I’ve never stopped making my children stockings. Even now, if this whole situation was miraculously
transformed, Rachel would find her polyester stripy sausage, with its scratched plastic Santa face stuck
to the front, leaning tipsily against the end of her bed on Christmas morning, stuffed fat with presents. I
cr ept out of our bed in the darkness of Christmas morning, my body vibrating with a humiliated anger
that had kicked in as soon as my eyes opened.
Nick gave an angry grunt at being woken, a trail of drool garlanding his pillow. ‘Happy Christmas,’ I
said softly. ‘You’re not still doing this, are you?’ he hissed. ‘No one wants their mum in their bedroom
when it’s still dark.’ ‘It’s important,’ I said. ‘You realize they could be fucking?’ he said with a grim
satisfaction. ‘They’re adults. Hate to break it to you, Lily, but those grandchildren didn’t come down the
chimney.’
He knew I hated that kind of coarseness. ‘Locker room talk’ should be k ept in the locker room – our
marriage certainly survived best that way. ‘I need this,’ I said, teeth gritted. ‘There’s enough missing for
me as it is.’ He had the good grace to look she epish, pulling himself upright and leaning back on the
bank of satin throw pillows that I decorated our bed with. His chest was still taut, but the skin looked
grey to me, like a plucked chicken. In a way, every day was Christmas for him, always gifted the
powerful man’s privilege of wildly overestimating his own attractiveness.
‘Darling, she’s just having a hissy fit,’ he said, reaching a half-hearted hand out towards me. ‘She’s
probably in her flat with her phone switched off, bingeing shit on Netflix. I wouldn’t be surprised if she
turns up for lunch, all sorry for herself.’
‘She won’t,’ I said. ‘I know she won’t, I can feel it. She could be anywhere. With anyone.’ I hadn’t told
him about ambushing Amber, because it had left me feeling like I’d failed. Nick’s confident grin didn’t
waver. ‘I’ll drive round and check if you like. She’s not too big for a fireman’s lift.’ My teeth ground
almost as far down as my gums. Another privilege he greedily took: letting me do all the parental
worrying for both of us. Or was it more than that? I watched him taking a slurp of t epid water from the
glass on his bedside table. Was he looking for the perfect alibi for a morning flit?
I’d retrieved the two stuffed stockings from the wardrobe by now, the absence of the third a lightness
that felt more like a weight. It weaponized me. ‘You know, if someone heard you talking about your
firstborn daughter – the daughter who doesn’t even want to spend Christmas Day with you – in the
dismissive way you just did, they might think you’re a long way off father of the year. They might even
sympathize with her decision.’
Nick’s grin reversed into an expression of slack-jawed hurt. I almost felt sorry for him. ‘Don’t try and
blame me for all this shit,’ he spat. ‘Your brilliant solution’s not working out so well, is it? Turns out
you can’t pay someone else to do what you’re too selfish to do yourself.’ ‘What, clear up your
disgusting mess?’ ‘No. Be a mother to your own child,’ he said, his voice pure venom.
Now it was my hurt that was agony. It made me lash out in a way that was dangerous. ‘You have no
idea the mess I’ve cleared up for you,’ I said. ‘No idea the damage you’ve done to all of us. I’ve spared
you because you’re too weak and pathetic to survive the truth.’ Nick was red in the face now, mouth
gold-fishing as he searched for the right comeback to an insult he didn’t entirely understand. I was
skirting too close to the edge of the precipice. I’d come too far to lose everything for the petty
satisfaction of getting the last word. I knew, with a lurching dread, that it would be more than the last
word. It could spell the end of everything.
I turned on my heel before the skirmish could turn into all-out war.
‘Just get in the shower and start making today feel like Christmas,’ I hissed. ‘Your family need you
more than ever. Maybe for once, you could try not failing us.’