance. She’d not dumped him as unceremoniously as Gwyneth had, but she’d still broken his heart.

  It wasn’t just Christmas he felt sad about. It was all of it. Every day. Christmas was a time for family, but so was the rest of the year. Waking every morning together. Listening to each other talk about their day each evening. Laughing. Living.

  He’d hoped that Sydney could be in their lives, and he knew that Anna still hoped for that, too. She’d kept going on about it last night before she went to bed.

  ‘Will Sydney be coming tomorrow, Daddy?’

  But, sadly, the answer had been no. She would not be coming.

  As he headed into the kitchen to make himself a fresh drink he briefly wondered if she had opened his present. It had taken a lot of organising, but Mrs Courtauld had helped—reaching out to people, contacting them on her walks around the village with her greyhound Prince, asking everyone to check their photos and see if any of them had Olivia in them.

  He’d dared to hope there would be one or two, but he had been surprised at how many they had got. Fourteen new pictures of Olivia and a video, in which she was saying the exact words he knew would gladden Sydney’s heart.

  Because that was what he wanted for her most of all. For her to be happy. For her heart to swell once again with love. He’d hoped that her love would include him, but...

  His doorbell buzzed. Who on earth...?

  It was Christmas morning. It couldn’t be a door-to-door salesman, or anyone like that. Perhaps someone had been taken ill? Perhaps he was needed as a doctor?

  He hurried to the front door, unlocked it and swung it open.

  ‘Sydney?’

  She looked out of breath, edgy and anxious. ‘Can I come in?’

  Did he want her to? Of course he did! He’d missed her terribly. But if she was just here to rehash everything they’d said the other night then he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

  But something in her eyes—a brightness, a hope—made him give her one last audience.

  He stepped back. ‘Please.’

  He watched as she brushed past and then followed her into the kitchen, from where she could see Anna, playing happily in the back garden.

  ‘You got her a bike?’

  He smiled as he looked at his daughter, happily pedalling away. ‘Yes. It was what she wanted.’

  Sydney turned to him. ‘And what do you want, Nathan? For Christmas?’

  Nathan stared at her, trying to gauge the exact reason for her turning up like this on Christmas Day. It wouldn’t be a trick or a game. Sydney wasn’t like that. Had she opened his gift to her?

  He couldn’t answer her. Couldn’t tell her what he really wanted. So he changed the subject. ‘Did you like your present?’

  Tears filled her eyes then and she nodded, the movement of her head causing the tears to run freely down her cheeks. She wiped them away hurriedly. ‘I can’t believe what you did. How you managed that... I’m...speechless.’

  He gave a small smile. ‘I wanted to make you happy. Just tell me it didn’t make you sad.’

  ‘It didn’t.’ She took a quick step towards him, then stopped. ‘I’ve come to apologise. I made a mistake.’

  Nathan frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Us. I made the wrong choice.’

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to make this go wrong. He needed to hear what she had to say.

  ‘I got frightened. The day...the evening we were together I...panicked. And then, when I saw Anna on the donkey, I don’t know what it was... I started feeling guilty. I felt that if I forgot Olivia on her most important day I would be losing her. But then today—earlier—I realised that it wasn’t her most important day. The day she died. Her most important day was the day she was born! I can remember Olivia in a different way, just like you said, and by doing so I can also have a future. And so can she. Because my grief was trapping Olivia too. I kept her in pain all that time. Remembering the day she left me...when she was suffering. When I couldn’t help her. I kept her there. Trapped in time. But not any more. Not any more,’ she said firmly.

  He shook his head. ‘Love isn’t what hurts people, Sydney. Losing s
omeone hurts. Grief hurts. Pain hurts. But love? Love is the greatest thing we can experience.’

  ‘I know. Because I feel love for Olivia. I feel love for...’ She paused and stepped closer, laying a hand upon his chest, over his heart. ‘For you. I’ve felt more helpless in the last few days being sat alone at home than I have ever felt. I need to be with you.’

  He laid his hand over hers, feeling his heart pound in his ribcage as if it was a wild animal, trying desperately to escape. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying I want us to be together. You. Me. Anna. I think we can do it. I think that together we can be strong enough to fight whatever is coming in the future.’

  ‘You mean it?’ he asked, hope in his voice.

  ‘I do. I’ve missed you so much! I’ve been in pain because I don’t have you. I didn’t realise what was missing from my life until I met you.’

  Nathan smiled and kissed her, meeting her lips with a kiss that burned with fervour. Devouring her, tasting her, enjoying her with a passion that he could barely contain.

  She wanted him! She wanted him back and she was willing to take a chance on their future.

  It was all he’d ever wanted.

  None of them knew what his future would be. How his disease would progress. Whether it would get worse. Just because that happened to a lot of people with MS, it didn’t mean it would happen to him. He might be one of the lucky ones. It could stay as relapsing remitting. Who knew?

  And even if it did progress he now felt braver about facing it. Because he would have Sydney at his side. And Anna, too. His daughter would not be burdened by carrying the weight of her father’s illness all alone on her young shoulders. She would be able to share her worries. With a mother figure. With Sydney. And he knew Anna adored Sydney. They could be a perfect family. Or at least they could try!

  They broke apart at the sound of his daughter’s footsteps running towards the house.

  ‘Sydney!’ Anna barrelled into them both, enveloping them with her arms. ‘Are you here for Christmas dinner?’