by Sue Watson
‘I know, love. You’ll be a brilliant mother – and I’ll be the perfect auntie,’ Jody said, hugging me. ‘But when are you going to tell Jon? You’ve known two days now and you still haven’t told him.’
‘It will break Ella’s heart. I just feel so awful – the timing is terrible.’
‘The timing might not be good for Ella, but at forty-one you’re very, very lucky to get pregnant,’ she reminded me. ‘Look, I know how you feel. You’re worried about Ella going through the same stuff you went through. I get that – but you have to put you and Jon in here somewhere. He has a right to know and once you’ve told him, you can talk about how you break it to Ella.’
I took Jody’s advice and that evening I Skyped Jon.
‘I don’t know how to start this…’ I said. ‘But I have something I have to tell you, and I really wish it wasn’t on Skype… It’s something I should tell you in person. I don’t know what you’re going to say…’
‘Jenny, tell me,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘My heart she is beating and I’m thinking you’ve met another man.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that.’ I almost laughed and the relief on his face was clear even through fuzzy Skype. ‘Jon, I’m pregnant – I’m pregnant, Jon.’
‘Oh my darling… my darling.’ He was shouting this and jumping up and down, and before I could say anything he was calling, ‘Ella, Ella, it’s Jenny – she has some news.’
I almost stopped breathing. This wasn’t how I wanted her to hear about this. Her heart would break in two, and I was here and she was there, and I wouldn’t be able to comfort her. She appeared in front of the webcam dressed in her towelling robe, looking puzzled at Jon and then sitting down and adjusting the camera to her own height.
‘Jen, Jenny, are you okay?’ she was saying.
‘Darling, I am – I’m great.’
‘You’re still coming back, aren’t you? Dad and I have just decorated the bedroom. I don’t want to see you two kissing so you can do it in there,’ she said and giggled.
‘Lovely… that sounds lovely… Ella…’
‘It’s lavender… yes?’
I couldn’t speak. After all the building bridges and bonding, all the hurt we’d helped to ease, I was now going to hurt her all over again with this news. I remembered how I’d felt about Jody, the baby who stayed full-time at my dad’s house, the baby who took my place as ‘the most important girl in the world’.
‘I’m going to tell you something now, but before I do I want you to know that you are the special one. You will always be your father’s first child, his eldest child and…’
I held my breath. I had to go for it, just tell her – yet I knew the impact this news could have and I felt it so keenly for her.
‘I want you to know how much I love you, Ella. I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel like you belong to me, that we’re family… and even if… a baby were to come into that family, those feelings, that love, will never change.’
‘I know, I know. Everyone keeps telling me and at first I was upset but Mum and Paul have wanted one together for ages. The baby’s due 23 August and today they found out it’s going to be a boy, did you know?’
‘Yes, a boy…’ I’d been trying to gently broach the idea of another baby – mine and Jon’s, but of course Ella had immediately assumed I’d been referring to her mum’s pregnancy.
‘I heard you were a bit upset Ella, but everyone still loves you just as much and it’s… lovely to have a new baby in the family,’ I said hopefully, still trying to prepare her for my news.’
‘No, it’s not. It sucks.’
‘Oh, Ella, I’m so sorry.’ This was the reaction I was dreading, if she thought her mother’s pregnancy ‘sucked’ then I could only imagine the expletives she’d use to describe mine.
‘Does the idea a new baby make you really unhappy?’ I asked tentatively, almost scared of what she might say.
‘Yes, it does.’
Oh God.
‘… because I wanted it to be a girl,’ she said. ‘I don’t want some snotty little bro… but Mum says I’ll love him when he comes out.’
I sank back in my chair with relief. ‘So you’re okay now about your mum having a baby?’
‘Yeah… but I’d bought it some really dope little pink skis and Dad says he won’t be able to wear pink.’
‘Well, first of all there’s nothing wrong with boys and pink. Your dad needs to chill and stop gender stereotyping colours,’ I said.
‘Whoa yay, you go, Jen,’ she said and laughed as Jon pulled up a chair.
‘And secondly, some time around late September, you’ll be having another baby sister or brother.’
‘Oh my shitting God!’
I heard Jon’s gentle reprimand in the background.
She screamed a blood-curdling scream, and for a second I wasn’t sure how she was taking it, then I saw her and Jon hugging each other and crying before she put her face back in the camera.
‘Jenny, what the shitting hell are you doing sitting there telling me about my baby sis? Get over here so I can rub your feet and get talking to that girl… I rub Mum’s feet and talk to my little bro all the time. But this is my sis… It had better be a sis – that would be soooo sick. Man, I am gassed!’
I smiled with relief. ‘I guess sick and dope are good… and gassed means you’re pleased?’
‘Yessss! In fact I am very gassed!’
