Page 80 of A Merry Little Christmas

The sisters understood how those families must be feeling, which was why, two days after Ray’s funeral, they were packing up his personal belongings. Will and Cole would be coming along later to load up Cole’s van.

‘Let’s cheer it up.’ Merry turned on the twinkly lights on the small Christmas tree she’d bought him, and the ones wrapped around the headboard of the bed, now stripped and bare of any trace of her father. She cracked open a window to let in some wintry fresh air while Emily tuned the radio into Smooth FM. Elton John soon had them singing along with ‘Step In to Christmas’ and once Emily had made them a hot mint tea, they felt a bit brighter.

‘Donate to charity, throw away, keep,’ said Emily, pointing at the three cardboard boxes she’d put on Ray’s bed.

‘Great,’ said Merry, tying her hair up off her face with a scrunchie. ‘Where shall I start?’

‘There.’ Emily pointed to the armchair. ‘With your feet up, sipping tea. I’ll hold things up and you can decide what we do with them.’

Merry hesitated. Ray was a man who hadn’t owned much, but there was still plenty to deal with. Her default position was always to argue, and prove herself fit and capable of doing anything, but today she was happy to capitulate. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘That was easy.’ Emily raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘You OK?’

She sank wearily into the chair. ‘Still tired after the funeral.’

Her sister opened Ray’s underwear drawer and tipped the contents into the box marked ‘throw away’. No need to debate that one. ‘I know what you mean. Will said I was asleep before my head hit the pillow after the wake.’

‘It’s stress,’ said Merry, trying to get comfy, which wasn’t at all easy now. The baby was pressing at the underside of her ribs, forcing her to take short sharp breaths. ‘It tires you out. I don’t think I’ll ever not be tired again and that’s before I’ve got to deal with night feeds.’

‘What’s worrying you the most?’ Emily buried her nose in one of their dad’s jumpers before folding it into the charity box.

Where to start, thought Merry, stifling a yawn. ‘The shop being understaffed worries me. Not being installed in Meadow View for Christmas makes me stressed. Having to go to hospital for tests and check-ups twice a week is stressful. Living each minute worried about …’ She stopped mid-sentence. About being a useless mother, she’d been about to say. And she didn’t want to say that out loud. She had to start believing in herself or this would become a self-perpetuating belief.

‘About?’ Emily prompted. She inspected the soles of Ray’s shoes and, after discovering they had holes in, threw them away.

‘Um … giving birth,’ Merry said, hurriedly. No one could blame her for that.

Her sister gave her a thoughtful look ‘You know what you need to do? Find a way to relax.’

‘Relax?’ Merry scoffed. ‘I haven’t relaxed since—’

‘Frankie went to Hollywood,’ Emily finished for her with a giggle. ‘That always reminds me of Dad, he used to say that!’

Merry shook her head in amazement. ‘I remember! Gosh, I remember it so clearly!’

The thought warmed her; that there might be latent memories of him still to be unearthed, things which might suddenly crop up and take her by surprise.

‘Oh gosh,’ Emily gasped, turning up the radio. ‘I heard this song the other day. It’s called “Dance with My Father”, by Luther Vandross. Listen to the lyrics, it’s about remembering the happy times he spent with his dad, especially how he and his mum would dance together. It’s so beautiful and perfect for today.’

Even before the first chorus, Merry was in tears. ‘The first time I met Dad here we all danced together – you, me and him.’

‘There were so many things he couldn’t remember, but he knew every word of the lyrics. That was such a special night.’

‘One of the best days of my life,’ said Emily.

Merry opened her arms. ‘Come here.’

Emily knelt and laid her head on Merry’s knee. Together the sisters listened to the rest of the song. It was a celebration of love between a child and father, and between mother and father too. The message was that when you lost someone you love, you’d give anything to share one more happy moment with them.

‘He loved music,’ Emily recalled. ‘The one thing he wanted to bring with him, when he moved in here, was his vinyl collection. Used to carry an album around with him sometimes.’

‘You must keep his records,’ Merry said. ‘He’d like that.’

There was a box of them at the bottom of his wardrobe. One of the things she and her dad had done together on her visits to Springwood House was to choose an album and take it downstairs to play on the record player in the lounge. Sometimes he’d simply sit and listen, at other times he’d tell her things, memories associated with the band or the song, like the time he’d hitchhiked to London to see the Rolling Stones perform at a pub called the Windsor Castle. She never knew how much of it was made up, but she didn’t mind, she loved hearing his stories regardless.

‘I’d like that,’ said Emily. ‘I can still picture him at Christmas choosing which track to play. People stay the same, don’t they? Even when parts of them start to disappear, intrinsically, the person is still there. He took me to my first music festival when I was sixteen. Glastonbury. Another of the best days of my life.’

‘I’d have loved to have gone to Glastonbury.’ Merry’s arm’s tightened around her sister. ‘I’m glad you got to go.’