Page 67 of A Merry Little Christmas

The main lights in the shop were off, but I could see the flat was still bright upstairs. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard you talking to the Airbnb guy. I still can’t work out whether I am glad I heard what you said or not. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Wrong. It turns out that I’ve been kept ignorant of the facts for the last few weeks, and it’s been anything but bliss. I have been so cut up about it. You let me think that you were the one with fertility problems. You even suggested as a joke that I should trade you in for a better model, one with fully working parts. All along it has been me with the problem and now I wonder, is that what you are considering doing: trading me in for someone else?

Knowing how much you want to be a mother to our child, knowing that Merry has managed to do the one thing that you can’t (or so I thought) has torn me apart with grief for the kids we might never have. Ever since we got those results – results which I now know you lied about – I’ve thought of nothing but you, of what I can do to make things better. It confused me why you didn’t want to go back to see Dr Bajek, we must have been offered a follow-up appointment? There are many routes to becoming parents and I was willing to explore all of those. But you made that decision on behalf of us both, that we weren’t going to take this journey any further.

I assumed you and I were rock-solid like that family, but a family whose foundations are not built on trust eventually crumbles and that is where we are now.

Because Merry told me about your termination. You have been pregnant before and never once thought to tell your husband about it.

And because I heard you, Nell, with the Airbnb guy. I heard you joke about having sex with another man to get pregnant and that no one would ever know. Is that really how unimportant I am in this marriage? To you?

But none of this compares to what I heard you tell him about Max, about my boy, I’ve never even met the bright star in my sky. I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to suggest to someone I’ve never even met that Max isn’t my son.

So now do you see why I have to go? I can’t be around you, Nell. Not at the moment. I’m too angry, disappointed and confused.

Please do not try to call me, I have no wish to talk to you. If you have any remaining respect for me, you’ll let me have this time alone to work through these feelings.

Yours,

Olek

Chapter 26

Merry

Cole helped Merry onto the couch in the antenatal room while they waited for the midwife to join them.

‘Comfy?’ he asked, after lifting her feet up onto the bed.

‘Comfort is all relative at the moment,’ Merry puffed, tugging down the waistband of her jogging bottoms. ‘As is my fashion sense.’

‘You look gorgeous.’ He pulled up a stool and kissed her tummy. ‘You have never looked more beautiful to me, and I mean that, darling.’

‘In that case, I …’ She stopped herself from saying that she must have looked horrendous on her wedding day if this was her most beautiful moment. Let people compliment you, she recalled Astrid saying once, learn to accept praise with grace. ‘Thank you, darling, that’s very sweet.’

Cole, unused to her replying without a witty comeback, looked surprised. ‘You’re welcome. Weirdly, it’s quite an ego boost for a man, you know, to see his wife so big and …’ He made a ball shape with his hands.

She snorted with laughter. ‘You should have stopped at “beautiful.”’

‘Whoops.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘Thanks for suggesting I come with you today. It’s nice to be involved and I can’t wait to hear the baby’s heartbeat.’

‘I’m glad you’re here.’ She stroked his hair. She rarely asked him to attended regular check-up appointments with her. She didn’t need accompanying and knew he was busy so didn’t want to disrupt his day. Last night during their heart-to-heart, he’d admitted that sometimes he felt as if his presence wasn’t welcome and that she wanted her privacy. She’d felt awful about that and reassured him that wasn’t the case and there was no one she wanted with her more. She’d then gone on to tell him all about her row with Nell. Cole had asked her what she was going to do about the shop if Nell was serious about not coming back. She’d admitted that her maternity plans had always been fluid and that without her friend to take the reins, running the business was going to be a nightmare. With that, she had started to cry again. She still needed to tell him how worried she was about becoming a mum, but she’d made progress last night and it felt good; today their bond was tighter than it had been for weeks.

‘Later on I’ll go and fetch the kids and do something with them,’ he said, scratching his jaw thoughtfully. ‘I suggested a visit to Santa, but they both looked at me as if I was mad. Even Freya.’

The schools were closed due to teacher strikes. Their mum was at home with them this morning but had asked Cole to help while she went to a meeting.

Merry shook her head in dismay. ‘That’s sad, she begged me to take her last year. She’s growing up fast.’

‘They all do,’ said Cole, pressing his lips to her bump. ‘So we have to treasure each day.’

‘I need to go into the shop straight after this appointment, but we could take them to Meadow View later,’ Merry suggested slyly. ‘They might like to have a look at the progress on their rooms.’

‘We?’ he said with a grin. ‘You mean you want to look at progress.’

She gave him an innocent shrug. ‘Maybe.’

‘Let’s see if you get a good report from the midwife first.’