I could have cried with relief. ‘I don’t know if she’s a girl yet…’ I said, ‘but I just wish I could hug you and your dad right now.’
‘So what are you waiting for? Hurry up, we want you back. Come home now.’
At these words my chin began to tremble and I burst into floods of tears. The noise I was making brought Jody running into my room.
‘What on earth… Oh no, the bastard…’ she said, pushing her face into the camera, about to give Jon a piece of her mind.
‘No, no… it’s okay, Jody, look,’ and we both looked together into the camera as Jon and Ella looked back – all four of us crying with happiness. Here we were, three people, hundreds of miles apart in so many ways, yet brought together by love – and now there was a baby who would tie this ragtag bunch into the imperfect, perfect family I’d always dreamed of.
Chapter 20
My Sister, My Friend
A week later, Jody was helping me pack for Switzerland and a new life. I was five months pregnant and didn’t want to leave the travelling too late; besides, we now had lots to do at home in Saas Fee. Jon was talking about buying a three-bedroomed chalet, but Ella was insisting her sister share the room with her. I didn’t mind; I was just happy that Jon was happy – and Ella of course. I was excited and a little frightened about the birth and the future and how I was going to cope, but Jody was there for me, as she had been for some time now, and I knew I would explain all this ‘half-sister magic’ to Ella one day.
‘I’m so happy, Jody. I just hope Ella will be okay when both babies are born.’
‘She’ll be fine, love – I promise. Ella’s situation’s different to yours. She has four parents who pretty much manage to get along – and she belongs to two families, not just one. You see, as much as you felt you didn’t fit into our family, I always thought you did – and when you didn’t want to go home to your mum, I always envied you having two homes, two bedrooms, two sets of toys.’
She was carefully folding a towel and holding it to her chest, looking into the distance. ‘Dad was so upset about your mum never allowing him to see you he actually went to court one Christmas to try and force your mum to send you to spend Christmas with us. He had legal permission and your mum was told she had to let you go – but at the very last minute your mum sobbed and begged him, saying she’d be alone at Christmas if you weren’t there. I remember him telling my mum he couldn’t hurt her any more – he said he’d already ruined her life. It was on his conscience, and the irony was he never really embraced true happiness with Mum becau
se of the terrible guilt he felt at what he’d done. And all he did was fall in love.’
‘I never realised Mum had kept us apart so much,’ I said. ‘I once found a Christmas card on the mat and I saw the postmark was Warrington, where you lived – and I was excited, thinking he’d sent us a card. But Mum said she knew lots of people who lived there and it wasn’t from Dad – it was from an old friend. I think even then I guessed she wasn’t telling the truth – but I felt her pain.’
‘Yes, but by telling you that Dad hadn’t turned up, or hadn’t sent a card for Christmas, she was making you believe he didn’t love you – and he did. All the time you were thinking he had this new family and we were perfect, I was listening to him talk about “my Jen”, as he’d call you, and his eyes would go all misty, and I used to wonder if he loved me that much,’ she said and smiled sadly.
I was surprised and happy to hear this. Jody was right, I’d always imagined this perfect family, their perfect Christmases (often described with relish and venom by my mother), filled with laughter and plenty. But nothing was perfect, and Dad had lived with the guilt, and Mum had lived with the betrayal, and it had tainted all their lives.
‘Going away last Christmas was one of the best times in my life,’ Jody suddenly said, clamping down my suitcase. ‘I spent time getting to know my sister, and now… we’re having a baby,’ she said, putting her hands on my stomach, glowing as much as I was apparently supposed to be doing.
My pregnancy had brought out the nurse and the carer in Jody, a side I hadn’t seen before – one probably saved only for patients and people she loved.
‘I always wanted us to be friends,’ she said, ‘then after last Christmas I felt like you were a friend who’s my sister… but now you feel like my sister who’s my friend.’
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Epilogue
New Beginnings and Happy Endings
Christmas, a year on
I’m sitting alone by a log fire, the snow is softly falling outside, the tree is twinkling and I’m enjoying the peace. Mrs Christmas is washing her face in front of the fire, Dora is sleeping and ‘White Christmas’ is playing in the background. I’m a little unnerved, because this is beginning to feel a lot like the perfect Christmas, and they don’t exist – do they?
My baby daughter is now almost four months old and she’s quite delicious in her red velvet onesie trimmed with fur. It’s a gift from Jody, and it takes me back to my cow onesie from last year – and trust me, Dora’s working hers far better than I did mine.
Jody came over for the birth, shouting like a personal trainer to ‘push hard’ and ‘dig deep’. I screamed back at her, hurling all the profanities that are apparently usually delivered to the partner at high-hormone times like that. But Jon was lovely and calm and mopped my brow and continued to tell me I was beautiful, despite the literal blood, sweat and tears.
After a while I hear the door open. It’s Jon – he’s home with Ella, who’s with us for Christmas. I can’t wait to get to know Ella in the way I was never allowed to with my father’s ‘other’ family. I want her to feel like she’s part of the family, and I’m keen to welcome her and let her know she’s still her daddy’s little girl, the most important little girl in the world. The new baby isn’t a threat to the special relationship she has with her dad, and neither am I, and we will be a happy, blended family forever. But I needn’t worry. We eat chocolate cake and Ella talks excitedly about Father Christmas and hugs her new baby sister with such love that it brings tears to my eyes.
When I arrived here, Jon had a surprise for me: he’d rented The Cake Café in Saas Fee. The old lady who owned it said she’d rather rent it to someone she knows than sell it to some corporate chain, and she knew Jon would maintain the traditional baking and keep the magic. After Christmas we reopen as The Christmas Cake Café. We’re going to recreate our glacier kingdom in spun sugar as a window display. I’ve already started work on the most important piece – a sugar-crystal Princess Ella, who will rule the kingdom. We have a lot of work ahead and with a baby and a new home I know it won’t be easy – but life isn’t easy. Life is tough and it can be messy and sad and absolutely wonderful and exhilarating too. I thought I had my life mapped out until Jon appeared in the snow, but he gave me back my dreams and he gave me the best gift of all – Dora. When I look back over the past two Christmases I can’t believe how much my life has been transformed – and how much I have too.
Meanwhile, we’re recreating a little bit of home here in Saas Fee this year as Storm, Jody and the girls arrive tonight to spend Christmas with us. Jody says one day she’ll move here and get married in the snow. I really hope so. I just know if Jody moves here my life really would be perfect… yes, perfect, because she’s my sister, who also happens to be my best friend.
And that’s what Christmas is all about: family and friends being together, and it doesn’t matter that there’s no champagne, no expensive Christmas gifts and no surprise engagement ring in the bottom of the glass. I want to be here, with Jon, forever, but my Christmases have taught me that true love isn’t about the music, the posh restaurants and candlelit proposals – and being in love doesn’t mean you have to sit under mistletoe all night … or put a ring on it.
I’ve brought my childhood book The Christmas Cake Café back to Switzerland with me. I want to read it to Dora when she’s big enough. I want her to share my love of books and escape into that wonderful world of imagination. In the meantime I’m reading it to Ella, who I refer to as ‘my teenager’, and she seems to like it. I love her as much as Dora, and what’s more, I even like her now – a lot!
Our own café is remarkably similar to the one in the book and when I reread it I could see what I’d been looking for all these years. The final picture in the book is two pages wide and filled with the windows of the café. The Christmas cakes are covered in swirly icing, like snow, and the biscuits are heart shaped and buttery. There are clouds of icing sugar and snow, and sparkles of spun sugar catch the shards of light, and The Christmas Cake Café is glowing in the snow… And just behind the window is the heroine. She’s holding a baby and her new husband is by her side. All my life I’ve been trying to write this happy ending for myself. I never had the perfect family, yet I believed it existed for everyone else. But having spent time with Ella and Jon, I can see now that there isn’t a cookie-cutter family life to live. There are no rules, and sometimes square pegs have to fit in round holes, and lives and families aren’t perfect, but the secret is to open up your heart and love will find you.
It may not be what you thought you were looking for – it may be different, unusual, even slightly flawed – but to you it will be perfect, and that’s all that matters.
Happy Christmas.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Bookouture, who always make my books sparkle! Christmas kisses to Oliver Rhodes, Claire Bord, Kim Nash, Emily Ruston and the rest of the wonderful team who guided me down the slippery slopes and helped me to create The Christmas Cake Café.
To Nick and Eve Watson, thank you for putting up with my ‘Christmas stress’ in July, and as always thanks to my lovely family and friends for their love, support and laughter.
A special thank you to my author and blogger friends for their retweets, likes, shares and friendship, and for inspiring me in so many different and delicious ways.
And last but definitely not least – thank you to my lovely readers for reading my books, staying in touch and making it all worthwhile.
Happy Christmas!
Letter from Sue
Thank you so much for reading The Christmas Cake Café. I do hope you enjoyed the snowy scenery of Jen’s seasonal journey. And who knows? We may one day revisit her, Jon, Ella and Dora in their wonderful café. In the meantime I’ll keep in touch with Storm – I’m sure she knows what will happen next!
Anyway, if you liked the taste of The Christmas Cake Café and would like to know when my next book is released,
you can sign up by clicking the link here:
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In the meantime, thanks again for reading, and have a fabulous Christmas!
@suewatsonwriter
Sue Watson Books
www.suewatsonbooks.com/email
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